The people, events, places and cultural heritage that shaped Italy through the centuries.
In the heart of Cesena, a graceful city in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, there is a door that does something extraordinary: it takes visitors back more than five centuries. Beyond it lies the Biblioteca Malatestiana, one of the most remarkable libraries…
Beyond Rome’s ancient walls, away from the celebrated monuments of the historic centre, stands a circular brick building that preserves one of the most fascinating artistic transitions in European history. It is called Santa Costanza, and although many visitors to…
In the heart of the Roman Forum, not far from the Via Sacra, stand the remains of a small circular building. Compared with the enormous basilicas, triumphal arches and imperial monuments surrounding it, the Temple of Vesta may appear modest.…
Behind the walls of the old hospital in Lodi lies one of Italy’s most disturbing and fascinating scientific collections. Inside glass cases are human hands, heads, organs and entire bodies prepared more than a century ago. They have not been…
In the summer of 1831, the inhabitants of the Sicilian town of Sciacca began to notice something deeply unsettling. The ground trembled, the sea behaved strangely and the air filled with the unmistakable smell of sulphur. Sailors reported columns of…
Imagine waking up one morning and discovering that your village no longer belongs to any country. There is no king above you, no pope collecting your taxes, no foreign governor issuing orders and no customs officer asking questions about the…
Sanremo: the week when Italy talks to itself Sanremo Festival history is the story of how a song contest became a shared national ritual. There are television programs, there are music competitions, and then there is Sanremo. Trying to explain…
On the impossible mountain roads of Sicily, the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 became one of the great symbols of the Targa Florio. This is the story of Autodelta, Nino Vaccarella and the day Alfa Romeo defeated Porsche on home soil.
There are machines that become famous because they work perfectly. Others become famous because they win wars, races or records. And then, every so often, there is a machine that becomes unforgettable precisely because it fails. Not because it was…
There are people who become famous because they spend their lives trying to be famous. And then there are people like Sora Lella, who seemed to become famous almost by accident, as though Rome itself had suddenly looked around the…