francesca bezzone

For some reason, I like to compare cities to beautiful female figures: Turin, which I know very well, is an elegant and haughty princess with a knack for the occult. Venice is coquette, colorful and well aware of her unequalled …

Photography is an incredible versatile form of visual expression, yet there are instances when only painters, with their brushes, charcoals and colors, can truly capture the essence of a place or the soul of a person. There is something so …

Writing for a living is at once a curse and a blessing: a curse because, believe me, writer’s block is real and hits when you least expect it. A blessing because nothing can really beat sitting down with your thoughts, …

As usual, Cicero is illuminating: “a life without music is like a body without its soul.”  There’s an undeniable truth in his words the people of his motherland, glorious Rome, always kept in mind. Indeed, the Romans loved music and …

When I was a child, Carnevale was the occasion to don some improbable outfit, usually involving satin gowns and glitter or, depending on the mood of the year, a musketeer hat and a plastic sword. Possibly already nodding to what …

Luba Mitnik-Gankin, creator and owner of Primavera Dreams, is a true citizen of the world: she grew up in Saint Petersburg, Russia most splendid jewel; she lived, studied and worked in Paris, epitome of European art and culture, then moved …

When I still lived abroad, I once visited my brother in Rome with two Irish friends, who were astonished by the fact the city only had two underground lines (it’s three today). “Well, every time they begin digging, something archaeologically …

From North to South, from East to West, Italy is a beautiful chest filled with mysterious treasures. Bones of dragons and alchemic doors, secret symbols to warn against the Devil and dark ladies of the Renaissance, our trip through the …

The nature of mystery is manyfold and there is certainly more to it than supernatural events, haunted locations and unsolved murders. Mystery, sometimes, lies also in our impossibility to interpret a habit or a specific moment in history, to understand …

While I write, I’m sitting in my own house in the hills of the Langhe, a good feet of snow outside. It’s that time of the year when the scent of mandarins’ peels burned on the stove fills homes all …