Italy

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• SOURCE: Vinepair
  

  Florence Revives Medieval Plague-Era ‘Wine Windows’ for Contactless Service

  In Florence, the need for bars and restaurants to serve food and drinks in a socially distanced manner has seen a medieval architectural oddity revived.

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• 5/17/2020
  

  A Mathematical Duel in 16th Century Venice (Excerpt)

  by Fabio Toscano translated Arturo Sangalli

  The advancement of mathematics in renaissance Italy was complicated by a context of secrecy, jealousy, and competitive dueling governed by implicit codes of honor.

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• 4/19/2020
  

  Has Italy Fallen, Again, to Dictatorship?

  by Christopher Binetti

  As a result of several factors--a tradition of temporary strongman leaders, a history of disguised dictatorship, and a unitary government for a regionally divided people--Italy has been more susceptible than other liberal democracies of falling into autocracy in the current COVID crisis. 

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• 4/12/2020
  

  HNN's Robin Lindley Interviews Medical Historian Frank Snowden

  by Robin Lindley

  Professor Frank Snowden discusses the situation in Italy, the progress of COVID-19 and governments' responses to it, and his career researching the history of epidemics.  

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• SOURCE: The Pantagraph
  3/31/2020
  

  Illinois State University Professor in Italy: "It Got Real Bad Real Fast"

  "I didn't take this thing as seriously as I should have. No one here really did," said Jasper. "It got real bad, real fast."

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• 3/29/2020
  

  Getting Medieval on COVID? The Risks of Periodizing Public Health

  by G. Geltner

  Pundits have described fighting the pandemic in terms of “medieval” or “modern” approaches. A historian of late medieval public health explains that dichotomy is a false one, and dangerous as well.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/1/2020
  

  What the Plague Can Teach Us about the Coronavirus

  by Hannah Marcus

  The distant past is not our best source of advice for pathogen containment. But it does offer clear lessons about human responses to outbreaks of infectious disease.

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• SOURCE: NY Times
  11/16/19
  

  New Statue Unsettles Italian City: Is It Celebrating a Poet or a Nationalist?

  Boasting a proud literary pedigree, Trieste is populated with statues. But none has provoked passions like that of Gabriele d’Annunzio, who inspired Fascism and briefly ruled his own state last century.

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  November 14, 2019
  

  A House in the Mountains by Caroline Moorehead review – a riveting tale of resistance in Turin

  by Tobias Jones

  A gripping narrative within A House in the Mountains by Caroline Moorehead of four extraordinary women who delivered intelligence, letters and weaponry in the cause of resisting the German occupation of Italy

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• 10/13/19
  

  The Original War on Terror

  by Eric Laursen

  A review of Nunzio Pernicone and Fraser M. Ottanelli, Assassins against the Old Order: Italian Anarchist Violence in Fin de Siècle Europe.

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  9/25/19
  

  Beware, Democrats. Impeaching Trump will backfire

  by Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti

  From a legal point of view, the case for impeaching Trump may well be difficult to resist. Politically, though, it’s a different story.

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• 9/15/19
  

  Autocrats do not need a majority to destroy democracy. A divided opposition helps them.

  by Claudia Koonz

  Trump is not a despot. But neither were Mussolini and Hitler early on.

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• 6/2/19
  

  Remembering Rome's Liberation

  by Gregory Sumner

  Amid the anniversary of the D-Day invasion, it is important to note, too, the anniversary of an event that unfolded just two days earlier: the Allied liberation of Rome. 

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  3/12/19
  

  After 100 years, Mussolini’s fascist party is a reminder of the fragility of freedom

  by Richard Gunderman

  People all over the world need to remember that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

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• SOURCE: NYT
  12-27-2018
  

  For Italy’s Populists, Everything Is a Nationalist Cause. Even Leonardo.

  The hard-right government has accused the French of disrespect and of trying to culturally appropriate the artist in a dispute over loaning his works.

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• SOURCE: Newsweek
  8-13-18
  

  Italians Played Active Role in Holocaust, Professor Claims in "Historiographical Counterblast"

  A recently translated book about the Holocaust has claimed that Italian citizens played a crucial and enthusiastic role in the Nazi genocide during World War II.

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• SOURCE: The Christian Science Monitor
  10-25-17
  

  Italy uses Anne Frank's diary to combat anti-Semitism at sports games

  After anti-Semitic stickers were strewn around Italian soccer club Lazio's stadium, the team and the Italian soccer federation are taking steps to combat racism and anti-Semitism at games, including reading a passage aloud from Anne Frank's diary before matches.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  7-28-17
  

  Can Italy deal with its fascist past?

  by Sabina Loriga

  Politicians hope that a "museum of fascism" in Benito Mussolini's hometown can help the country face its demons. Historians aren't so sure.

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• SOURCE: NYT
  4-24-17
  

  500 Years After Expulsion, Sicily’s Jews Reclaim a Lost History

  More than 500 years after Sicily’s Jews were banished from this island in 1492, a nascent Jewish community is planting fresh roots in the Sicilian capital, reclaiming a lost, often painful, history, this time with the aid of the local diocese.

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• SOURCE: The Art Newspaper
  10-31-16
  

  Norcia's Basilica of San Benedetto among historic sites destroyed by latest Italian earthquake

  Fourth tremor in three months brings central Italy 'to its knees'