Palestrina in Latio

23 January 2025 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Museo archeologico nazionale di Palestrina in Palazzo Barberini © Acquario51/cc-by-sa-4.0

Museo archeologico nazionale di Palestrina in Palazzo Barberini © Acquario51/cc-by-sa-4.0

Palestrina (ancient: Praeneste; Ancient Greek: Prainestos) is a modern Italian city and comune (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about 35 kilometres (22 miles) east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Prenestina. It is built upon the ruins of the ancient city of Praeneste. Palestrina is the birthplace of composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Thomas Mann spent some time there in 1895 and, two years later, during the long harsh summer of 1897, he stayed over again, with his brother Heinrich Mann, in a sojourn that provided the backdrop, nearly half a century later, for Adrian Leverkühn’s pact with the Devil in Mann’s novel Doktor Faustus.   read more…

Antipasti

12 January 2025 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon appétit, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  5 minutes

© Marianne Casamance/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Marianne Casamance/cc-by-sa-4.0

Antipasto (plural: antipasti) is the traditional first course of a formal Italian meal. Usually made of bite-size small portions and presented on a platter from which everyone serves themselves, the purpose of antipasti is to stimulate the appetite. Typical ingredients of a traditional antipasto includes cured meats, olives, peperoncini, mushrooms, anchovies, artichoke hearts, various cheeses (such as provolone or mozzarella), pickled meats, and vegetables in oil or vinegar.   read more…

Locorotondo in Apulia

23 December 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Acquario51/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Acquario51/cc-by-sa-4.0

Locorotondo (Barese: U Curdunne) is a town and municipality of the Metropolitan City of Bari, Apulia, southern Italy, with a population of about 14,000. It is situated between Martina Franca and Alberobello in the Valle d’Itria, a green stretch of countryside dotted with the famous whitewashed cone-roofed trulli houses. Locorotondo is one of I Borghi più belli d’Italia (“The most beautiful villages of Italy”) and it has been awarded the Orange Flag of the Touring Club of Italy due to the harmony of its shapes and the accessibility of the old town, as it can be easily visited on foot. It is an intricate network of little streets lined with old buildings and it is known for its typical houses called “Le Cummerse“, which have a regular geometric shape and a sloping roof made of two different layers of limestone slabs. These dwellings have nowadays been renovated and offered to visitors in the form of scattered hotels.   read more…

Teatro La Fenice in Venice

12 December 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Opera Houses, Theaters, Libraries Reading Time:  11 minutes

View from the stage © Pietro Tessarin/cc-by-sa-4.0

View from the stage © Pietro Tessarin/cc-by-sa-4.0

Teatro La Fenice (“The Phoenix“) is a historic opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of “the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre” and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice became the site of many famous operatic premieres at which the works of several of the four major bel canto era composers—Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi—were performed.   read more…

Castellammare del Golfo in Siciliy

3 December 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  4 minutes

© flickr.com - xorge7cc-by-sa-2.0

© flickr.com – xorge7cc-by-sa-2.0

Castellammare del Golfo (Sicilian: Casteḍḍammari; Latin: Emporium Segestanorum or Emporium Aegestensium) is a town and municipality in the Trapani Province of Sicily. The name can be translated as “Sea Fortress on the Gulf”, stemming from the medieval fortress in the harbor. The nearby body of water conversely takes its name from the town, and is known as Gulf of Castellammare.   read more…

Panettone

10 November 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon appétit Reading Time:  7 minutes

Homemade panettone © flickr.com - N i c o l a/cc-by-2.0

Homemade panettone © flickr.com – N i c o l a/cc-by-2.0

Panettone (Milanese: panetton) is an Italian type of sweet bread and fruitcake, originally from Milan, Italy, usually prepared and enjoyed for Christmas and New Year in Western, Southern, and Southeastern Europe, as well as in South America, Eritrea, Australia, the United States, and Canada.   read more…

Portrait: Vitruvius, a Roman architect and engineer

23 October 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Architecture, Portrait Reading Time:  12 minutes

Vitruvius - De architectura © Mark Pellegrini/cc-by-sa-2.5

Vitruvius – De architectura © Mark Pellegrini/cc-by-sa-2.5

Vitruvius was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work titled De architectura. As the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity, it has been regarded since the Renaissance as the first book on architectural theory, as well as a major source on the canon of classical architecture. It is not clear to what extent his contemporaries regarded his book as original or important.   read more…

Calcata in Lazio

16 October 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

© 500px.com - Daniel De Luca

© 500px.com – Daniel De Luca

Calcata (locally Cargata) is a comune and town in the Province of Viterbo in the Italian region Lazio, located 47 kilometres (29 mi) north of Rome by car, overlooking the valley of Treja river. The historical centre now includes restaurants, cafes, and art galleries.   read more…

Grand Canal in Venice

7 September 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Peter K Burian/cc-by-sa-4.0

© Peter K Burian/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Grand Canal (Italian: Canal Grande, locally and informally Canalazzo; Venetian: Canal Grando, locally usually Canałaso) is the largest channel in Venice, Italy, forming one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city.   read more…

Return to TopReturn to Top