Culture

Bologna is famous for its towers, among other things. In fact, it is also known as “la turrita”, the town with many towers. Of the 100 that dotted the historical center in the Middle Ages, only 20 remain today. One …

Dear Readers, August, the month we celebrate the feast of St. Rocco, always pictured with his dog, is a good time to review the history of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (S.P.C.A.) in a city named …

Dear Readers, August-Agosto has many dates with an Italian connection:   Caruso, the world famous tenor was born in Naples in 1873 and died there at age 48 on August 2, 1921. Enrico Caruso had just turned twenty-two when he …

Italy has long been one of the world’s most popular travel destinations, and many a person has diligently saved to make the trip, but few can claim to have given up as much as Queen Christina, who renounced the kingdom …

Dear Readers, An August “abbondanza” of admiration for those arrivals who reached our shores in the early 1900’s… ***   America, where “noses fun and feet smell”, is a land loaded with linguistic lumps in the road for new arrivals …

I stand in a small square at the end of Via del Governo Vecchio, a stone’s throw from Piazza Navona. Poised on blocks of ancient concrete, I lean against a corner of Palazzo Braschi, home to the Museo di Roma. …

All culturally literate people know who George Frideric Handel was, yet the man who gave him his biggest career boost as well as being one of the great composers of his age and more, is largely unknown.  It was, in …

Molte città e regioni italiane tendono a celebrare gli immigrati ma ad ignorare i loro emigrati. Montesilvano in Abruzzo, si identifica invece con un suo famoso emigrato: Dean Martin, al secolo Dino Crocetti, a cui dedica una festa nel mese …

Dear Readers, Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was a violinist extraordinaire and one of the most prolific well-known Italian composers who composed over 500 concertos, 12 operas, numerous oratorios, lyrics and cantatas and I have something in common, i.e., both our …

One of my earliest recollections of my father’s town in southern Italy was at nine-years old. The town of approximately 12,000 inhabitants is called Mugnano del Cardinale and it is surrounded by the Irpini Mountains, located just 45 miles from …