The imposing medieval castle of Bolsena overlooks Lake Bolsena, the largest volcanic lake in Europe. The lake was a volcano about 300,000 years ago, its shores were settled probably in the Neolithic…
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Bolsena celebrates in floral splendor the Feast of Corpus Domini, for after all, this feast promulgated in the 13th-century – and also known as “Corpus Christi” – originates with a miracle here…
As a child growing up in Assisi, craftsman of medieval stringed instruments, Luca Piccioni, would have been familiar with such instruments from an early age. School trips in elementary school would have…
In Deruta, a sacred spot of the Middle Ages holds sacred treasures. In this small Umbria hilltown, a 14th-century Franciscan monastery now houses the first ceramics museum of Italy – founded in…
We’re all so overwhelmed always by the innumerable art treasures ready to welcome us in magnificent churches, famous museums and in many a small chapel down side streets in medieval towns. But…
Deruta, an Umbria small hilltown south of Perugia….. …..is a veritable open-air museum peppered with maiolica touches in the piazzas, on the walls of homes, over shop entrances,in the backstreets and even…
In preparation for my ZOOM presentation May 8, 2021 on Deruta, I needed to see the Museo Regionale della Ceramica, but for now, that museum – like many – is closed due to COVID…
What’s absolutely essential to the production of bellissima glazed earthenware, maiolica? Passione. I very recently spoke to five young women in “la citta’ della ceramica,” Deruta – each one carefully masked – as they worked with painstaking…
Probably built upon Roman foundations and later devastated by the Goths in the 6th-century and later by the Lombards (6th-8th centuries), the ancient names of Deruta (Ruto, Ruta, Rupta, Direpta Diruta) all…
Yes, it IS grandiose the 16th-century Franciscan Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli rising up majestically on the plain below Assisi. At first site, one wonders about the reaction of St. Francis, Il…