The Taste of Italy

Totò, the Prince of laughter

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...

Cremona, city of history, architecture and music

Cremona - Bronze statue of Antonio Stradivari

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...

Italians and Coffee: a guide to the "culto del caffè"

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 considere...

History of the Italian Regions

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 ...

Giovanni da Pian del Carpine

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 i...

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Totò, the Prince of laughter

What would the world be like without Nutella: The Ferrero Family

"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 af...

Giovanni Caboto, navigator and explorer

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 ...

All Souls' Day (Commemorazione dei defunti) and the Italian tradition

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 t...