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Tu Scendi dalle Stelle Posted by Serena on Dec 23, 2011
“Tu scendi dalle stelle” (“You come down from the stars”), written in 1754 by Sant’Alfonso Maria de Liguori (b. in Napoli, 1696 – d. 1787), is our most famous and most loved Italian Christmas carol. Its music is based on a folk theme traditionally played on zampogne (bagpipes). Several years later, de Liguori wrote another…
Gli Struffoli Posted by Serena on Dec 21, 2011
It’s Christmas and here in Italy one of the ubiquitous symbols of this period is the famous Panettone. However, this cake, which is originally from Milano, only became popular throughout Italy thanks to the food companies Motta and Alemagna, who began to produce it on an industrial scale in the Fifties. In Napoli, on the…
Una Visita a Frasassi Posted by Serena on Dec 19, 2011
Il Duomo di Milano (Milan Cathedral), at 108.50 meters high and covering an area of 11.700 square meters, is the fourth largest church in Europe. Yet there is an enclosed space here in Italy that could swallow the cathedral whole! L’Abisso Ancona, altezza 200 metri, lunghezza 180 metri, e larghezza 120 metri (The Ancona Abyss…
Innovazioni Italiane – Part 2 Posted by Serena on Dec 16, 2011
In part 1 of this blog we began to look at some of the Italian innovations of the last 150 years since Italy’s unification. Let’s discover a bit more about Italian inventiveness: 1. L’Aliscafo (The Hydrofoil) Enrico Forlanini, already well known for his aircraft, helicopters, and airships, tested the first prototype of his aliscafo in…
Addio a Mamma Coraggio Posted by Serena on Dec 14, 2011
On the 10th of December this year, Angela Casella, best known in Italy as ‘Mamma Coraggio’ (Mother Courage), died at the age of 65. The story begins on the evening of the 18th of January 1988, when her eighteen year old son Cesare Casella was kidnapped in his hometown of Pavia, in the North of…
L’Accento nei Verbi Posted by Serena on Dec 12, 2011
In Italian, we have fixed rules for the pronunciation of letters which, once learnt, make it much easier to understand the relationship between written and spoken language. Unfortunately, the same is not true for accents. Although there are rules for where accents fall in verbs there are also lots of exceptions. As for nouns, adjectives…
Innovazioni Italiane Posted by Serena on Dec 9, 2011
As you probably know, 2011 is the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification. I thought that it might be interesting to have a look at some of the most important Italian innovations that have been conceived during the last 150 years. 1. La Dinamo In 1859 professor of physics Antonio Pacinotti of Pisa designed what is…