Simone Sannio

Built around 1240 by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and located on a plateau near the Apulian city of Andria, Castel del Monte is one of the most famous medieval castles in Italy. But despite having been erected almost …

Even though everybody in the world knows about Leonardo da Vinci’s great genius, relatively few people ever think about paying a visit to the Tuscan hometown from which he got his name. But in the tiny medieval hamlet of Vinci, …

Among all the American “italophiles” that have contributed to the shaping and defining of our current idea of Italy over the last centuries, Henry James seems to be an outstandingly meticulous observer. Not only has this great writer detailed the …

Back in 1904 a poor young man by the name of Agostino Coppola left his Southern Italian hometown of Bernalda for good. Starting from this small village near Matera, in the Basilicata region, he went on to cross the Atlantic …

As anyone who has ever been in Florence already knows, the Tuscan city abounds in all kinds of “traces” left by Italian geniuses of the past. One such genius was the great scientist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who lived here for …

The recent news that Pistoia has been selected as Italy’s “capital of culture” for the year 2017 was met by Italians themselves with some surprise and skepticism. To be sure, not many people here have ever seemed to be aware …

The opportunity to visit Firenze, the capital of Tuscany and the Renaissance, is something nobody should ever miss. It is an experience to be lived at least once in a lifetime. Why? Because Florence is certainly one of the most …

It has been just a few weeks since the Italian media coverage began to be monopolized by the success of the new TV series Medici: Masters of Florence starring Richard Madden and Dustin Hoffman. As it appears, the intrigues of …

The House of Medici. To anyone the name of this powerful Florentine family is in and of itself a synonym for the Italian Renaissance. But how many do really know about the origins, history and art patronage of the dynasty which …

Everybody knows about the leaning tower in Pisa, but how many people have ever noticed that Bologna has two of them and that they are even older? In fact, it appears that the buildings affectionately known by the Lord-of-the-Ringsesque name …