It all started with a celebration of roast suckling pig, la porchetta. As of the 1970’s, the Sagra della Porchetta had gathered the local bevignati in a convivial sharing of an Umbrian culinary specialty. In…
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The 13th-century civic building Palazzo dei Consoli, dominating Bevagna’s main square, Piazza Filippo Silvestri……. ….hides a treasure just inside that door under the pointed Gothic arch at the top of the stairs –…
In 1943- 1944 when 300 Jewish refugees were hidden in German-occupied Assisi, many a convent became a place of safe haven. One was the Monastero di San Quirico. Traveling all the way…
During World War II, which Italian town was saved from devastation by a German commander? Assisi. The German occupying forces in Italy, had placed Werhmacht commander, Colonel Valentin Müller, a devout Catholic…
During World War II in Assisi, the Bishop of Assisi sometimes had to double as a stonemason; that is, when it was time to hide the valuables, torahs, and documents of the…
Ironically, just steps away from Assisi’s Museo della Memoria, 1943-1944 recounting the story of the salvation of Jewish refugees in Assisi in World War II – you’ll pass the entrance to one of…
What did a world-champion Tuscan cyclist have in common with two Assisi printers? A couple of things: all three have been recognized as Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem in Israel. And…
I first met Don Aldo Brunacci in 1975 shortly after Pino and I moved into our Assisi countryside farmhouse. At that time, I had started teaching English to children – as a…
When I think about Graziella Viterbi, I always remember that bright twinkle in her eye, that spark. That spark was there when she met Pope Francis in 2016 during his Assisi visit,…
Did you know that the 101st edition of the Giro d’Italia (“Italy Tour”) – one of Italy’s Grand Tour cycling races – started in Jerusalem (on May 4, 2018), not in Italy?…