Christine Contrada earned a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance history from Stony Brook University in New York. She has long taught European history with a focus on Italian history and culture. During the pandemic summer, Dr. Contrada ran the entire 1,185 km length of Italy virtually putting sneakers to pavement from Saratoga to Montauk Point.
The Atlantic Ocean pounding the sandy shore of Fire Island, New York during hurricane season is unpredictable at best and ferocious at worst. It claimed the life of one of the most undervalued voices of the 19th century: Margaret Fuller. A gifted intellectual, accomplished educator, author, editor, literary critic, revolutionary and a correspondent for the […]
To mark the septcentennial of Dante Alighieri’s death, the Dante Society of America is spearheading an ambitious podcast series that highlights the myriad ways in which the ‘Divine Comedy’ continues to resonate with modern readers. Seven hundred years on, an urbanite contemplating how the pandemic magnified the difficulties of living in a concrete […]
In New York City, it is easy to find oneself rambling through a forest overgrown with forgotten history. Buried in that vast wood, far from Florence and tucked away in an outer borough, is a striking, but often overlooked, intersection between two legendary Italian lives: the Garibaldi Meucci Museum. A gemstone […]
There are multiple paths to Italian citizenship, but only one is a birthright. Jus sanguinis, or “right of blood”, is Italian citizenship that is passed to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so on because these descendants are in the direct line of succession to an Italian citizen who did not give up citizenship through […]
As summer begins its slow wane, it offers a particularly poignant stage for the pulse of the city to reset and reflect. On September 7, Florentines usually flood into piazza della Santissima Annunziata to celebrate the birth of the Virgin Mary. The feast day, which became popular in the Latin Church in the seventh century, […]
While the eyes of the world are fixated on the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, 2019 also marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Cosimo I de’ Medici. The second Medici duke was instrumental in stabilizing Medici rule after the collapse of the Florentine Republic. A quincentenary shines a direct […]
"The Innocents of Florence" asks us to reconsider why the cradle of renaissance civilization offered a cradle to its abandoned babies. It was not humanitarianism, but it was humanism.
At this time of year more than any other, Florence invites us to be cognizant of the complexities lurking in the liminal, transitional spaces that illuminate the city’s countless historical thresholds. Before we find ourselves like Dante, halfway through our lives, frightened and feeling like we are lost in a dark wood, we should remember […]
