Now over eighty, Raffaello started painting his maiolica masterpieces as a young boy. Massimo started young on the potter’s wheel, too, creating the vases, pitchers, urns Raffaello still decorates. At a young…
When you come down the hill from Norcia and round that curve, you’ll understand what a mozzafiato view is. Only mozzafiato (literally, “cutting off, truncating your breath”, and more visceral than the…
The Peppucci family vineyards blanket the sumptuous curves of the gentle hill landscapes outside Todi. And no vineyard view is more wondrous than a sunset one. One late June evening – while…
In the early thirteenth century, San Francesco di Assisi left behind the woes of the world for forty days of isolation and contemplation on a tranquil island in the middle of Lake…
Passione takes hold of one early in Italy: passione for good food, for soccer, for the frescoes in your town church, for music, for one’s village festival – and even for flowers.…
During Gubbio’s May 15th Corsa dei Ceri (“race of the candlesticks”), passione comes in all sizes – from just-hatched little ones to the elderly – and in three colors: yellow, royal blue…
In the 14th century during the first three days of May, Narni town criers called young riders to join in the races over the next few days: the race for the ring…
Fanciful legends, myths, age-old folktales, medieval morality plays, ballads and poetry are woven into the rich tapestry of Calendimaggio, Assisi’s three-day May celebration of the arrival of spring. A much-loved Assisi legend…
In Umbria, you know spring is in the air when the balestrieri (“cross-bowers”) compete in the piazzas seated behind their crossbows, one eye closed, taking aim. The crossbow is an inherent part…
Lost in time are the origins of Offida, medieval hilltown of Le Marche, certainly inhabited in the Bronze Age, later by a local Italic tribe, then finally by the Romans. The town’s…