LIFE & PEOPLE

“Io voglio imparare l’Italiano perché…” “I want to learn Italian because…” – Opening of a letter from a student at Burbank, 10 years old. Every student has their own reason for learning Italian in the vibrant west coast community of …

Walk through Trastevere or along the Tiber River in Rome, explore the labyrinthine Cannaregio district of Venice or stroll down Viale Montegrappa in Reggio Emilia and you’ll spot something they all have in common; little brass cobblestones set into the …

A highlight of travel to Italy in the first quarter of the year is Carnival Season or as they say Carnevale. Celebrations are held roughly 40 days before Easter which falls on March 31st this year. The biggest, most elaborate …

The second landmark in our tour of the “houses of the House of Medici” in Florence is the one and only Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace). Built around the year 1300 as Palazzo dei Priori (Priors’ Palace), the worldwide-known building overlooking …

Pompeo Luigi Coppini. The name itself conjures up images of greatness, eminence, and well, someone who must be pretty important, yes? Fortunate enough for the bearer, his was an illustrious life, this Lombard-turned-Texan sculptor. But like those flitting grains of …

The third and last official residence of the Medici in Florence is the grandiose Palazzo Pitti. Located at the foot of the Boboli hill in the Oltrarno quarter, just past the Ponte Vecchio, the palace now hosts the city’s largest …

His story was so incredible that even his wife didn’t believe it. And if it hadn’t been for a group of Hungarian women, no-one would ever have known. But the truth is that Giorgio Perlasca from Como in northern Italy, …

For centuries the pre-Lent festivities of carnevale sumptuously celebrated  carne, a word that translates as both “meat’ and “flesh,” in every sense. However, the name comes specifically from the Latin for meat (carnem) and “take away or remove” (levare). A church decree dating back …

It was 1989 when Chazz Palminteri wrote A Bronx Tale,  a one man pièce that was to become a movie in 1993 and eventually get on a Broadway’s stage around 15 years later, in 2007. Bronx, its cinematic transposition, was …

Felidia’s lunch crowd began to thin out, as we remained on the second floor and Lidia Bastianich described her plight to America.  She was born in what was then called Pola under Italy and currently Pula in Croatia.  Lidia began …