The Monster of Florence is a true crime tale about a serial killer who terrorized the Tuscan hills around Florence for almost 20 years.

Here's a great way to bring Italy home - learn how to make Bolognese sauce! There are dozens of instructional videos out there on how to make hearty Bolognese sauce. This one from GialloZafferano, a well-known Italian cuisine website and YouTube channel, is one of the most authentic ones that I ...

It has been a little under two weeks since Italy announced the findings in the Brunello di Montalcino scandal. In case you haven't been following this case, Italian authorities — prompted by the United States — started an investigation to find out whether some renowned manufacturers of Brunello ...

Last November, the New York Review of Books released Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio under its NYRB Classics imprint. The tale, as reviewed by Tim Parks in the latest issue, is much darker than the Disneyfied version. After the jump is Parks' full review. As always, I urge you to ...

Farewell to Christopher Hibbert, whose biographies of Rome and the Medici family established him as one of the foremost authorities on Italy's history.

Italian wine enthusiasts (that includes most of us, right?) may find this past weekend's 60 Minutes story on Italy's Antinori family intriguing. https://youtu.be/UcyqizOfAic "All in the Family" story on the Antinori wine family on CBS 60 Minutes. Also available here. Considered one of ...

Tuscany has more than a dozen wine routes. These are known collectively as Le Strade del Vino.

Skiing and sledding within a tank of gas from Rome.

Rome's famous Renaissance street, Via Giulia, is celebrating its 500th anniversary this year. And, the New York Times' Elisabeth Rosenthal provides the history and descriptions of the streets' sites in her article A Stroll in Rome With a Papal Pedigree. Usually an unharried street, Via Giulia is ...

I am supremely excited about two new nonfiction books this summer: The Monster of Florence and Rome 1960. Both books describe tumultuous times in central Italy. The first is a period of time in Florence when an unknown predator (or predators) "stalked lovers' lanes in the countryside." The ...

Salman Rushdie imagines Renaissance Florence in his new book "The Enchantress of Florence."

A round-up of food festivals in Le Marche.

On April 24, the new tomb of Padre Pio was unveiled in the Puglian city of San Giovanni Rotondo. The new tomb now features the exhumed body of Italy's most recent homegrown saint, who died in 1968 and who was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 2002. According to Ian Fisher's San Giovanni Rotondo ...

We recently profiled the Civilized Shopper's Guides to Rome and Florence, two handy shopping guides for two of Italy's most popular cities. Landing on bookshelves this week is the second edition of Made in Italy: A Shopper's Guide to Italy's Best Artisanal Traditions from Murano Glass to ...

One of the pleasures of visiting Tuscany is having the chance to drive the fertile hills of wine country, sampling reds and whites along the way. Most travelers really only think of Chianti, a mini-region within Tuscany, when thinking about Tuscan wine. But another vino hotspot is Montalcino. ...

Just in time for Passover, I've found a great resource for all things Jewish in Italy. JewishItaly.org has links and info to synagogues, kosher stores, Jewish museums, and more. If you are Jewish or just interested in Jewish culture and history, you can also browse JewishItaly's list of towns that ...

  It's one thing to go to Italy and bring back photos, cheap souvenirs, and designer clothing that you could have bought at just about any department store or outlet. It's quite another to bring back items that Italy is known for - quality leather, handmade paper, artisan chocolate, etc. That's ...

San Giovanni in Laterano (St. John Lateran) is the basilica dedicated to the Bishop of Rome, better known as the Pope. It is where the Pope delivers his Holy Week address on Holy Thursday. On the porch of St. John Lateran This massive church not far from the Colosseum is one of four ancient ...