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For all of 2012, which has been declared Vespucci Year in Florence, events, exhibitions and conferences will commemorate the Florentine explorer. With this debut article, TF will be publishing a monthly column focused on Vespucci and U.S.-Italy relations for the rest of the year. In seeking
When he appears on stage, frequently wearing a velvet top hat or some other eccentric headgear, Adelmo Fornaciari, in art Zucchero (‘Sugar'), looks more like a snake-oil salesman in a Wild West travelling show than one of Italy's most popular singer-songwriters. An artist whom the great
Her majesty’s secret servant, James Bond, would certainly not be happy, but I really don’t mind whether they are shaken or stirred, just as long as my martinis are icy ...
The life of publishing magnate and cinema mogul, Angelo Rizzoli, reads like the story in the melodramas regularly found in the magazines he published. Rizzoli was born in Milan on October 31, 1889, to an impoverished family. Despite their circumstances, however, his family lived in one of the most affluent
Her custodians at the Louvre in Paris have banned any future travels. But this has not discouraged Italy's National Committee for the Enhancement of History, Culture and Environment ('Comitato nazionale per la valorizzazione dei beni storici, culturali e ambientali') from continuing its appeal for a temporary return to Florence
The Chinese may have invented it, but the Italians perfected it: pastasciutta. Today, one of the most famous brands of pasta worldwide is Buitoni, an industry that grew out of a modest pasta shop opened in 1827 by Giovan Battista Buitoni and his wife Giulia Boninsegni in Sansepolcro, a small
Watching dancers on television as a small boy in his hometown of Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, where he was born on March 26, 1975, Bolle decided that dance would be his future. At age 11, he won a place at the prestigious La Scala Theatre Ballet School and went to
The recent release of director Michele Placido’s film Vallanzasca: Gli Angeli Del Male, based on the 2009 autobiography by the same name, written by one of Italy’s most notorious criminals ...
Singer-songwriter, actor and showman, Renato Zero, turned 60 on September 30, 2010. He celebrated his birthday by giving six unique concerts entitled Sei Zero in Rome’s piazza di Siena. ...
December 12, 1969 is a date indelibly printed on the pages of recent Italian history. On that cold winter's day, at 4:37 in the afternoon, a bomb exploded inside the crowded Banca Nazionale dell‘Agricoltura situated in piazza Fontana in downtown Milan. In the carnage that resulted,
His bestselling books and the films that followed have made Dan Brown famous around the world. But this American is not the only author to be fascinated by conspiracies involving the catholic church and the Holy See. For centuries, the high walls surrounding the Vatican have inspired stories of
No doubt, many of us have walked past buildings being constructed, restored or painted all over Italy without giving a minute's thought to the intricate cage of tubular steel scaffolding encapsulating them. The man who invented the labyrinthine system of vertical and horizontal tubes and fixtures was, in fact,
Living two days short of 100 years is a feat in itself, but occupying the main part of those years, as the architect Giovanni Michelucci did, by designing some of the most significant buildings constructed in Italy during the twentieth century has left us with an enduring record of his
In 1978, Giovanni Leone, a Christian Democrat senator and president of the republic resigned after a smear campaign claimed he and his family had been involved in corruption related to the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation bribery scandal. Although these allegations were never proved true, the prestige of the high office that
With luck, you might see his bright purple helicopter flying over the Tuscan skies. Or one of his Ferraris whizzing down via Tornabuoni, home of his elegant store and funky café. Or glimpse a limousine with dark tinted windows taking one of his celebrity guests, Sharon Stone, perhaps, or
It is indeed a rare occurrence that the mayor of any city be considered a saint. But, in 1986, Pope John Paul II began the process of beatification, the third of four steps in the process towards sainthood, for Giorgio La Pira, twice mayor of Florence, first from 1951 to
In early December 1927, a very small, reserved, middle-aged and somewhat overwhelmed Grazia Deledda made the gruelling journey by train from Rome to Stockholm. She was the first female Italian writer and only the second woman author (after the Swedish writer, Selma Lagerlòf) to be awarded the
Two men with difficult characters formed one of the most significant design teams in the history of the Italian automobile industry. Enzo Ferrari built the motors and chassis of his legendary cars, and Battista Pininfarina often styled their classy and revolutionary bodies. Battista Farina was born in Cortanza d'
Thanks to Teresa Mattei, Italian women now exchange or are given sprigs of this bright yellow flower to celebrate their day every March 8.
Just after 8 o'clock on the morning of July 23, 1993, an ambulance was called to the elegant eighteenth-century Palazzo Belgioioso, just behind the Scala Opera House in Milan. A man had shot himself in the head. That man was Raoul Gardini, the charismatic entrepreneur who had dreamed
The name Bugatti conjures up images of Gatsby-type roadsters of the 1930s. Indeed, these magnificent cars were designed and built by Ettore Bugatti, one of Carlo Bugatti's two immensely talented sons. But their father was also a design genius. In fact, at the end of the nineteenth and
Every December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death in San Remo, Italy, the Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway. This year, U.S. president Barack Obama will receive the prize for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. To date, only one Italian
In the summer of 1984, Livorno, the port town on the Tuscan coast, was the site of one of the biggest hoaxes in the history of Italian art. The Museo Progressivo di Arte Moderna was planning to celebrate the centenary of the birth of one of the city's
In the aftermath of the devastating 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), many European countries restricted or banned nuclear energy plants. France, which did not, today produces almost 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, making it the world'
