Among Italy’s 58 UNESCO World Heritage Sites – the most of any country – the majority include some type of architecture: castles, churches, city centers, dwellings, public spaces, temples, and tombs. Although traces of settlements have been found dating to more than 50,000 years ago, it was during the eighth century BC when the Etruscans began to i...

THE Royal Palace of Caserta, a long-neglected architectural jewel near Naples, is being returned to its former glory through a vast restoration project, partly financed by the European Union’s (EU) recovery fund.  Nicknamed the “Italian Versailles” after the royal palace near Paris, the Italian Unesco site boasts 1,200 rooms, 1,742 windows and 123h...

Italian food is incredible stuff. From hearty pasta dishes to remarkable wine, the cuisine at large is among the best on earth. And now, it’s (almost) a UNESCO-recognized genre of food. Perhaps it’s no surprise. This is the country, after all, that’s graciously supplied the world with Chianti, gelato, pasta carbonara, the Aperol spritz, and so much...

May 24 - August 24, 2023. Embassy of Italy, 3000 Whitehaven Street NW, Washington DC 20008. RSVP HERE. The Italian Cultural Institute of Washington, in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy, invites you to attend “UNESCO Italy. Photographs”, an exhibition dedicated to the Italian sites most recently added to the UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The...

Italy holds claim to 58 UNESCO sites (the most of any nation), with 31 additional sites on the tentative list right now. It’s incredible; all that history and enlightenment from a country slightly larger than the state of Arizona. And it means that no matter how many times you’ve been to Italy, there’s always so much more to see, and do. While I do...

Unesco recognition is getting closer for Chianti Classico, the iconic Tuscany region that gave birth to one of the world’s most famous Italian wines. Thanks to the beauty of a unicum that tells centuries of history and “enlightened anthropization”, and harmoniously stratified, until today, of that still intact landscape, and, at the same time, prod...

The Italian government is putting up Italian cuisine as this year's candidate to join the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage, sources said Thursday. The government has decided, on a proposal from the Ministers of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Francesco Lollobrigida and Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano, to nominate the practice of Italian cui...

The prosecco region in northeastern Italy, in the Veneto (about 40 miles north of Venice), was finally recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2019. The area’s 50,000 acres of neatly terraced vineyards, rolling green hills, and scenic medieval towns fan out from the city of Treviso. UNESCO praised “the protection of the rural landscape, the m...

They can be visibly seen from Northern Italy, as far as Venice in the northwest, and Mantua (aka Mantova) in the central north. Their towering, prominent, and unusually shaped, massive, jagged peaks are both picturesque and mysterious, dominating the skyline. They are the Dolomites, and this UNESCO World Heritage Site made up of limestone, forms pa...

Since mid-January, the Via Appia regina viarum has officially begun its journey to UNESCO with the signing of the memorandum of understanding for the site's candidacy on the World Heritage List. Aiming at that summa of wonders march new dossiers in the proposal stage, some of them quite advanced. Italy already leads the world with its 58 registered...