Culture

What comes to your mind when you think of Sardinia? Azure sea, sandy beaches, VIP resorts. If you are a bit more knowledgeable, your thoughts may also go to the island’s beautifully wild inland, or to the interesting features of …

You may have a little Italian under your belt, perhaps from family experience, travel, tutors, or classes, and you want to improve your skills in a way that is not only fun but works. Perhaps you have no Italian, but …

My relationship with Piedmontese, the dialect of my region, has always been ambivalent. Growing up in a small rural community, I learned it without even noticing, because everyone around me would speak it. Even my parents, who would always speak in Italian to me, often switched to Piedmontese …

Back in the day, one of our favorite places for a nice affordable meal close by our apartment in central Rome was Taverna Parione. Located on a small side street off tourist-mobbed piazza Navona, despite its location it was the …

A debate on whether a man in a suit generates appeal might last a minute or two. The same debate on a man in an Italian suit would be over before I finished typing this sentence. Given the fact that …

Vedi Napoli e poi mori, once you’ve seen Naples, you are free to die. It may sound unsettling at first, but whoever visited the city can testify it is so special, so unique and so precious it could well represent …

According to the peoddddple at the Istituto Treccani — one of Italy’s most prestigious cultural institutions — there are 270,000 words in the Italian language, and that’s without considering the  declined and conjugated variations of them, in which case, the …

Ferrara, loderò le  tue vie piane/grandi come fiumane,/che conducono all’infinito chi va solo col suo pensiero ardente: I shall praise your flat streets/as large as rivers/that lead to infinity those walking alone with their fiery thoughts. That’s how our Gabriele …

While they may not be as trendy as their broody, ultra-dark mates, the vampires, werewolves have been certainly enjoying a bout of popularity in recent years, courtesy of a popular series of trashy, young adult novels — and subsequent movie …

Art has a thousand shapes, a thousand colors, a thousand scents. There is no work of art that doesn’t run through more than one of our senses, creating a direct path to the soul. The colors of a painting all …