Heritage

For centuries they were the only way to travel, criss-crossing the shallow lagoon and navigating the city’s iconic canals. Today, whilst Venice’s gondolas still glide silently through the waterways few visitors know their history, happy to just enjoy the view …

This month one of Da Vinci’s celebrated works, The Adoration of the Magi is returning to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence after 6 years of restoration. It’s a big event in the art world, precisely because Leonardo was so much …

Arturo Toscanini’s boisterous humanity comes alive throughout a new biography by eminent music historian Harvey Sachs. To mark the 150th anniversary of the legendary conductor’s birth, “Toscanini – Musician of Conscience” will come out next spring from Liveright Publishing Corp., …

On February 26th 1917, clarinetist and bandleader Nick LaRocca (born in New Orleans, Louisiana, from Sicilian parents) passed into the annals of jazz history. In fact, that day in New York City, his Original Dixieland Jass (Jazz) Band – that …

Cannolo siciliano: is there any other Italian dessert this popular in the world? Tiramisù may be one of its more glorious competitors, but cannolo making is an art that you can’t reproduced at home with the same simplicity. We can …

Già dai primi mesi dell’anno si fanno buoni propositi per rendere migliore la nostra vita. Uno dei più diffusi è sicuramente legato ad un’alimentazione sana e controllata. Che essa sia mirata ad una dieta dimagrante o di aumento peso, che …

Masked balls. Fried sweets. Colorful costumes. In the weeks before Fat Tuesday (martedì grasso), Venice revels in Carnevale. Dating back to the 1200s, Carnival marks the start of the period of Lent – or, the 40 days that lead up …

Palermo is the beating heart of Sicily, a heart that holds within all the mesmerizing beauty and stark oppositions typical of this land: it is rich in art and beautiful to the point of pain, yet rough around the edges …

Family: the essence of our being, the root of our ideals and the place we go back to when everything fails us. It does not really matter if it is  large or small, extended or nuclear, family is the first …

Not many may think of it, but the 15th of March, the Ides of March, to say it with the Romans, marks the millenary anniversary of one of history’s most notorious murders, that  of Caius Julius Caesar. Legendary Roman leader …