Highlights

A capacity crowd watched the Italian national team dominate its American counterpart during recent tournament play in the Chicago area. Italian volleyball fans in the Chicago area were delighted this summer to watch firsthand as the Italian national men’s team took on Team USA at NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates. The crowd was near the arena’s capacity of 11,218 and while the vast majority were wearing red, white and blue, there was a small but mighty contingent of fans supporting Team Italy. A few Italy fans waved the Tricolore and sang along to “Inno di Mameli” during the national anthems …

It all began with a journey. Not in the rhetorical sense of the term, but with real steps, into emptying villages, along silent streets, alongside faces filled with expectation and questions. It was the summer of 2015, and I had an urgent need: to tell the story of Basilicata not as a remote place, but as a space of possibility. Thus was born #IdealPlace — more than a project, a gentle obsession. A way of saying that even in territories considered peripheral, new words are being generated, visions capable of touching the heart of Italy’s transformations. Not just beauty, but …

I have my Grandmother Anna Anzalone Tinaglia’s old Italian “La Sacra Bibbia” from when she lived in the North Side neighborhood once known as Little Sicily. Her copy is well-worn and annotated by her. It’s from the American Bible Society, which gave out Bibles to new immigrants in America. It is a translation by G. Diodati, an Italian Protestant. It isn’t sanctioned by the Catholic Church, and for centuries it was prohibited. Giovanni Diodati was born in 1576 in Switzerland to a noble Protestant family from Lucca. Protestant exiles, his family had fled the Inquisition to find refuge in the …

All across Italy, private homes have been converted into public museums that spotlight aspects of the nation’s history while celebrating the individuals who helped shaped them. After you’ve marveled at the grandeur of the Colosseum, wandered along the endless halls and galleries of the Uffizi, and glided on the canals of Venice, Italy’s hidden gems — its house museums — are ready and waiting to immerse you in intimate histories, personal collections and unique glimpses into the lives of some of the country’s most fascinating figures. Far beyond the tourist trail, you’ll discover rich and engaging stories within the walls …

Most people are familiar with the traditional diatonic harmonica’s long, wailing notes and chords on blues and country songs. Yet there’s another version of the instrument that allows the musician to tear through three octaves of sharps and flats. Once cherished in jazz, classical and folk circles, the chromatic harmonica is disappearing from the musical landscape, and Enrico Granafei is one its few remaining masters. Granafei was born and raised in the Italian region of Calabria region, and as a young man took an interest in guitar. “I enrolled in a classical guitar course at the conservatory,” Granafei says from …

New Orleans, 1919. The cobblestone streets are filled with fancy carriages as well as carts pushed by vendors, many of them Italian American, selling fresh fruit, shrimp and oysters. As gas lanterns light the nighttime streets of the French Quarter, a new music is being born. Part ragtime, part blues, part march music, it’s called jazz. Decked out in high-collared shirts and dark suits and with their hair slicked back, Cosimo and the Hot Coals transport audiences back to that magical time when a new sound was born in New Orleans. Based in Milan, the band regularly performs throughout Italy …

A new Netflix series adaptation of “The Leopard,” based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s seminal novel, is captivating audiences worldwide. Directed by British filmmaker Tom Shankland, the series revisits the iconic tale first brought to the screen by Luchino Visconti in 1963. Set against the backdrop of 1860s Sicily during the Risorgimento, the film follows Prince Fabrizio Salina (Kim Rossi Stuart), an aging aristocrat witnessing the decline of the Sicilian nobility and the rise of a new social order. As Garibaldi’s forces land in Sicily, the prince reflects on the now-fleeting aristocratic way of life. His nephew Tancredi (Saul Nanni) …

An early example of commedia all’italiana, “Bravissimo” is a true classic of the genre. Directed by Luigi Filippo D’Amico and starring Alberto Sordi, the 1955 film blends satire with heartfelt moments, offering a critique of the entertainment industry and the exploitation of child prodigies. The story follows Ubaldo Impallato (Sordi), a substitute elementary-school teacher who supplements his income by running a tutoring program. Among the kids in his care is Gigetto, a 6-year-old with a rare musical talent. Ubaldo takes Gigetto under his wing, attempting to keep the boy safe from his greedy relatives while using him to chase his …

As the readers of this beautifully produced book will learn, the Arch of Titus is anything but uncomplicated. Most travelers to Rome who encounter the arch on their visits to the Roman Forum make a number of assumptions about it, all of which turn out to be wrong. Despite being called the Arch of Titus, it wasn’t built by that emperor, but by his younger brother, Domitian, shortly after Titus’ premature death in 81 A.D. The most famous sculpture on the arch is a panel on the inner portion that shows Roman soldiers carrying the spoils of the empire’s successful …

Salvatore Pane’s “The Neorealist in Winter” follows two well-crafted novels: “Last Call in the City of Bridges” (2012) and “The Theory of Almost Everything” (2018). Eleven stories done in a variety of voices and formal styles feature characters who are stumbling their way through American and Italian cultures, searching for ways to use what little is left of Italian-American identity to give their lives meaning in a confusing 21st century. This collection represents the best of what young writers who still claim their Italian ancestry have to offer. Throughout the stories, we meet characters raised on video games and fast …