“Searching for Italy: Sicily”

In the final episode of CNN’s Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci says he ate some of the best food he’s ever tasted in Italy. I think I know the possible reason why, backed up by much of what he highlights and says in this episode: It’s because...

Victims of the Press

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is reportedly seeking solace from his political agony with the Black community, rather than the Italian American community – so reports the NYTimes. The irony is that Letitia James, his own Attorney General – a Black woman – initiated...

SEARCHING FOR ITALY: FLORENCE

In this week’s episode of CNN’s Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci returns to Firenze, known to the world by its Anglicized name, Florence. As a twelve-year-old, Tucci and his siblings lived in the great city while his father, also named Stanley,...

The Knives of March

March 15, 44 B.C. was the day Caius Julius Caesar was knifed by a clique of Roman senators intent on saving the Republic from dictatorship. Figuratively, the knives are also coming for another powerful scion of Italy in Albany, NY – Andrew Cuomo, 3-time governor of...

SEARCHING FOR ITALY: MILANO

The Romans called it Mediolanum, and in 286 the emperor Diocletian made it head of the Western Roman Empire. And it was there, in A.D. 313, that Emperor Constantine issued his famous Edict of Milan, paving the way for the rise of Christianity in Europe.  Stanley Tucci...

Victory by Immigration

Last week, the Mayor of Rome officially opened the Mausoleum of Augustus to the public.  The ashes of our greatest emperor were interred there in A.D. 14 as well as an engraved summary of his career called the Res Gestae (“Things Accomplished”).  Both his...