Ageless Corporations

Why Italians like old things has fascinated me since I learned that the oldest bank in the world is in Italy.  Banca Monte dei Paschi was founded in 1472 in Siena.  Today, it’s not only still in business but is Italy’s 3rd largest bank. Banca Monte dei...

From Calabria to Chicagoland

Though writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous phrase “There are no second acts in American lives” has long been disproven (think of Clint Eastwood winning his second-Best Director Oscar in his 70s after winning one ten years earlier in his 60s),...

Our Saintly Competition

This week the Irish celebrate an Italic saint while we celebrate a Jewish one.  Modern Romanophiles still celebrate Matronalia, motherhood & feminism The Roman St. Patrick not only led the conversion of heathen Celts but taught them to read and write in...

Can You Imagine?

So, President Trump wants to place a statue of Columbus on White House grounds.  It’s no secret that Trump wants to restore America’s traditional heroes and the Great Navigator not only opened the New World but propelled Western Civilization to global leadership....

Competing Legacies

The Jews are truly blessed.  Last September, the National Endowment for the Humanities, a government funded honeypot, awarded the Jewish nonprofit Tikvah $10.4 million to inform Americans how wonderful the People of the Book are.  It was the largest gift in...

WHEN IN ROME

I have long given up on American filmmakers ever doing justice to Italy on the screen. Granted, it’s hard for any filmmaker who didn’t grow up in a specific country to know all about its cultural or historical nuances, even routine things like the way...