Franco Zeffirelli is born in Florence on February 12th 1923, an illegitimate child. His mother Alaide Garosi is then a goodlooking lady in her late thirties, a successful fashion designer with an atelier in piazza Vittorio Emanuele II – nowadays piazza della Repubblica; she is married to lawyer Alberto Cipriani, sick with tuberculosis and hospitalized in a sanatorium. His father Ottorino Corsi is a merchant of fabrics, and is married in turn.
The new born baby is registered as child of unknown parentage, with the first name Gianfranco and an invented surname: Zeffirelli.
