Culture

Dear Readers, San Francisco’s Marina District has many Italian connections. The neighborhood known as the Marina District did not exist one hundred years ago. Much of the land where homes, stores and streets were built had been either salt marshes …

After one year in office, Pope Francis surprised the Catholic and non-Catholic world once again, by abstaining from celebrating this first anniversary. Instead of a public appearance, as one would have expected, he preferred to escape the cameras and the …

In the days that mark the 539th anniversary of his birth, Michelangelo continues to make the news. Born in Tuscany on March 6, 1475, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni is regarded as one of the major artists of all times, …

This month, despite autonomist and separatist claims from some regions, Italy proudly celebrated its 153rd anniversary as a unified nation.   But how does a country become a nation-state? In the 19th century, Italy was divided into a number of …

Finally Italy is beginning to come out of the recession: in the last four months, the economy has marked a slow but encouraging +0.1% increase. More positive news arrived from New York: Moody’s agency confirmed a new rating for Italy, …

One of the most famous and beautiful spots in the city of Rome, the monumental stairway of 136 steps that connects Piazza di Spagna to the church of Trinità dei Monti will soon be given new life by the Italian …

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 …

Last week roughly over two millions of Italians, or better, residents of Veneto — one of the north east wealthiest regions of Italy, participated to the first referendum of its kind: an online and telephone ‘yes or no’ vote to …

We are approaching the one year anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh.  The building housed several garment factories owned by European and American apparel companies. While the news of this horrible incident unfolded and the dust clouds …

Dear Readers, March brings shamrocks and my annual “St. Patrick was Italian” column: A “St. Patrick was Italian” remark, tossed into your March conversations, can make boring talk into boiling talk if you have some conversational fodder, to buttress your …