The Taste of Italy

San Gennaro between miracles and reality

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...

Cremona, city of history, architecture and music

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, ...

Genealogy research Conditions in Italy

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 ...

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...

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Interview with Petra Reski about her book "Rita Atria, a Sicilian rebel"

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 stru...

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...

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 ...

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...