Round the World with Us

Often thought of as the cradle of modern Western civilization, Italy’s history is as rich as its food.  Sicily and the southern coast were colonized by the Ancient Greeks in the 8^th century BCE and as the Greek empire fell, Rome gained prominence, exploring and conquering lands from England to Mediterranean Africa to Persia in the east. Medieval Italy was the center of the Christian Church, which left us breath taking cathedrals, vivid paintings, and imaginative writing and philosophy, even before it became the birth of the Renaissance.

Influenced by the Byzantine Empire as well as Italy’s own rich history, the Renaissance (meaning “rebirth”) was an awakening of society to art, music, and literature, to discourse and sensuality. The Florentine painter Giotto (1267-1337) inspired generations of innovative artists, including the sculptor Donatello (1386-1466), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), and Michelangelo (1475-1564), to achieve new expressive heights. In music, composers such as Palestrina (1525-1594) pushed the envelopes of polyphony, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was among the first to write opera, and the nobleman and murderer Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613) experimented with chromaticism and dissonances that weren’t tried again for three hundred years.

Italy unified in the 1861 and began industrialization and colonization of Africa. Out of the ashes of the destruction of World War I and the Russian Revolution was born the National Fascist Party, headed by Benito Mussolini, which joined with the Nazis of Germany in ravaging Europe and Africa in the 1930s and 40s. Since the end of World War II and Italy’s democratization, the Italian people and culture have flourished once again. Now a destination for tourists, pilgrims, and even movie stars, Italy’s diverse regions all take pride in their history, their food, and their way of life.