history
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Both / and
Sabine Rollberg was the perfect interpreter for us in Germany. When we were at the Saturday market next to the 13th century Gothic cathedral in Freiburg, she recommended and ordered “The Big Red One,” translating the name for a popular… Continue reading
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Last stop, Venice
And so, finally, Venice! A full day here is like one of those Italian meals where you realize you’ve eaten too much. And then you have a dolce, and a shot of limoncello. One full day in Venice between two… Continue reading
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A cup of coffee
Italians don’t just drink coffee. They administer it. A barista like Daniele, the man who runs Caffè Dell’Arco in Fano, administers what we call espresso – the drink they call un caffè. Some regular customers stand at the counter and… Continue reading
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The Liberal Tradition
I found a book titled “The Light of Italy” in a bookrack facing the very piazza where that “Light,” Duke Federico da Montefeltro, had grandly expanded his Palazzo. This was at the height of Montefeltro’s rule before he died in… Continue reading
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What made Italians?
Near the end of the 1969 movie “The Secret of Santa Vittoria,” the psychological battle between the Nazi captain and the slyly submissive mayor of the Italian town (played lovably by Anthony Quinn) reaches a tense climax. The two men… Continue reading
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Vitruvian treasure
When the city of Fano wanted to restore the Piazza Costa in the middle of the old city, it invited a team of engineers and archeologists to check underneath the cobblestones. This is a common requirement in any old city… Continue reading
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The Five Deadly Virtues
Like her hero Niccolò Machiavelli, Carol Darr delights in turning conventional (and Catholic) wisdom on its head. So in one chapter of her book Machiavelli 4 Everybody, being published next week, she describes five traditional virtues as “deadly” for a… Continue reading
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The Big Bad Prince
The Italian who invented political science, Niccolò Machiavelli, is not much appreciated outside of certain academic types who admire and debate his famous 16th century book “The Prince.” A bookstore I visited yesterday on Fano’s main piazza keeps paperback copies… Continue reading
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An evening stroll, senza fretta
We went out at dusk to look for the moon. “Sunset” in Italian is tramonto, “between” and “mountain,” and we imagine the sun somewhere between the Apennines and the sky behind us far to our west. We were walking east… Continue reading
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Pilgrims’ Progress
To prepare for walking the old Tuscan footpath of European pilgrims and Crusaders, I borrowed a 1919 book by an idealistic American walker who represented the American Red Cross in Palestine 30 years before it became the modern state of… Continue reading
An American journalist heads for Italy to see his country changing from afar. 