Culture

During a recent visit to the Museo Teatrale della Scala I admired many antique prints of commedia dell’arte situations. Commedia dell’arte was a theatrical genre that evolved in the latter part of the sixteenth century. It was a popular  reaction …

Over two and a half million visitors flock annually to Pompeii to marvel at the ancient Roman city caught in time. But just half an hour outside Rome sits another well-preserved ancient Roman city, all but deserted but just as …

Life, we all know it, is truly unpredictable. There’s very little we can anticipate and we rarely think about how, at times, a cheerful, carefree moment with a loved one, a colleague, a family member or even a mere acquaintance, …

Barcellonetta,  an Italian term meaning small and pretty Barcelona, is the nickname for the city of Alghero, on the Northern coast of Sardinia dating back to the 1372 conquest of the city by Catalans.  In this pearl  on the Coral …

Cervia, the ancient city along Italy’s Adriatic coastline was once called Ficolce, and as legend has it, the name derived from Ficol, the mighty Etruscan leader who was eager to overthrow the tyranny of Ravenna. Its thousand year history has …

When in late October 1929 Wall Street collapsed, contributing to the Great Depression of the 1930s, a rural village of Piedmont started to thrive. In 1929, a picturesque land of plenty called Alba opened the first edition of the international …

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is undoubtedly one of the most iconic, most famous works of art of all times. As such, it has always attracted crowds to the Refectory of the Dominican church of Santa Maria delle …

You don’t need to be a music expert to know the name “Stradivari”  (or Stradivarius, its latinized version). Along with his lesser known, but just as talented, Cremonese luthiers colleagues, Amati and Guarneri, he wrote a considerable piece of the …

“Napule è mille culure, Napule è mille paure, Napule è a voce d’ ‘e creature che  saglie chiano chianu e tu saje ca nun si sulo:” Naples is a thousand colors, Naples is a thousand fears, Naples is the voice …

An American called Harry The Cipriani family has been serving drinks at Harry’s Bar on Venice’s iconic Grand Canal since 1931. Over the years it has attracted many society clientele. The Italian Ministry for Cultural Affairs even declared it a …