The Italian Spirit Tutoring
I want to take you on a small journey through something as quintessentially Italian as pasta or opera: the way we communicate. In Italy, words are only the beginning. There are two other Italian languages that don’t involve words at all. One is the mix of gestures and expressions often thought of as “typically Italian” […]
One of my students is from Buffalo, NY. When she told me the fascinating story of Garden Walk Buffalo, I thought it would be interesting to compare that tradition with the similar-but-different garden festivals of Italy. Garden Walk Buffalo is the largest free garden tour in the United States. Hundreds of private homeowners open their […]
The History of the Officina Profumo‑Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella We are in Florence, just a few steps from the train station and the famous Dominican basilica. Here stands the Officina Profumo‑Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, considered the oldest pharmacy in Italy and one of the oldest in the world still in operation. Its history […]
A market is a place where merchants conduct business and build relationships with the goal of expanding their trade, and this is a good description of the Ballarò market in Palermo. The name has two historical derivations, both linked to Sicily’s Arab‑Norman past (827–1091 for the Arab period, ending with the Norman conquest; the Norman […]
The Orgosolo murals emerged in the late 1960s. A group of students and artists decided to bring art directly to the people. The students were inspired by their teacher, Francesco Del Casino, an art educator who, together with them, painted the first mural in 1969 as a protest against the expropriation of land from shepherds. […]
Commedia dell’arte is a form of improvisational theatre that originated in Italy in the 16th century, designed to entertain people who could not afford tickets to the theatre. The first recorded performances of commedia dell’arte date back to Rome in 1551. It became popular across Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. These performances typically […]
Giovanni da Verrazzano was a great navigator, humanist, man of science, and man of action, primarily remembered as the first Westerner to explore the eastern coast of what is now the United States of America. Exactly 500 years ago, on April 17, 1524, he set foot in what is now New York Bay. In the […]
Nowadays, we have the luxury of using computers, phones, and tablets to take notes wherever we go, with the internet accessible almost everywhere. However, in the era before the twentieth century, such conveniences were nonexistent, but there were removable cuffs. The phrase “off the cuff” is believed to have originated from the old practice of […]
From their beginnings, monasteries served as places of prayer, meditation, and industrious activity, and the apothecary monks were experts in the cultivation, preservation, and drying of herbs. In addition to gathering individuals dedicated to asceticism and divine contemplation, these monastic havens often provided temporary refuge to pilgrims and passing travelers. As a result, they housed […]
Naples is one of the most famous cities in the world for its beauty, geographical location, intrinsic life, folklore, and hospitality of the people. The warmth of the sun and the people is reflected everywhere. It has been a land of conquest by numerous foreign dominations, and the one that left its deep mark was […]