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...

What Ken Burns Left Out

Contrary to Ken Burns’ recent documentary on the American Revolution, it was a band of Italians, the ancient Romans—not the Iroquois—who served as the model for our fledgling republic. Those are Roman fasces mounted in the U.S. House of Representatives. Thomas...

Reflections on the Olympics

It was a Roman who penned the words everyone should live by: Mens Sana in Corpore Sano (“A sound mind in a healthy body”).  The Greeks invented the 4-year Olympics but the Romans made sports a daily competition.  When Italic settlers colonized...

“A CARNEVALE OGNI SCHERZO VALE!”

I mentioned in my last blog that even the coldest places on Earth (in the previous case, Alaska) have been touched by that great Italian hand (explorer Alessandro Malaspina). It’s now fitting to see what Italians are up to on their own turf during wintertime....

America is Well-Named

Forget Presidents’ Day!  The day we should be celebrating is February 15th; the day navigator Amerigo Vespucci took command of a Portuguese ship in 1502 and added two new continents to the world map. Amerigo Vespucci 1454-1512, aged 57 We all know the story of...