As I’ve mentioned before, my Internet tours of Italy have provided me with many wonderful experiences, allowing me to visit places I have yet to see in person. Even if you have been to Italy, you may not have visited the places below. You won’t need to renew your passport, or even apply for one. Just find a comfortable chair, pour a glass of wine, and take the tour.

While all of us have heard of Pompeii, and some may know about Herculaneum, most have probably not heard of Stabiae. In the region of Campania, just a few miles from Pompeii, Stabiae – on the Bay of Naples – was the seaside summer home to many of Rome’s most wealthiest citizens. Under Spanish Bourbon rule in the mid-eighteenth century, the town was partially excavated, but the project was later abandoned. In the 1950s, a local historian sparked a renewed interest in the site, but throughout the 60s and 70s just a limited amount of excavation and reconstruction were completed.

In the late 1990s, an Italian student studying at the School of Architecture in Maryland pursued an earlier attempt to create an “archeological park.” With support from faculty and then the American Academy in Rome, The Restore Ancient Stabiae (RAS) Foundation was created to oversee and expedite the restoration.

In 2004, a tour of frescos and artwork began at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The exhibition is currently on display at the Chazen Museum of Art and will be in the United States until 2008. To help raise funds for the restoration of the frescos in Stabiae, RAS started Adopt A Fresco.

More about Stabiae

Villas and Frescos

Train Ride to Mt. Vesuvius

Northeast of Campania, in the city of Jesi in the Marches, the grapes for Italy’s famous Verdicchio wine are cultivated. The white grapes, used in making Frizzante and Spumante wine, are grown almost exclusively in the area known as Castelli di Jesi, Jesi Castles, named for the magnificent palaces built on the hills of ancient fortified towns

For those who live in or are visiting New York – more specifically Garden City on Long Island – the Cradle of Aviation Museum has one of the two remaining Savoia Marchetti S-56 amphibians. Savoia-Marchetti produced its first bi-plane in 1924 and continued to design and manufacture specialty airplanes until the 1940s.

Take a tour of the company’s aircraft

Voting for Thirty-One Days of Italians is in progress. Support Italian history and culture and help promote Italian American Heritage Month and VOTE!

 Marketing to promote Con Amore will soon begin. A revised edition is currently in print. Thanks to everyone who helped to make it even better!

 Last month’s newsletter included a review of Festa: Recipes and Recollections of Italian Holidays, by Helen Barolini. To clarify a few points, Barolini was born in New York – the state, not the city – and is the granddaughter of Italian immigrants. After a trip to Italy and her marriage to journalist Antonio Barolini, she gained a deeper interest that led her to write about Italian culture.

 An award-winning author and prolific writer, in 2002, Barolini was a featured speaker at a conference about Italian culture held in Washington, D.C. I came across the text of her lecture, Italicity, and share it with you. In the months to come, I’ll be reading more of her books, and will be writing about them in future issues of Tutto Italiano.

Buon anno, buon tutto, buona vita
Janice Therese Mancuso
Author of Con Amore

www.jtmancuso.com
Thirty-One Days of Italians

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