ItalyUpdate

 

The cave town of Matera (Basilicata), which formed the backdrop for Mel Gibson's film “The Passion of Christ”, has put in its bid to be appointed European Capital of Culture 2019. Matera entered the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites of Humanity in 1993 and boasts the unique setting  of the “Sassi” (Rocks), former dwellings perched on the cliff-side and tunnelled out of the living rock, ancient frescoed rock-hewn churches and a 13^th century romanesque duomo.

 

The splendid setting of the Villa Bardini Museum of Florence will provide the backdrop for the work of Italy's famous fashion photographer Aldo Fallai, whose long collaboration with Giorgio Armani will be documented in over 200 fashion photographs, covering almost thirty years of collaboration with the Armani atelier.

 

The cave town of Matera (Basilicata), which formed the backdrop for Mel Gibson's film “The Passion of Christ”, has put in its bid to be appointed European Capital of Culture 2019. Matera entered the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites of Humanity in 1993 and boasts the unique setting  of the “Sassi” (Rocks), former dwellings perched on the cliff-side and tunnelled out of the living rock, ancient frescoed rock-hewn churches and a 13^th century romanesque duomo.

 

 

An  unusual combination of archaeology and sweet-making is on show until the 6^th January at the Royal Palace of Quisisana at Castellammare, near Naples. A team of master confectioners from the Italian Confectioners' Club have created a series of life-size reproductions of frescoes from the ancient Campania city of Stabiae in a sugar and gelatine paste, coloured with vegetable dyes.

Christmas markets are always fun and good places to pick up unusual gifts. Some of Italy's most characteristic Xmas markets are : the historic Piazza Navona market in Rome, with stalls arrayed around Bernini's spectacular River Fountains, the Christmas crib market in Naples Via San Gregorio Armeno, lined with the shops of craftsmen who have been making traditional Presepi (Nativity scenes) for generations and the Alto Adige market at Trento, full of handcrafts, biscuits and bakes.

The Centro Storico Fiat (Historic Fiat Museum) of Turin is making the proud claim that it has scored more I like facebook hits in the last six months than the Uffizi Galleries and the Vatican Museums put together. Inaugurated in 1963, the museum can now say it is the most popular museum on Facebook, with 100,000 fans and 35,000 śtalking about it.

Strolling around the medieval castle in the heart of Fondi, a lively market town near Terracina (Lazio), you can catch the strains of music wafting from the door of Amleto Parisi's barber's shop.  Amleto himself sits at the back playing the drum kit. His friends, Aldo Narlo, Fernando Nunziata, Domenica Paparello and Marco Sutzu, take turns with the mike, singing Italian, Latin american and American old favourites.

The city of Salerno (Campania) will once more draw an expected 500.000 visitors during the festive season to admire its mouth-dropping display of Luci d'Artista (decorative street lighting designed by Italian and foreign artists.

Winter rings in the season for opera lovers in Italy, and this is a special year with tributes to Verdi, one of the most popular opera composers, on the occasion of his Bicentenary. Rome came first, with a triumphal start-off featuring one of the composer's earliest works, Ernani, conducted by Riccardo Muti. The premiere was attended by the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, and his wife, Clio.

The town of Gubbio (Umbria), famed for its legendary wolf tamed by St. Francis of Assisi as well as its annual procession of enormous ceri, switches on the 750 coloured lights that illuminate the outline of a giant Christmas Tree stretching up the slopes of  neighbouring Mount Ingino on the 7 December 2013.