ItalyUpdate

TUSCANY'S OCTOPUS HAVEN

The Gulf of Talamone at Orbetello (Tuscany) is the site chosen for the first Italian octopus protected area. The project, set up by a team of scientists and environmentalists operates under the name OCTOPOLIS in collaboration with the Science and Environmental Department of the University of Siena, aims to create safe “houses” for an octopus colony in specially designed clay pots which rest on the seabed and cannot be caught up in fishermen's nets.

Octopuses are constantly caught in drag fishing nets and killed. Global warming of the Mediterranean has also seriously depleted their numbers, due to changes in the marine ecosystem and pollution. The Octopolis project also aims to make the public more aware of the unique qualities of these fascinating marine creatures which have highly developed brains that allow them to solve problems and interact with each other.

The Casa dei Pesce (House of Fish), a non-profit association, founded in 2012 to monitor marine life in the Mediterranean is also involved. Inspired by local activist Paolo Fanciulli, better known as “Paolo il Pescatore”,(Paolo the Fisherman), who stopped illegal drag net fishing in the Orbetello coastal waters by submerging large stone blocks on the seabed. Soon local sculptors began to donate their works to the cause, thus creating an underwater museum with 44 art works, that can be admired by divers.

The Octopolis Project has set up a crowdfunding appeal to help finance further research.

M. STENHOUSE

Info: Tel. +39. 3444071412 https://casadeipesci.it info@casadeipesci.it

TURIN'S NEW CHOCOLATE MUSEUM

Just over a year ago, Turin (Piedmont) opened its first Chocolate Museum, joining the Choco-Story brand venues already present in Paris, Brugge, Brussels and Prague. The museum is situated in the historic Pfatisch confectioner's shop and laboratory, celebrated for over a century for its chocolate creations and offers a fascinating overview of chocolate production from the earliest times to the present.

The city of Turin, however, has been linked to chocolate production since 1560, when the Savoy royal family introduced the fashion of drinking hot chocolate. iSince then, Turin's chocolate producers have developed treats that are household names, like Gianduiotta, Boero, Cremino and the world's favourite chocolate spread – Nutella.

Every year, the city hosts ChoccolaTo, the great international Chocolate Fair. This year's edition ended on the 2^nd March, and attracted thousands of chocolate-makers and visitors.

The chocolate theme has also become a major tourism pull, with “sweet” tours to visit the many traditional chocolatiers in the city and watch how they make their gastronomic treats.

1000. Stenhouse

Tel: 0039.011.19820447 info@choco-story-torino.it

PAPYRUS SECRETS REVEALED

Lovers of ancient history and antiquities are all agog to see the results of the new techniques developed to read the charred fragments of the papyrus scrolls discovered in the ruins of the city of Herculaneum (near Naples) during the first excavation campaign in the 18^th century.

Herculaneum, together with the nearby city of Pompeii, was destroyed in the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Over 1,800 carbonized scrolls were unearthed at a depth of 37m under layers of volcanic rock.

Most, however, have been destroyed or badly damaged in attempts to open them. However, ultra modern scanning techniques are beginning to penetrate the secrets of the remaining fragments.

Mostly they contain philosophical texts by Ancient Greek authors, but last year Graziano Ranocchio, a researcher at the University of Pisa, found something different...... indications of Plato's hitherto unknown burial place, which was apparently situated in a garden dedicated to him by the Platonic School near the Mouseion (Hill of the Muses), near the Acropolis of Athens. The Italian National Research Council (CNR) has been woking closely on the analysis of the papyrus scrolls along with other important research institutes, including the University of Oxford (UK)

Further surprises and revelations are expected to follow........

Info: https:ps//www.cnr.it

PRATO'S SILK MASTERPIECES

A feast for the senses: throughout 2025 the Textile Museum of Prato (Tuscany) is running a special exhibition entitled “Treasures of Silk” that traces the development of Italian luxury woven materials, dating from the Renaissance to the 20^th century.

The exhibition is centred round the collections of two eminent donors. For the first time, the recent endowment of over 2000 items that belonged to Florentine doctor Giovanni Falletti is on display, along with that of entrepreneur and art collector Loriano Bertini (1930-2019), which formed the first nucleus of the museum's own collection.

The exhibition offers visitors a unique view of sumptuous patterned silk materials woven over five centuries to create the elaborate clothes of Italian and European royalty, notables and church dignitaries.

Of special interest are the exhibits of textile designs created by modern artists such as the Uk sculptor Henry Moore (donated by the artist) as well as Italian architect and designer Giò Ponti, contemporary designer Bruno Munari, sculptor and printmaker Giò Pomodoro, Futurist artist Thayaht and the French painter Raoul Dufy.

There are also historic curiosities like fragments of tapestry from Egypt from the 4^th century AD, and a camel wool fringe belonging to the Nazca culture from Peru, as well as masks and Japanese prints and rare 18^th century examples of 18^th century embroidery.

The Museum is housed in the former Cimatoria Campolmi factory where die-cutting operations were carried out. This was converted into a museum in 1997.

“Treasures of Silk” exhibition runs until 21^st December 2025.

Info: Tel. +39.0574.611503 www.museodeltessuto.it info@museodeltessute.it

VENICE'S NEW GARDEN

Venice, the city of water, is notoriously short of gardens and parks. However, there are green spaces all over the city, many tucked away behind noble palaces and churches and specialized walking tours are available that reveal surprising hidden gems.

A few months ago, the Orto Giardino del Redentore (Garden Orchard of the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer) opened to the public after an extensive restoration and restyling project carried out by Adele Re Rebaudengo, founder and president of the Venice Garden Foundation.

The 2.50 acre garden is part of the territory of the historic Capuchin monastery of the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, situated on the Giudecca Island. The restoration of the monks' garden involved planting over 2,500 trees and plants, including olive trees, cypresses, various fruit trees and the installation of a 400m pergola covered in grapes, roses and wisteria. Also included in the restoration project were the ancient Chapel and the Library building.

The garden also contains a water lily pond, a well designed to gather and store rain water collected from the roofs of the buildings and an area with bee hives.

Info: Tel. +39.041.3121700 www.venicegardensfoundation.it

CARNIVAL BATTLE OF THE BEANS

The Carnival season, held all over Italy with many local variations, includes a focus on typical regional foods, and winter staples like beans feature prominently in many areas. The small town of Santhìa (Piedmont) claims to stage the oldest annual Carnevale bean cook-up in Piedmont, dating from the 17^th century.

This year the traditional bean feast involves 20,000 portions of beans bubbling in copper cauldrons set out in a line along the town centre.

However, Santhìa has a rival. Chiavazza, a hamlet on the fringe of Biella (Piedmont) at the foot of the Alps, cooks a hundred pans of beans for the Carnevale annual feast. Although the tradition is relatively new, (dating from the early 19^th century), it managed to get a nomination in the Guinness Book of Records in 2022.

This did not go down well with Santhìa which tries each year to upstage its rival. This year, however, Chiavazza has a new trick up its sleeve . It is offering “chocolate beans” as a crowd puller. This has nothing to do with the dragèe chocolate sweets that supermarkets and confectioners sell. Instead, the secret recipe launched by Chiavazza involves adding Ecuador bitter cocoa powder to the beans' cooking water. Organizers claim that this addition adds greatly to the flavour and makes the cooked beans more digestible

Info: https://prolocosanthia.it https://www.comune.biella.it

THE COLOURS OF THE GOLDEN HOUSE

During recent excavations under the pavement of the Domus Aurea in Rome (the Emperor Nero's “Golden House”), archeologists found a cache of containers with pigments to create the colours that would have been used by artists like Famulus (also called Fabullus), the most important artist of Imperial Rome, and his assistants. Traces of their work are still visible on the walls of some of the rooms in the palace that Nero built as his private residence and which may have been one of the contributing factors of his downfall. After the fire that destroyed much of the city, malicious rumours went around that the emperor had allowed the fire to spread deliberately in order to clear more space for his palace and park.

The pigment tanks contained traces of realgar (ruby sulphur or arsenic sulphide), a mineral used to produce tones of red. The most exciting find, however, was an exceptionally large ingot of “Egyptian Blue” weighing 2.4 kgs. This pigment, used in art since the early Bronze Age in Egypt and Mesopotamia, is a man-made compound of silicone, limestone, copper and carbonate of soda, widely used in frescos and other decorative work. Expensive and considered precious, it is usually found in much small fragments or in powdered form.

Info: Tel.+39.06.3996.7700/6998443 https://cultura.gov.it>

CREMONA 3Ts and CELEBRATED VIOLINS

Recently, one of the world's rarest musical instruments, known as the Joachim Ma violin, came under the auctioneer's hammer and was sold for $11.25 m, just under the record price paid for the Lady Blunt Stradivarius in 2011, which fetched $15.9 m.

These unique string instruments, which all have individual names usually alluding to previous owners, were all made in Cremona (Lombardy) by celebrated luthier families. For five centuries, they have never been surpassed in quality, making Cremona the undisputed capital of violins, violas, cellos and double basses as created by the families Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari. In his day, Stradivari alone created over 1100 violins and violas and over 80 cellos, an estimated 500 of which have survived, mainly in museums and private collections.

The wider world knows Cremona as the home of violins, but Cremona itself focusses on other characteristics. It calls itself the city of the three “Ts”...turon, turas and tetas. In local dialect these stand respectively for torrone (the nougat confection invented in 1441 for the wedding feast of the heirs of the two most powerful local families – Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, and now a standard Christmas treat), turas for the 112m high Torrazza Bell Tower (one of the tallest steeples in Europe), while the third - “tetas”- is an allusion to the charms of the local women.

A splendid preserved art city, Cremona is little visited by tourists, except for the Violin Museum which displays a collection of the world's most precious musical instruments as well as “a luthier's workshop”, where visitors can observe skilled craftsmen creating string instruments in the traditional way.

M.Stenhouse

Info: Tel. Museo del Violino +39.0372.801801/080809 https://museodelviolino.org

THE RETURN OF THE “WELCOME BACK” MADONNA

San Lorenzo, the church of the Medici family in Florence, has welcomed back a rare 14^th century wooden sculpture of a Madonna and Child, known as La Bentornata after a delicate and laborious seven-year restoration carried out by the expert restorers of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure institute of Florence.

The life-sized statue, carved out of a single piece of wood and considered a masterpiece of Medieval sculpture, is the work of Florentine artist Giovanni Fetti. The strange nickname “La Bentornata” which literally means “Welcome Back” does not refer, however, to the lengthy present work that absented the Madonna for seven years from her usual place in the Basilica, but apparently alludes to an earlier episode when the much loved icon was moved to a new site in the church before being returned to her normal stance near the main altar.

The Opificio delle Pietre Dure, which literally means “Workshop of the Semi-Precious Stones” was set up in 1588 by Ferdinando I dè Medici and specialized in inlaid work and mosaics. It is now the world's leading conservation and restoration institute.

Info: Tel. +0039.055.26511 https://opificiodellepietredure.cultura.gov.it

YEAR OF HONOURS FOR MUSICIAN PIERLUIGI DA PALESTRINA

Some of the world's most important polyphonic choirs are converging on Palestrina, a small town near Rome, to celebrate the 500^th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, considered one of the greatest 16^th century Italian musicians and developer of counterpoint.

The celebrations, coordinated by the Pierluigi da Palestrina Foundation and the Italian Ministry of Culture, kicked off on the 11^th January 2025 with a performance by the University of Minnesota choir (USA), followed by the leading British vocal ensemble, The Tallis Scholars.

The year's programme also features the Sistine Chapel Choir from Rome, the Westminster Cathedral Choir (UK), the Lex Pacis choir of Tokyo among others.

The Foundation also scored a coup this anniversary year, with the acquisition of a portrait of the musician dated 1566, former property of a private American collector. The portrait, which is also the subject of a commemorative stamp issued by the Italian Post Office, will be hung next to a later portrait hanging in the Museum dedicated to the musician, which is situated in his former home in the historic centre of the town of Palestrina.

1000. STENHOUSE

      Info: Tel. +39.06.9538083 www.fondazionepierluigipalestrina.it