Summer brings festivals and events galore to Italy this month. June plays host to medieval football breaking out in Florence, light and sound in Venice, film and arts in Sicily, jousting skills in Arezzo and a good old tug-of-war in Pisa. 8-11 June – MORE Festival Never let it be said that Venice is stuck in the […]
Italy has a bounty of jewel-like cities – small-sized, liveable and packed with beautiful buildings. They make excellent places to buy a home, offering easy holidaymaking and superb rental returns, says Fleur Kinson. As if it weren’t enough to have heart-meltingly lovely countryside, celestial mountains and a glorious coastline, Italy also manages to squeeze in […]
Molise is the youngest of Italy’s 20 regions, and perhaps its least-known. Decidedly mountainous in the west (and quite hilly in the east) it is perceived as being inaccessible – which makes it the perfect destination for the intrepid Heather Crombie. Situated between sea and mountains, half way between the centre and the south of Italy, […]
The thought of renovating a property can be daunting, Gary from D&G Design is on hand to put your minds at ease. Ever dreamed of that rustic farmhouse surrounded by olive groves and orange trees? Or a medieval townhouse perched high in a mountain-top town that offers views of lush fields, rolling hills and the Adriatic Sea? […]
On the last weekend of May, Italy’s wine cellars will be open to visitors. The sight of hillsides strewn with vineyards is one that is repeated throughout Italy, and one that is notably celebrated each May in the form of the Movimento Turismo del Vino’s Cantine Aperte (Open Cellars) initiative. This year, Italy’s primary wine […]
The room was found in 1975 by then museum director Paolo Dal Poggetto and colleagues while looking for a new way for tourists to exit, National Geographic reports After the initial discovery of the room, which was filled with coal, experts undertook the careful job of removing layers of plaster from the walls to reveal […]
He was one of the genius artists of the 1400s and a spectacular example of the Renaissance man. Andrea Mantegna (1436-1506) is one of the greats in art from the 1400s. Why? Because he was a true master of disegno, both in the literal translation of the word and in the deeper, more complex, definition […]
Mario Matassa reveals the inside story on the gondola as he visits the workshops and discovers a tale of tradition, craftsmanship and politics… It’s as Italian as spaghetti al pomodoro. It’s an icon of our times. It’s a 10.87m long symbol of a city, a country and a people. It’s 900 years of history and […]
The Pope commissioned Michelangelo to build a new burial chamber for his family on the San Lorenzo church The Medici Chapels in Florence is a fascinating complex. It is entirely planned both architecturally and sculpturally by Michelangelo, whose own life was so intertwined with the Medici family. When he was commissioned the project by Pope […]
What, you may well ask, are 400 or so classical sculptures, as well as mosaic panels, stone funerary monuments and sarcophagi, doing in a power plant? Just off Via Ostiense, in Rome, about halfway between the Pyramid of Cestius and the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, you can visit the first public electrical […]