Literary Italy: Recent Episodes
Anne Schuchman and James Berrettini
Anne and Jim welcome you to Literary Italy, a joyous romp through the books and the landscape of the bel paese. Join us as we share our love of the literature, the people, the land, and the experience that is Italy.
Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtier raises questions such as "What are the qualities the perfect gentleman?", "What are the qualities of language that are suitable for writing?", and "What is the proper balance between artifice and sincerity?".
Wake up, Yana!
Can't get enough of your love, babe. Or of Dante. This episode we read Dante's New Life to get a kind of prequel to The Divine Comedy.
- Catherine Project
- Frisardi's translation of Vita Nuova (online)
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation on Librivox (online audiobook)
- Mark Musa's translation in paperback
- Cervigni and Vasta's translation in paperback
Another episode in Lombardy, this time featuring poet, politico, and salon host Veronica Gàmbara.
Cesare Beccaria, author of On Crimes and Punishments(Dei delitti e delle pene) political philosopher, forgotten philosophe, 18th century influencer extraordinaire, arguably had more citations by the first American presidents than John Locke had. We talk about his life and his native city of Milan. (Also -- James Madison's height: 5ft 4in. ) Enjoy!
We read The Leopard, a novel of the Risorgimento, a tragic-comic story of romance, war, and a stuffed dog.
Vincent Schiavelli, character actor, chef, and author is the our subject! We look at his book Many Beautiful Things, his wonderfully idiosyncratic memoir/cookbook/fable-collection. Anne and Jim are still scheming to get to Sicily. Maybe we're closer to pulling the trigger. Who knows? In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this feast.
You got horror in my magical realism. You got magical realism in my horror. -- It's delicious! This week, we talk Dino Buzzati (whom Jim distressingly insists on referring to as "Dee Butts") and his short story "The Bewitched Jacket." Then, we longingly look to the northeast and contemplate the beautiful Dolomite sub-range of the Alps. Plus random musings. Enjoy!
The Dynamic Duo are back, this time with a feature on novelist Federigo Tozzi. We read his short story "A Bender"
This week we talk about A House in Sicily, a 1999 memoir by Daphne Phelps. Phelps was the owner of Casa Cuseni, a hotel for artists and writers that opened in 1947. It takes guests to this day while also serving as a museum in Taormina.
We all know Michelangelo as a giant of sculpture and painting, but, a true "Renaissance Man," he also wrote hundreds of poems. Anne and Jim dip into the life of this fascinating figure.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show on Michelangelo's poetry
Our guest this week is Wendy Holloway, host of Flavor of Italy, a weekly podcast focused Italian food, culture, and travel. Wendy shares with us springtime foods and traditions of Rome and beyond. What could be better than a picnic of fava beans and pecorino cheese? Be sure to check out Wendy's website for stories, travel tips, and some pretty amazing recipes!
Anne and Jim are back in Tuscany for E. M. Forster's A Room with a View, which helped them love Italy and Florence before they had ever set eyes on it.
Our guest today is Jay Malarcher. Jay is Associate Professor and Program Director of Theater History and Criticism at West Virginia University. Also, he first introduced Anne and me to each other, many years ago at St. John’s College. He’s a dramaturge, director, actor, and a great friend of the show. Anne and I reflected on a performance we saw a few years ago of Carlo Goldini’s Servant of Two Masters, and we knew Jay would be the perfect person to talk about this play, as well as commedia dell’arte more broadly. He’s graciously agreed to an interview. Hope you enjoy it!
We're back with an episode on Dacia Maraini, one of the most fascinating and prolific Italian writers today. We talk about her memoir, Bagheria, named for the town of the same name just outside Palermo on the northern coast of Sicily.
Our guest today, Mike Aquilina, has been a friend of ours for years. A prolific writer and authority on Patristics (the writings of the Church Fathers). He’s also a lyricist with rock and roll icon Dion. Mike is the host of the Way of the Fathers podcast, and when we heard his episode on Marcus Minucius Felix and his dialogueOctavius, set in Ostia Antica just outside Rome, we thought, that ought to be an episode of Literary Italy. And now it is.
The short story "Cavalleria Rusticana" (translation online). Later, a tour of Catania, Giovanni Verga's birthplace.
In this episode, we talk about the importance of the Sicilian School, and read from the sonnets of Giacomo (Jacopo) da Lentini (alas, only in Tuscan and English -- the original Sicilian is lost to us). We also touch on the life of Frederick II of Sicily. Enjoy!
We get META all over the place. Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in Search of an Author is one of the most famous and most influential dramatic works of the 20th century. We talk about Pirandello, his hometown of Agrigento in Sicily, and, of course, those Six Characters...
In this episode we discuss poet Giuseppe Ungaretti's early collection, Allegria, recently translated into English by Geoffrey Brock. A poet of few words, but so much feeling. We also talk about Lucca in Tuscany, where Ungaretti's family was from, and Sagrado in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, in northeast Italy, where Ungaretti fought in World War I, and wrote many of these amazing poems.
Buona Befana! We celebrate New Year's and Epiphany with the a poem by Giovanni Pascoli.
Christmas markets in Italy! We talk about the Piazza Navona market in Rome, and the poet Giuseppe Gioacchino ("GG" to his friends) Belli, author of over 2,000 sonnets about priests, prostitutes, paupers, princes...and Piazza Navona!
This week we interview Elizabeth Namack and discuss her unique approach to Italian travel planning. Liz shares her perspective on trends in Italian travel as she tells the story of her personal journal from the United States to her life in Florence. Visit My Italian Treasures to learn more about her services and her attitudes toward travel!
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and we are getting dizzy from the evocation of the street scenes of Naples, with butcher shops dangling carcasses, the perfumed scents of flowers, herbs, vegetables, cod and eels! We read Mathilde Serao's "To the Tenth Muse." And Jim has a vivid hallucination of a mechanical monkey banging a cymbal. Please get us some help.
Anne and Jim travel south geographically and backwards in time to the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, witnessed by Pliny the Younger.
Cynthia Damon's translation of Pliny's letters on Pompeii
Map of Vesuvius, Misenum, Herculaneum, and Pompeii
Pliny's letters from Volcanoes of Europeby Scarth and Tanguy
In this episode we return to Dante and to Florence with Canto 2 of the Inferno! Dante is sort of like the middle of the Bingo card of Italian literature--plus this year marks the 700th anniversary of his death (Jim asks Anne during the podcast what the precise date is, and she fluffs and fumbles, but the answer is September 1321). In addition, we talk about some of our favorite slightly-off-the-beaten-path places to visit in Florence. Enjoy!
Join us for Anna Maria Ortese's "A Pair of Eyeglasses" in Neapolitan Chronicles (Italian: Il mare non bagna Napoli ). Published in English for the first time in decades in 2018, Ortese gives us a gritty glimpse of postwar Naples in a slice-of-life tale about . . . optometry. Ortese retired to Rapallo in Liguria and died there in 1998.
- Un paio di occhiali short film adaptation on YouTube.
- Neapolitan Chronicleson Amazon.com
Anne and Jim note their disappointing lack of Scooby Doo-like adventures in Umbria. Then they talk about 6 (5 1/2?) scary places in Italy!
- Poveglia
- Lucca and the legend of Lucida Mansi
- Benevento, the City of the Witches
- Capannori and the Oak of the Witches
- Triora, the Salem of Italy
- Werewolves of Puglia
Erin O'Rourke's translation as read by her.
In this episode we talk about Halloween traditions in Italy (especially Sicily and Sardinia) and the ghost/vampire story by Sicilian writer Luigi Capuana.
Jim's back from his walk on the Via Francigena from Siena to ROME! And a mere hours after his plane touches down on American soil, Anne interviews our jetlagged traveler to find out more about the experience, the towns he visited, the people he met, and (of course) the food he ate. And maybe it's true that, "No matter where you go, there you are." How would you like spend a two-week sabbatical walking two hundred miles in Italy?
A little bit of everything as we chat some more about Elena Ferrante, the Amalfi Coast, the island of Ischia, even Pisa! And Jim (nervously) talks about his plans to spend two weeks walking from Siena to Rome! That's three regions in one episode--a record! (Campania, Tuscany, and Lazio)
With his cookbook "Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well," Pellegrino Artusi revolutionized the idea of Italian home cooking, and 130 years later the book is still a bestseller in Italy. But in addition to offering delicious recipes, the book is just a fun read, as Artusi offers anecdotes about cooking, eating, and life in general! Buon appetito!!!
In this episode we’re talking about Cesare Pavese and the Piedmont region. Poetry and prose, city and country, wine and chocolate, love and loss: it’s all here!
I guess we can't get enough of islands! This time it's the island of Procida, just off the coast of Naples. Tucked between the more famous islands of Capri and Ischia, Procida quietly offers small fishing villages, stunning beaches and amazing seafood. Procida also plays a starring role in Elsa Morante's novel, Arturo's Island, and is set to hit the big time as Italy's Capital of Culture for 2022.
Today we're off to the beautiful isle of Sicily, for sea, sun . . . and murder. Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series of novels, and the entertaining RAI/BBC series that was made from them.
This week we're hoping to become a real boy! That's right, it's The Adventure of Pinocchio. The fourth most translated book in the world, it's a work for children and adults the world over. Anne and Jim go back to Tuscany with this episode, the birth place of Pinocchio's author Carlo Collodi.
You say, "Sardinia," but I say, "Sardegna" . . . Today, we read Grazia Deledda's Il Paese del Vento(Land of the Wind). Sadly, we haven't located an English translation, but Anne is working on that now! We also eye the island of Sardinia covetously and ask, "When can we get there?"
Cari Ascoltatori!
We’re taking a week of for a much needed vacation; we’ll be back with a story from the Bel Paese next week.
Thank all of you for listening, and for sharing ideas for upcoming shows! Here’s how to reach us:
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Let us know how things are going: should we do more old classics, more contemporary works, more poetry, more fiction, more culture and music, more travel information? Should we talk more about cooking? Let us know what you’d like to hear more of (or less of!), so please, make your voice heard, we’d love to hear from you.
Alla prossima!
With a song in our hearts, the wind sweeping through the window, and our hands and faces inexplicably painted blue, this week Anne and Jim swing along with Domenico Modugno's international hit record, "Nel blu dipinto di blu" (also known as "Volare!"). Often covered (see this Spotify playlist or this Apple Music playlist), it was winner of the inaugural Grammy for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Listen as we tell this song's strange story, relate our memories of Modugno's hometown of Polignano a Mare in Puglia, and somehow work both painter Marc Chagall and the Italian Parliament into the conversation. Enjoy!
This week, we take a hike...on the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrimage route that runs from Canterbury, England to Rome, passing through some marvelous scenery along the way. Anne walked part of it in 2019, and Jim is planning a walk this autumn, so we chat about what a pilgrimage walk is, how to prepare, and what to see (and eat!) along the way!
This week we tackle the great Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi and the region of Le Marche, his birthplace and source of both inspiration as well as despair. In one of his most famous poems, "L'Infinito" ("The Infinite"), Leopardi describes the view of the immense sky from his childhood home, partially blocked by a hedge and a hill. Perhaps precisely because of this limitation, the view is all the more dear to him because of what it leaves to the imagination. Leopardi did eventually overcome both his restrictive upbringing as well as his poor health, and traveled quite a bit around Italy before his death at the age of 38, but the region of Le Marche remains associated with him and his works. Today you can visit Leopardi's home (and extensive library) in the small town of Recanati, but Le Marche also offers extensive parks, gorgeous beaches, and important cultural centers and cities, such as Urbino, the hometown of artist Raphael. Oh, and you can also see and climb that very same hill Leopardi writes about in "L'Infinito."
Mystic, Leader, Writer, Saint, just a general Badass, Catherine of Siena set her fourteenth-century world on fire. In this episode we head back to Tuscany to talk about Catherine, her life, her letters, and her hometown city of Siena. Plus, Chianti! In this episode we speak about this letter of Catherine of Siena to Pope Gregory XI: http://web.mit.edu/aorlando/www/SaintJohnCHI/Church%20History%20Readings/Catherine%20of%20Siena%20Letter%2074.pdf
Today we laugh far too much about Death in Venice, a not-at-all-funny novella by our first non-Italian author, Thomas Mann. But seriously, is there something about illness and decadence that drives creativity?
Anne and Jim take another break from hitting the books, this week talking about traveling with kids in the Bel Paese.
We're a little out of our comfort zone, reading Natalia Ginzburg's essay "Winter in the Abruzzi," in which she recalls, bittersweetly, her family's exile in the Abruzzo during the Fascist regime. Abruzzo is a region we've never seen (but high on our list of places to visit); it has served as a literary setting in other works (think Hemingway among American authors). You can read a translation of the essay here.
This week we head south to Lucania, the region of Italy now known as Basilicata, as we discuss Carlo Levi's memoir, Christ Stopped at Eboli, shedding light on the poverty and isolation of the area. We talk about one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Matera, which has gone from being the "Disgrace of Italy" to Italy's "2019 Capital of Culture." Crowded cave dwellings are now fancy hotels and restaurants, and cultural and art museums abound. But after over 9,000 years, the soul of this city remains: magical, earthy, real.
What is competition? This week’s short comic story by Alberto Moravia asks just that question as a pushcart vendor first falls for his competition, then is destroyed by her--or does he really destroy himself? We also talk about the neighborhood in which the story is set, the picturesque quarter of Trastevere, and the walking bridges that connect it to the historic center on the eastern side of the Tiber and the lovely Via Giulia. For more on Moravia, check out the museum dedicated to him in Rome. The Museum of Rome in Trastevere offers exhibitions on the history and culture of this endlessly fascinating city. More on Trastevere from Lonely Planet. "The Competition" ("La concorrenza"), the short story we discuss in this episode, was originally published in Moravia's Racconti Romani (Roman Tales), but can also be found in a facing page collection by Dover books, along with eleven other short stories by Italian writers from medieval to modern times.
Welcome to a little parlor game we call either "The Oldlywed Game," or "I Vecchi Sposi." Anne and Jim try to predict each other's responses to questions about Italy. We promised not to hit each other with large placards with our answers written on them, and by and large we succeeded. Apologies to Bob Eubanks.
Lemons and sunshine! What's not to love? Today we're talking about poet and Nobel laureate Eugenio Montale and his "happy place," the gorgeous coastline of Liguria, tucked up in the northwest corner of Italy, bordering the French Riviera.
In one of his early poems, I Limoni (The Lemon Trees), Montale describes the lemon trees in Monterosso al Mare, a small town on the Ligurian Coast where he spent his childhood summers. These lemons offer a glimpse of what is real and what is true, through the brightness and beauty of nature, a brightness and a beauty that can persist even through the cold and dreary winter days. And speaking of the beauty of nature, we talk about the Cinque Terre, the five small fishing towns of which Montale's Monterosso is the largest, that have become incredibly popular in recent years among tourists because of their accessibility by train and boat, colorful houses, wonderful seafood and white wine, and rocky beaches. To better enjoy the towns, consider staying a few nights, and also walking the famous trails nearby, the most famous of which connects the five villages one to the other, and which, until the train came through, was the only way villagers were able to visit each other other than by boat. Other nearby options might be Rapallo, Camogli, Santa Margherita Ligure, Portovenere, Lerici, and Tellaro may be slightly less-crowded options to actually staying in the Cinque Terre (although the secret is out about them as well!).
And finally we reminisce about our one and only cruise (we both got violently seasick) and introduce our upcoming episode: "The Oldly-wed Game", where we ask each other questions about Italy and try and guess what the other will answer. As a teaser we find out that after nearly 25 years of marriage neither one of us has any idea what kind of ice cream the other likes! (And I suspect I only said lemon because I was still thinking of Montale...)
The LemonTrees Eugenio Montale (Trans. Anne Schuchman)
Listen to me, the poet laureates
move only among fauna
with obscure-sounding names: boxwoods, privet, or acanthus.
For my part, I love the roads that end in grassy
ditches where in half-dry puddles
boys grab at
a few haggard eels:
the paths that follow along the shoreline,
then move down between the tufts of reeds
and into the gardens, among the lemon trees.
Better still, if the riotous songs of the birds
are silenced, swallowed up by the blue:
you can hear more clearly the whisper
of friendly branches in the air that just barely moves,
and the intensity of this scent
that cannot be separated from the earth
and a restless sweetness rains in the heart.
Here the war of conflicted passions
by some miracle falls silent,
here even the poor, we have our share of riches—
and it is the smell of the lemon trees...
(Read the rest of the poem here)
Back to the medieval! We talk about Saint Francis of Assisi and his Canticle of the Creatures, one of the first examples of written Italian. Anne once fantasized about a sitcom based on his life called Everybody Loves Francis! (Mostly just for the title.) And then take a trip to his hometown of Assisi in Umbria: how to get around, what to see, where to stay, and (as always!) what to eat! Pax et bonum! Pace e bene! Peace and Goodness!
Patron saint of animals and ecology as well as the country of Italy (along with Catherine of Siena), Francis did quite a bit of traveling, preaching as he went. Yet he always came back to his hometown of Assisi. Well worth a visit today not only for its connection to its famous native son, Assisi is a marvelous example of a medieval Italian hilltop town. Francis is buried in the lower basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, where you can also admire the frescoes attributed to Giotto in the upper church that depict Francis's life and miracles. Also in the historic center of Assisi you can visit the Basilica of Santa Chiara, which contains the saint's crypt as well as the crucifix, which, according to the legend, first called Francis to "repair my church."
As we mention in the episode, Francis died in the lower part of the town of Assisi, in this church of the Porziuncola, today enclosed by the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. We also talked about hiking up to the Eremo delle Carceri, a lovely place in the woods where Francis and his followers would retreat for solitude and prayer.
And we also talked a lot about eating! A great place to eat (and stay) about a kilometer outside of the city walls is the Ristorante La Stalla at Fontemaggio, which, as the name suggests, is housed in a converted stall. You can try local favorites like pasta or meats cooked over an indoor enormous grill. Fontemaggio also has a hotel, hostel and campground.
We read aloud and talk more in-depth about Francis's prayer, The Canticle of Brother Son (or Cantle of the Creatures). You can read the original and an English translation here.
See Naples and...LIVE! On this week's episode we talk about My Brilliant Friend, the first in a four-novel series by pseudonymous author Elena Ferrante. The books trace the friendship of two girls, Lila and Lenù, growing up in post-war Naples. We talk about genius and learning, monsters and mobsters, and the city of Naples itself, both as a character in the book as well as a destination. What to see, where to go...and what to eat!
Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, a four-volume series beginning with My Brilliant Friend, relate the long and complicated friendship between two girls, Lenù and Lila, from their childhood in the slums to old age, when Lila suddenly and mysteriously disappears. The books have become nothing short of a phenomenon, international bestsellers and an HBO miniseries. Some of the fascination no doubt is with Elena Ferrante herself, pen name of an unknown author, but certainly another source of the interest lies in the city of Naples itself, and its fundamental role in all four novels. This is not the Naples of cruise ships and Capri, this is a harsh and often ugly Naples, a city of squalor and violence.
Lenù, narrator of My Brilliant Friend, reports that she left Naples definitely in 1995, just as the city was experiencing a renewal because she “no longer believed in its resurrections.” However Naples today is a surprising mix of ancient artifacts, vibrant street life, and amazing food, all with glorious views of Vesuvius and the sea. My Brilliant Friend tours have sprung up around the city, offering glimpses of Naples beyond the tourist center. And the island of Ischia, a pivotal plot location, can be reached by ferry in about an hour. While you are reading the books and watching the miniseries, start planning your next trip to Naples. Be prepared to be surprised.
We take a break from books this week to talk a little bit about how we think about travel to Italy and what works for us. Your mileage may vary.
This episode is not exactly a sonnet, but today Anne and Jim have fun / suffer the passion of reading Francesco Petrarca, more commonly known as Petrarch in the English-speaking world. Also, they pine to see Arezzo again (or Avignon for the first time!). So much longing, such intensity of feeling. Plus, memories of Arqua Petrarca and Padua. Who's buried in Petrarch's tomb (trick question!)? And what's up with the cat mummy?
Referred to sometimes as the father of humanism and the Renaissance, Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch in English) is best known for his lyric poetry, which established a model in Europe for centuries. Petrarch was born in the city of Arezzo, about an hour southeast of Florence, where his father had fled after, like Dante, he was exiled from the city of Florence. Petrarch was a prolific traveler, and spent much of his adult life in many of the major courts in both Italy and France. This may have contributed to his vision of Italy as a cohesive political entity, rather than a fragmented collection of warring factions, as it had been for centuries. A renowned scholar and advocated for a study of the classics, Petrarch is best known for his book of poems, the Canzoniere, or Rime Sparse (Scattered Rhymes), a collection of 366 poems, most of which are love poems dedicated to Laura, his beloved.
Petrarch spent the latter part of his life in a small town called Arquà (now called Arquà Petrarca in the poet’s honor), about a half-hour southwest of the city of Padua. Literary tourism to Arquà Petrarca has existed for centuries, one of the earliest examples of a museum dedicated to a writer. Here you can visit Petrarch’s final home and his tomb. Unlike Dante’s tomb in Florence, the tomb in Arquà does indeed hold his body, however when it was exhumed in 2003 in anticipation of the celebration of the 700th anniversary of the poet’s birth, it was discovered that skull contained inside was not Petrarch’s at all, but that of an unknown woman. Presumably at some point in history Petrarch’s skull, along with several other bone fragments, was stolen, probably to be sold. The museum also includes the mummified remains of a cat, reputed to be Petrarch’s favorite pet, with a Latin inscription that proclaims: “The Etruscan poet burned with twin loves, I am the greater fire, Laura was the second.” Although there is no evidence the cat belonged to Petrarch at all, it makes a fun diversion, and has led tourists to this spot since the 16th century.
A writer from the fourteenth century might not seem relevant, but Boccaccio has a lot to say about how to while away the hours in epidemic lockdown and how to make yourself look good in job interviews.
While Dante has been well-known to non-Italian audiences for centuries, Giovanni Boccaccio has enjoyed a new popularity thanks to the setting of his Decameron during the 1348 plague. With the Black Death as a background, the Decameron consists of one hundred tales told by ten Florentine noblemen and women who have fled the city for ten days in order to find respite and peace in the Tuscan hillsides. Although many of the stories take place in Florence, there are also many others that taken place in various small towns and further cities.
Boccaccio himself was probably born in the small town of Certaldo, located south of the cit of Florence, where you can today visit his tomb. Several towns have claimed to be the location of the villas where the Brigata tell the one hundred tales, but the town of Fiesole, just north of Florence, deserves a visit regardless. You may also find less expensive accommodations around Fiesole, as well as cooler air during the summer months, and still have access to the city center by bus or car (park at the underground car park in Piazza della Libertà).
You can find the Decameron as well as history and commentary at Brown University's Decameron Web.
Anne reads (and re-reads) her favorite book as we head to the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri's death. We also drink Vin Santo and walk through Florence.
Dante’s most famous work, the Divine Comedy, traces the salvific journey of the character Dante, led by the love of his life, the saintly Beatrice, through Hell, Purgatory, and finally Paradise. Referring to himself as “a Florentine by birth, not by character,” Dante wrote the poem while in permanent exile from the city, and while Florence certainly receives the greatest attention in his poem, Dante also includes stories and places from around the peninsula, encountered, perhaps, during his travels. You can find more on Dante at the Princeton Dante Project, Columbia's Digital Dante, and UT Austin’s DanteWorlds.
And in Italy, you can trace a route from Dante’s birthplace to his tomb, with many sites in between. Begin at the Casa di Dante in Florence (a reconstruction built near the site of his birth), then walk down the street to Dante’s family church, Santa Margherita de’ Cerchi. There you will find a small shrine dedicated to Beatrice where the lovelorn leave notes and requests for aid, much as they do at Juliet’s balcony in Verona. Finally, head over to the Franciscan church of Santa Croce, final resting place of some of the most famous Italians (Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo to name just a few), and look for Dante’s statue outside and his tomb inside. The tomb stands empty, however, as Dante was actually buried in Ravenna, where he lived during the last few years of his life, and the city is determined to hold onto his remains. You can even take the “Cammino di Dante,” a 400 kilometer hiking trail that goes from Ravenna to Florence and back again, with suggested stops in several small towns either mentioned in the Comedy, or else visited by the poet himself.
Anne and Jim welcome you to Literary Italy, a joyous romp through the books and the landscape of the bel paese. Join us as we share our love of the literature, the people, the land, and the experience that is Italy.