La vita italiana

A mile and a half from the Circus Maximus, sheep graze in Caffarella Park. Warming themselves in the April sun, they are indifferent to the ruins of towers and mausoleums and oblivious to an annual rite of spring. Shepherds gather …

Easter is the most important holiday in the Christian world, on par with Christmas, as it commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Besides religious practices, each culture has its own ways of celebrating this festivity, which reflect people’s lifestyles and …

As we approach the Lenten season, many who follow the precepts of the church prepare themselves for forty days of fasting.  The pre-Lenten season brings two words to mind: Mardi Gras and Carnival.  Both terms relate to the festivities leading …

Over two thousand named characters, action which spreads across the earth and even to the moon, female warriors, monsters, magic, three main plots, numerous sub-plots, and witty asides by the author all woven together into a veritable “page turner”  make …

Naming conventions for given names in a country of origin can help to tie together records of family members.  In researching those who were born in Italy and emigrated to the United States, it may also be necessary to know …

President Barack Obama met with French President Francois Hollande, and both world leaders discussed the economic and political issues of their respective countries as well as the Syrian crisis.  Since President Obama played host to the French president’s visit to …

At dusk, millions of starlings invade Rome. After feasting all day on ripening olives, they fly south from the Sabine Hills and fill the sky. A cyclone of feathers swallows the sun. The birds scatter and regroup, form a living …

Those of us of a certain age may perhaps remember when history textbooks claimed that one of the “problems” with our immigrant ancestors was that they had no democratic tradition.  The authors either ignored, or were ignorant of the fact …

The year was about 1983 when a couple of friends asked me to join them for lunch at Parker’s Lighthouse, a restaurant located at Shoreline Village in Long Beach. We took a table outside overlooking a small channel where the …

The Renaissance proper began in Florence in the Fourteenth Century, a rebirth of the learning of classical antiquity, the discovery of long lost Greek and Latin literature, and a flowering of art, science  and scholarship – the creation of the …