Those among you who have an ear for languages — or music, as the two seem to go hand in hand — probably haven’t failed to recognize how this week’s word, influenza (een-floo-ehn-zah) sounds a lot like the English “influence” …

Bologna: la dotta, la grassa, la rossa: “dotta,” the learned, because home to the oldest university in Europe. “La grassa,” the fat, because of her rich, decadent food. “La rossa,” the red, because of the terracotta hue of her buildings …

Up to the second post-war period, Italy was a largely rural country, with an economy rooted in agriculture and a lifestyle that had remained virtually unchanged for centuries for the vast majority of its citizens.  Since then, however, things changed …

Many believe that scaramanzia is a thing of the  South, but nothing is further from the  truth. I am from the North-West and I, too, grew up knowing that opening an  umbrella inside the  house porta sfortuna and that a …

The Lacryma Christi  is a wine from the Campania region of Italy produced in the area of Mount Vesuvius. Indeed, it is also known as  Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio.  It holds a DOC denomination, which means only when produced in …

Time passes, life changes and we can’t stop growing old, as a song says. This seems to be particularly true once you turn 40. Far from saying 40 is “old” in any way: I don’t think it is and I …

Five months have gone by since the Shelter-in-Place order became official and, ever since, everyone has been wondering the same: how am I going to use this extra available time while at home? Many got into cooking, which meant trying …

If you think of “Made in Italy,” two words spring to mind: quality and tradition. No business seems to embody them better than  violin-making these days. A quintessentially Italian craft, the making of stringed instruments is associated with the  Lombardy …

At the foot of Rome’s Capitoline Hill, by the staircase leading to the Piazza del Campidoglio, seat of the city government since the Middle Ages, a statue of a hooded man waving a sword commemorates a crime. On this spot …

Though fashion industry’s titan and alleged Nazi spy Coco Chanel dismissed her rival Elsa Schiaparelli as “that Italian who makes clothes,” later couturiers recognized the stylist as one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. Schiaparelli — also …