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Pompeii was the first Italian archaeological site to reopen to the public after the coronavirus shutdown. The first visitors after the three-month closure were welcomed on 26 May, with initial access only through the Amphitheatre entrance for small groups following strict one-way itineraries. Since 9 June the rules have relaxed somewhat, with the p...

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Temitayo Ogunbiyi has clear memories of the neon fillings of the apology chocolates a 7-year-old girl gave to her after calling her a nigger on the school bus. She has clear memories of another girl who refused to touch her because she was afraid it would turn her black. She was raised in suburban Philadelphia. When she was asked to design a tempor...

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“My funeral will be really beautiful because there will be words, more words, praise, people will recognize me as a great actor, because Italy’s a very beautiful country, but here you get to be appreciated only when you’re dead.” This was the great Antonio Griffo Focas Flavio Angelo Ducas Comneno Porfirigenito Gagliardi De Curtis of Bisanzio, bette...

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Mistral made of Gragnano, a town of just under 30.000 not far from beautiful Naples, the historical heart of dry pasta-making in Italy. But we’re not talking about the dry wind born in the South of France that graces the whole Mediterranean with its coolness, but of a peculiar variety of it, the Marino — as it is commonly known — which blows from t...

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CHARLES OF BOURBON, KING OF NAPLES and Sicily, famously commissioned the construction of the spectacular Royal Palace of Caserta. However, this was not the first royal residence he had constructed.  In 1738 after a visit to Portici positively impressed the young king and his consort, he decided to commission a new royal palace in the small town jus...

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C'è l’esigenza di riqualificare una frazione, quella di Rivottoli di Serino, di ripristinare il valore della memoria storica di Simon Rodia, al secolo Sabato Rodia, che qui vi nacque nel 1879 per poi emigrare in America dodici anni dopo, lì dove l’artista ha poi trovato la sua fortuna, espresso il suo talento, in quella Los Angeles che porta la sua...

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Overlooking sparkling sea and overshadowed by Mount Vesuvius, the Italian city of Naples is a popular and evocative setting in popular culture. HBO’s acclaimed TV adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s best-selling Neapolitan novels returned to UK screens for its second series this summer. Its popularity follows that of Sky Atlantic’s Gomorrah. This series...

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Cameos have a very important place in Italian history, culture and lifestyle.  The art of Cameo-making, called Glittica, is one of the most ancient arts of humanity and an art that has had its golden moments in Italy over the centuries. During the Roman Empire, for example, Cameos served to emphasize one’s social status, while in Florentine Renaiss...

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Procida is still, in many ways, a well guarded secret. Contrarily to its more famous sisters, Capri and Ischia, Procida — that, when it comes to beauty,  has nothing to envy to either of them, — remains a traditional, fishermen enclave at heart: mass tourism is unknown in this little corner of Campania.  Mind, its charms are known and they have bee...

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Everyone stops on the Amalfi Coast to visit its beauties, but few continue along the coast to discover villages equally characteristic and not at all touristy like the village of Cetara. Known since the Middle Ages as the best fishermen in the area, the Cetaresi still live on fishing. Only in the last few years has tourism developed there, but it r...

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