mariella radaelli

It is the kind of Sicilian town where you’d either like to buy a house, spend your honeymoon or simply enjoy a vacation. Everything is built of ivory-colored stone, blinding in the sun and contrasting splendidly with the endless blue …

Since my Italian-American Italy has long been renowned for its miracles in stone. From Roman amphitheaters and aqueducts to Michelangelo’s David, the people from this mountainous land have produced creations that made history.    The Latins converted the untamed into …

Towering 2,460 feet above Trapani on the Mediterranean Sea in northwest Sicily, the ancient citadel of Erice has found a new outlook by catering to the wedding trade. Today its 12th-century Norman castle serves as the backdrop for hundreds of …

Some say beauty is simple. But others contend it’s complicated. Can it be both? To enter into the sensuous curves of a Dolce & Gabbana design is to experience a complicated kind of beauty, like exploring the majestic landscape of …

Only a 15-minute drive from Bergamo, the small picturesque town of San Pellegrino Terme still boasts the hot springs and stunning architecture that made it a star-studded spa capital in Europe during La Belle Epoque. But for decades it was …

Luigi Tinelli arrived in America in October 1836, but he was far from an average emigrant. All his life he was a man of impassioned action – a political activist for the unification of Italy, a lawyer, a bright entrepreneur …

When the hardy residents of Livigno gave a cask of wine to the Capuchin friars of Bormio in the 8th century to gain autonomy for their high valley, they couldn’t have known they were setting a precedent that would continue …

Today the sun-kissed island of Favignana off the northwest coast of Sicily is popular with tourists from across the globe, but in August, 1943 it had visitors of another kind – U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division who arrived …

A constellation of little hamlets comprise the commune of Framura, an atmospheric, somnolent village perched on a rocky outcrop rising from the Ligurian Sea. Though the authentic beauty in La Spezia province is just a 15 minute-train trip from the …