ItalyUpdate

ARIAS FLOAT DOWN THE TIBER

The Tiber river was the unusual setting for opera performances of Giacomo Puccini's evergreen“Tosca” between the 21^st - 27^th July 2025. Jubilee visitors to Rome crowded the river embankments and the Ponte Sant'Angelo (Bridge of the Angel) to listen to soprano Elena lo Forte, together with baritones Fabio Andreotti and Alessio Quaresima, singing the celebrated arias from Puccini's tragic tale that was set in nearby Castel Sant'Angelo. The singers floated by on a boat which plied the tract of river in the city centre between the Vatican and Ponte Garibaldi under the Aventine Hill.

“Tosca lungo il Tevere” was part of the initiative “Lungo il Tevere Roma...un fiume di Cultura” (along the Tiber...a river of culture”) an initiative sponsored by the Lazio regional council and launched in 2018, but then suspended. This edition is also enhanced visually with projections of videos depicting “Tosca's Rome” on the embankment walls.

Organizers hope that the initiative will become a regular feature of the Roman summer festivals.

M.STENHOUSE

Source: “OggiRoma” www.oggiroma.it

CARUSO AT HOME

Enrico Caruso, hailed one of the greatest tenors of all time, has had to wait almost a century to receive appropriate homage in his home city, Naples. However, in compensation, he now has two museums dedicated to his memory. One is in the prestigious seat of the Royal Palace of Naples, where a collection of memorabilia is on display in a suite of rooms dedicated to him. By contrast, the other is in the humble house in a crowded street spanned by a modern flyover where he was born. The Casa Museo Caruso (Caruso House Museum) was inaugurated in 2021, after extensive efforts on the part of his great grandson and a group of eminent local music lovers as part of the 150^th anniversary celebrations of his birth in 1873.

The compact collection displays items, some of which came from the Enrico Caruso Museum of America in Brooklyn, New York, as well as important donations from collector Luciano Pituello, with vintage gramophones, original autographed music scores his walking stick and some watercolours painted by Caruso who was also a gifted artist. The Casa Museo Caruso is active, not only as a place of memory, but also organizes regular concerts and international singing contests.

Caruso died young, at the age of 48, while he was staying at the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria in Sorrento, hoping that the mild climate and the sea air would help him to recover his health. The suite of rooms he stayed in has been preserved and modern singer and musician Lucio Dalla was inspired to compose the modern hit “Caruso” there.

2025 is being hailed as the 2500^th anniversary of the city of Naples, which was founded sometime around 600 BC by Greek colonists and celebrations will focus on the city/s rich artistic and musical heritage

M. STENHOUSE

Info: Caruso Casa Museo: Tel. 39.3404844132/3809070300   Museo Caruso in Palazzo Reale, Naples: 0815808255

ITALY'S BEST BREAD OF THE YEAR

The Gambero Rosso, Italy's leading authority on food and wine, has awarded a little known bakery in Milazzo, Sicily, the prestigious nomination of “Best Bread of the Year.”

The bakery, run by Antonio Palana and Michela di Rubbo – both relatively knew to the bakery business, triumphed over hundreds of rivals all over Italy with their new formula of “pane cunzato” (dialect for a “filled roll”).

Their loaf, weighing a ponderous 4-5 kilos, has a dark crust, flavoured with sun-dried tomatoes and strictly local olive oil from Nocellara del Belice.

Neither Antonio or Michela come from the traditional bakery trade. Antonio was a railway employee and Michela was involved in the administration of theatrical companies. They took the plunge to invest in their bakery cum bar, the Frangipane Forno e Cucina, in 2024.

Info: Tel. +39.3514245615 (Gambero Rosso): +39.06.55112211 www.academy@gamberorosso.it

ORESTIADI: UNIQUE FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

The Orestiadi, one of the world's most unusual and innovative arts festivals, is now in full swing, enlivening the nights at Gibellina (Ragusa) in the Bellice Valley of Sicily.

The Festival, created in 1918 by the town's visionary mayor Ludovico Corrao, is a two month-long feast of contemporary culture, with a programme of theatre, music, literature and cinema that runs until the beginning of August in the unique setting of the re-created town of Gibellina, which was destroyed in an earthquake in 1968.

The Festival takes its name from the trilogy by the innovative Vth century BC Greek writer Aeschylus, which is believed to have been written and first performed in the area.

The highlights of the Festival are programmed between the 4^th-18^th July 2025 and close on the 25^th July with a special tribute to Sicilia author Andrea Camilleri, creator of the Montalbano series, whose birth centenary falls this year. David Lynch, innovative American film producer, who died at the beginning of this year, has another tribute on the 27^th July.

The Grand Finale, however, will be staged in the unique setting of the Cretto di Burri, the massive concrete reconstruction of the original street plan and buildings of the lost village, which was reconstructed some miles away. Controversial at the time, the revolutionary 85,000 sqm coalina and vinavil monument is now recognized as one of the most original and extraordinary 20^th century works of art.

Gibellina has been elected the first Italian Capital of Contemporary Art 2026.

Info: Tel. +39.0924..67844 www.fondazioneorestiadi.it

ORESTIADI: UNIQUE FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

The Orestiadi, one of the world's most unusual and innovative arts festivals, is now in full swing, enlivening the nights at Gibellina (Ragusa) in the Bellice Valley of Sicily.

The Festival, created in 1918 by the town's visionary mayor Ludovico Corrao, is a two month-long feast of contemporary culture, with a programme of theatre, music, literature and cinema that runs until the beginning of August in the unique setting of the re-created town of Gibellina, which was destroyed in an earthquake in 1968.

The Festival takes its name from the trilogy by the innovative Vth century BC Greek writer Aeschylus, which is believed to have been written and first performed in the area.

The highlights of the Festival are programmed between the 4^th-18^th July 2025 and close on the 25^th July with a special tribute to Sicilia author Andrea Camilleri, creator of the Montalbano series, whose birth centenary falls this year. David Lynch, innovative American film producer, who died at the beginning of this year, has another tribute on the 27^th July.

The Grand Finale, however, will be staged in the unique setting of the Cretto di Burri, the massive concrete reconstruction of the original street plan and buildings of the lost village, which was reconstructed some miles away. Controversial at the time, the revolutionary 85,000 sqm coalina and vinavil monument is now recognized as one of the most original and extraordinary 20^th century works of art.

Gibellina has been elected the first Italian Capital of Contemporary Art 2026.

Info: Tel. +39.0924..67844 www.fondazioneorestiadi.it

ARTE NOUVEAU IMMERSION WEEK

Seventy Italian cities are participating in the present edition of Arte Nouveau Week (8-14 July 2025). The event, a grand tribute at European level to the artistic movement also known as Liberty, that dominated the art, architecture, crafts and design projects in many European towns and cities during the end of the 19^th century and early 20^th century until the outbreak of WW1.

The Italian version of the celebrations, that takes as its theme the butterfly motive designed by Arte Nouveau pioneer Eugene Grasset for the “Ver Sacrum” or Sacred Spring rituals, used for the US Putnam Fadeless Dyes Co. includes a programme of specialized guided cultural itineraries and lectures, coordinated by Prof.Andrea Speziali of the Italian Liberty Association, with access to numerous buildings usually closed to the public.

Among the tours programmed there are:

1) “Puglia Modernista” (9^th - 11^th July 2025) by coach, taking in Bari, Lecce, Trani, Barletta and others),

2) Freccia Liberty, Trains for Enthusiasts (8^th - 14^th July, a train trip from Northern Italy to the South, calling at 10 historic Italian stations decorated in Liberty style.

3) “Eterno Liberty. The dream of Art Nouveau (8^th July-12^th August) a deluxe tour in train and private plane, including stays in top class hotels and theatre performances.

Sicily also launches a programme of guided tours to the exhibition “Modernism in Sicily from Liberty to Arte Deco”, as well as a special opening of Villa Pottino (Palermo) with the exhibition “la Belle Epoque at Palermo between Art, Fashion and History”, plus a guided tour of Villa Ardizzone at Catania and the Liberty House Museum at Chiaramonte Gulfi (Ragusa), with works by Basile, Lalique, Legras and others. A special treat on offer is a dawn visit to Palermo's historic Liberty bathing establishment at the celebrated Mondello Beach.

Photos: Villino Florio and Casa Lazzara by Phil Lewis

M. STENHOUSE

Info:Associazione ITALIA LIBERTY: Tel. +39.3200445798 www.italialiberty.it

NAPLES' DOLLS HOSPITAL

A once obscure little craft laboratory in the rambling heart of Naples has become a major tourist attraction, on par with the city's celebrated churches and monuments. The Ospedale delle Bambole (Doll's Hospital) with its incorporated laboratory welcomes some 60,000 visitors yearly, as it carries on meanwhile with its work of repairing and restoring dolls, teddy bears, rocking horses and other traditional and well-loved toys.

The entire operation is run by one family – the Grassi family, now into the fourth generation. It began in 1895, when the founder, Luigi Grassi, a scenographer and stage designer specialized in repairing marionettes for the traditional puppet theatres, set up his repair shop in the heart of the Spaccanapoli district, where it became known as “the Doll's Hospital”.

Today, the business is carried on byTiziana, Luigi's great grand-daughter.

Situated in the courtyard of the imposing Marigliano Palace in the street of San Biagio dei Librai, the booksellers' street, “L'Ospedale delle Bambole” has now become one of the most visited and photographed sights of Naples.

Info:Tel. 39.081.18639797

PADUA'S LAVENDER LABYRINTH OF THE TEMPLARS

A kilometre of circular track leads through the perfumed world of the Lavender Labyrinth in the countryside near Padua. This new visitor draw has been created by Valentina Galesso, proprietor of the “Va Oltre” farm at Bovolento.

Claimed to be the “biggest labyrinth in Italy, “ its design is inspired by the mystical circular maze traced out on the floor of the medieval Cathedral of Notre Dame des Chartres, some 80 kms from Paris, noted for its connections with the Order of the Knights Templar. For the Order, the labyrinth represented the mystery path to initiation and revelation.

Visitors are usually more captivated by the heady perfume of the lavender flowers which are harvested and transformed by Valentina into curative lotions and beauty aids.

Info: +39.329'2253700 www.vaoltrelatenuta.it

A TRIBUTE TO TWO POLISH QUEENS

Rome's Capitoline Museum is launching a series of special exhibitions focussed on international events and personages that have made a particular impact on the city of Rome.

The first, launched on the 11^th June, concentrates on two royal women who lived for a long period in a kind of self-imposed guilded exile in the Eternal City, leaving permanent traces of their passage.

“A Polish Queen on Capitol Hill: Maria Casimira and the Royal Sobiesky family in Rome” is the title of the first appointment, which also encompasses her grand-daughter Maria Clememntina, who married the exiled Stuart Pretender to the British throne, James I11 or V111.

Both women were highly educated and cultured and left many visible traces of their long sojourns in Rome.

Maria Casimira was the widow of the hero King of Poland, James III Sobieski, who defeated the Turkish forces at the gates of Vienna, thus saving Christian Europe from an Islamic takeover. She was also the first woman to be accepted into the Roman “Arcadia”, a highly selective “club” dedicated to poetry and music.

Maria Clementina had two sons, the eldest of which (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”) expected to recapture the “usurped” London throne from their Protestant German cousin George of the Royal House of Hannover. George had been nominated King by the British Parliament to stave off threats of a return of the Roman Catholic Stuarts.

The exhibition, correlated by the Polish Embassy, the Polish Institute and the Polish Academy of Science in Rome, contains some 60 works, many of which from private collections and on view to the public for the first time. They include paintings and portraits, prints, sculptures and various memorabilia.

“Una Regina polacca in Campidoglio: Maria Casimira e la Famiglia reale Sobieski a Roma” runs until the 21^st september 2025.

Info: Tel,+39.060608 https://www.museicapitolini.org

ITALY GROOMS TOMORROW'S TENNIS CHAMPIONS

The Italian Tennis Foundation, a charity founded in 2018 by a group of Italian professional players, is expanding its operations to include the Balkan states of Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro, with the aim of giving promising young athletes from those countries, in addition to Italians, the chance to train for a year with top level coaches and participate in international competitions.

The previous edition, entitled “Little Tennis Champions”, sponsored by a leading Italian bank, guided participants through 42 international tournaments in which they won 33 titles, 23 finals and reached 46 semi-finals over the three-year course.

The new edition, entitled “Little Tennis Champions 2025-2026”, which is sponsored by the Piedmont Region, the City ofTurin, the Sport for Health organization and a group of local and international industrialists, aims to concentrate on emerging male and female talents, in which the priority choice will be given to potential players of par standard whose financial situation would not allow them to train at such a high level.

Info: Tel. 011.03733510     www.itennisfoundation.com

THE GARDENS OF POMPEII

Archaeologists are no longer concentrating exclusively on unearthing and reconstructing the walls and buildings of the buried city of Pompeii. The emphasize is now on examining and representing the buildings in their contest, their relationship to each other and their surroundings.

A recent addition to visitor experience is the recreation of gardens, vineyards and the plant life that flourished before the fatal eruption. Thanks to research carried out, by the Association Romeantiqua the garden of the so-called Villa of Hercules has been planted out

as it was in the past.

The III BC House was given this name because a marble statuette of the mythical Greek hero Hercules that was found in the garden. The villa is now believed to have been a commercial enterprise, with flower cultivation and a perfumery.

The garden has been recreated as it was, thanks to botanical research carried out on seeds and organic remains in the soil. The work involved the planting of 800 antique roses, 1,200 violas, 1000 plants of butcher's broom, plus a pergola of vines, and an orchard of cherry trees, quinces and other fruits typical of the ancient Roman world.

For the moment, the garden can be visited once a week, in rotation with other important villas in the Pompeiian site.

Info: Tel. +39.081.8575347 https://pompeiisites.org