La vita italiana

Many tourists rush through Italy, ticking off cities on an imaginary bucket list, zipping through museums and taking holiday snaps in front of iconic attractions. This is fine if you are happy to simply cross things off a checklist. But …

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 …

This is the story of a dish whose origin is rooted in people’s own heritage and centennial tradition. It is the story of a dish that was born to be rare and precious, because prepared only and exclusively to honor …

For centuries ancient Romans have built roads and bridges connecting all of their conquered territories, triumphal arches celebrating their victories, aqueducts supplying water to the new settlements. Alongside their military achievements they also built squares, villas, theaters, and – last …

Crossroads and street corners have long been the haunt of peddlers, pickpockets and prostitutes. And as far back as ancient Roman times images of deities have been hung there to protect passers by from evil. Today over 500 statues and …

Before the unification of Italy, the  peninsula was a patchwork of independent states, republics and occupied territories each one with their own rulers and laws. And with the different statutes came differing calendars based either on the church’s or the …

“Salute!” — the clink-clink of glasses resounds like church bells throughout Italy as the late afternoon begins to dissolve towards evening. It’s aperitivo time – that glorious hour or two (or three) when the busy-ness of the day is set …

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 …

The Catholic Church has a lengthy tradition of collecting relics from saints and clerics dating back almost to its beginnings. Bones, clothes or artifacts from the person were carefully preserved in caskets, lockets and glass urns to commemorate and venerate …

Early one morning in 1959 a ceramic artist from Turin known simply as Clizia arrived in Bussana Vecchia, a medieval hilltop village about five miles northeast of Sanremo that had been a complete ghost town for 72 years. On Feb. …