In 2009 the book Rita Atria, a Sicilian rebel got publish, written by Petra Reski, a german journalist, who also wrote the non-fiction novel Mafia. Rita Atria is a pentita, someone that breaks with her or his (criminal) background and will serve as a state witness. A mortal sin within the Mafia structure and certainly not something that will be don...

There are personalities who are unknown to most of us, but they have made an important contribution to our knowledge of the world around us. In fact, without their contribution, some news of the past would not have come down to us and we would not have a complete view of past cultures.One of these is, undoubtedly, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine who, ...

Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was a presbyter of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin who was born on May 23, 1887, in Pietrelcina, Italy, to die 81 years later on September 23, 1968, in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. The Catholic Church recognized him as a Saint on June 16th 2002, on which the aforementioned John Paul II, decreed him Saint. Since then, the...

Early history Just at one-hour distance from Milan you can find the small town of Cremona. As the capital city of the province of Lombardy, Cremona has around 72.000 inhabitants. The historic town is situated near the Po river in the middle of the Po valley (Pianura Padana) and has an long history, dating from 400 BC when Cremona is first mentioned...

November 2nd is All Souls' Day, a Catholic feast dedicated to the memorial of the dead which, according to tradition, can be dated back to ancient times. This day, in almost every country, the dead are remembered with different rituals and customs, yet the aim is just one: give some consolation to the souls of the dead. Although the tradition might...

The name Italia, probably a Graecized form of Italic Vitelia (='calf land'), was originally restricted to the southern half of the 'toe' but was gradually extended. By 450 B.C. It meant the region subsequently inhabited by the Bruttii; by 400 it embraced Lucania as well. Campania was included after 325, and by Phyrhus' day Italia as a geographical ...

The greatest exodus of modern history has been that of the Italians. Since 1861, more than twenty-four million departures have been recorded. In the space of just over a century a number almost equivalent to the amount of the population at the time of the unification of Italy emigrated abroad. It was an exodus that affected all the Italian regions....

Giovanni Caboto, son of Giulio, was born in Gaeta, Italy, around 1451 AD. After the Aragonese defeated the Angevins in 1461, his family took refuge in Venice where the young Giovanni grew up, got married to Mattea about 1870 and had three children: Ludovico, Sebastiano, and Sancto. His dream was to be an explorer, but it took him some time before f...

"Che mondo sarebbe senza nutella" is the official slogan of the wonderful hazelnut cream known as Nutella, appreciated by many and eaten worldwide. Few know that its invention was totally random and born out of necessity. HistoryIn 1946, at the end of WWII, chocolate was so expensive nobody could afford it in Italy. Therefor a Piedmontese pastry ch...

Which conditions may have an effect - positive or negative - on your Italian family history project. The following insights, based on many years of experience in Italy, pertain to factors that have very little to do with Italian genealogy per se, but involve vast cultural differences that influence archival access, documentation and research progre...

It's said Italy was a country of Saints, poets and navigators. There's no more trace of the poets and navigators but, fortunately, there are traces of the Saints. All the Italian towns are voted to a Saint and one of these is San Gennaro, well-known for his miracle. Who was San Gennaro? San Gennaro was born between Naples and Benevento in 272 AD (t...

Italians have not invented coffee, yet the passion they have for it makes the rest of world believe they discovered it. Around the end of the sixteen century, it was Venice where coffee was first introduced. Thanks to its trade relationship with the Eastern countries. Initially, coffee was considered a valuable beverage due to its high price, but w...

Nowadays, very few Italian actors are able to emerge on the world cinema scene. Until a few decades ago it was different, but we talk about the age of the young Cinecittà, where it was not unusual to meet world-famous directors who set their stories which became known all over the world in those studios! At that crossroads of cultural exchanges tha...

There is an ancient legend for lovers, in Salerno: the story of the beautiful Antonella.Antonella was one of the bridesmaids of Queen Margherita of Durazzo. One day the son of Margherita, Ladislaus, while returning from war stopped to greet his mother, along with several warriors, including Raimondo. Near the fountain next to the building, Antonell...