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The director of the Vatican’s museums has warned Italy’s cultural heritage is ”vanishing” after prosecutors in Naples said two more people had been arrested on suspicion of taking part in a ”premeditated, organised and brutal” sacking of the city’s 16th century Girolamini Library.
It's an interesting time for e-commerce as luxury brands figure out how to stay exclusive, personal and ultimately desirable while the whole world watches on. The latest such label is Etro, the Italian family owned and run business founded by Gimmo Etro in 1968 comprising women's and menswear, accessories, home and fragrance divisions.
Equivalent of one university fewer in ten years. Enrolments down from 338,482 in 2003-2004 to 280,144 in 2011-2012. Shrinking teaching staff Undergraduates, graduates, post-grads, teaching staff and funds are all on the decline as Italy’s universities struggle. The warning comes from the national university council (CUN) in a paper addressed to the current government, Parliament and political parties involved in the upcoming election “but above all to the nation”.
When Liane de Pougy, one of the most celebrated Parisian courtesans, visited Florence, a famous admirer sent a carriage filled with roses to collect her. As she descended the steps, his servants threw more roses at her...This was none other than Gabriele D'Annunzio, the poet and lothario who seduced Italy to wartime slaughter with his rhetoric, scandalised Europe with his writing and set up his own city state in a forerunner of fascism.
One of Britain’s most sought-after conductors has found himself at the centre of a bitter row between Milan’s La Scala opera house and the theatre’s fiercest critic after being accused of making Wagner sound “homosexual”. The furore began when Daniel Harding, who has enjoyed a high-flying career since being appointed Sir Simon Rattle’s assistant as a teenager, was subjected to withering criticism by Paolo Isotta, a feared opera reviewer.
Thousands gathered in Saint Mark's Square in Venice on Sunday to watch the Flight of the Angel, one of the highlights of the Italian city's annual Carnival. In the traditional celebration - which in various forms dates back centuries - a woman dressed in a Carnival costume descends from the bell tower of Saint Mark's Basilica attached to a wire.
The Italian newspaper ‘Il Messaggero’ reports that several experts have identified a Caravaggio painting of St John the Baptist believed to have been lost. St John the Baptist was a frequent subject in the Italian painter’s work and the rediscovered painting showing a youth with a shepherd and a sheep is believed to depict the saint as a young man.
Puglia Governor and leader of the Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) party Nichi Vendola on Monday compared ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi to disgraced TV personality Wanna Marchi. Vendola, speaking at a conference at ANSA's historic headquarters in Rome was referring to Berlusconi's promise to scrap a highly unpopular housing tax if his coalition wins in the upcoming elections.
Sixteen people were injured, including two seriously, when the ATR-72 plane veered off the runway at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport at the weekend, coming to rest on a grassy verge with its landing gear mangled.
Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi announced Monday he had a "shock" proposal as part of the centre right's election campaign. The three-time Italian premier promised to scrap the IMU property tax if his coalition wins the election, a prospect that is no longer as unlikely as it once seemed after a media blitz by the 76-year-old helped the centre right make massive inroads in the centre-left's lead in the polls.