I think I have got straight, to my satisfaction at least, what makes Italy, and especially Rome, so special. It is not even beauty; it is what beauty points to. Think of Samuel Johnson's famous meditation on the isle of Iona:

We were now treading that illustrious Island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans ( Read more... )

Hundreds of former and current students spent six months to organize a huge reunion in Rome to celebrate the retirement of their old elementary school teacher, Giovanna Bittoni, who reached the legal retirement age after forty years of unbroken service in the same school, Villa Paganini. Several made time to come from abroad, as far as China, and ( Read more... )

bufo_viridis' suggestion that the Roman Republic must be seen as more aggressive than the Empire was not exactly what I meant either. So let me give you an overview of how I see early Roman history up to and including the Second Punic War; this, apart from anything else, will help to clear my own head with respect to subjects in which I am doing research, and ( Read more... )

...only a few days after Professor Carandini's discovery of the archaic royal palace on the Palatine, Vatican archaeologists have found what seems like the tomb of the Apostle Paul in the basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura. Wow...

Roman Legend Legitimized ( Read more... )