Culture

  While driving on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in New York City, I was listening to a local radio station playing Alice Cooper’s hit song, School’s Out written in 1972. Although most students today are removed from the song, I imagined …

Dear Readers, On July 4th let me refresh your memory and mine on the Declaration of Independence, signed July 4, 1776 (in Philadelphia) and learn about Italian and Italian American contributions to the American Revolutionary War.   Although the colonists …

  Dear Readers, Father’s Day was last Sunday, so Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers, grandfathers, uncles, big brothers and father figures out there, and may happy memories bring a small measure of comfort to readers whose fathers are …

  Dear Readers, My mailbag has been the source of many Italian Connections through the years. “Grazie” to Signor J.M. (John Mancini, Executive Director of the Italic Institute of America, PO Box 818, Floral Park, NY 11002) and other Readers …

  Rome is thought of as the imperial city as well as the great center of the Roman Catholic Church at the Vatican. It is certainly that in the minds of many. Yet, Rome is the city of Saint Francis …

Bologna: la grassa, la dotta, la rossa. Apt nicknames for the capital of Emilia-Romagna, which boasts a rich culinary tradition (grassa meaning fat), the oldest university in the Western world (hence dotta: learned), red roofs and left-leaning politics (as in …

The Declaration of Independence was a bold statement of human rights, based on the then radical principle that government derives its power from the consent of the governed, an idea that was even more radical when it was put forth …

È la notte tra il 9 e il 10 luglio del 1943. Prima l’effetto a sorpresa ottenuto con un’operazione di depistaggio messa in atto dagli inglesi che sguarnisce le difese tedesche, poi l’attacco all’Europa nazifascista: in appena 39 giorni la …

  Before Americans knew what a caffé macchiato or a cappuccino with its delicate froth was or had the pleasure of experiencing a true espresso, we cared little about our coffee and thought of it only in terms of that …

Dear Readers, June jottings with an Italian Connection: Domenico Ghirlandaio (c. 1449-1494) was a Florentine painter of the early Renaissance, whose birth name was Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi. His father was a silk merchant and goldsmith – which likely gave …