Italian Culture: Recent Episodes
Ars Dicendi
Italian Culture delves into Italian history, traditions and customs in order to overcome stereotypes by entrusting the narrative to local researchers. Each episode tells unheard stories, uncovers obscure facts and explores places that resonate with “Italianness”.
- 1.46 Campari as an elite brand
- 3.10 The Milanese market
- 4.17 The world of the factory is the factory of the world
- 6.22 Pop & glamour
- 7.29 The dawn of mass advertising
- 10.47 Depero and Futurism
- 12.30 Art as autobiography
- 14.17 The futurist house: now and then
- 16.24 Depero and Rosetta
- 19.12 Depero and Mario Soldati
- 20.18 Depero and Davide Campari
Today’s speakers are Nicoletta Boschiero and Valerio Varini.
There’s a small piece of art in almost every fridge, even in yours. It’s from the Twenties, the time when an avant-garde artist (Fortunato Depero) and an entrepreneur (Davide Campari) proved that ads could be something more than shouted slogans and that even a tiny, mundane object can be the outstanding product of a revolutionary act of creation.
Today’s guests are Nicoletta Boschiero and Valerio Varini.
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2.10 Ripples and bubbles: the Roman factions and a dissolving empire
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5.03 The four margraves
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6.22 The complexity of the papacy
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8.48 Formosus: controversial and pious
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10.59 Infallibility, the play
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11.58 Power, authority and faith: the Cadaver Synod
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13.08 Reflecting (on) the present: Bush, Obama, Trump
Today’s speakers are Matt Barbot and Roger Collins.
Here’s one question you didn’t expect to ever ask yourself: can the Pope take a dead Pope to court? The answer is yes, but be ready for another surprising turn, because the reason why the exhumed Pope’s corpse faces trial isn’t as outlandish as you may presume. In this episode of Italian Culture, we investigate the infamous Cadaver Trial, a fine example of how power, violence and subterfuge can taint even the most sacred office.
Today’s guests are Matt Barbot and Roger Collins.
- 1.40 The secret recipe
- 2.27 Inside a Mulassano’s tramezzino
- 4.53 Mulassano before it was Mulassano
- 8.09 VIP customers: legend and truth
- 11.11 Tramezzino: a case study
- 13.17 The shape, the meaning, the origin of the tramezzino
- 15.52 What’s an author's neologism?
- 17.22 Food and cultural identity
Today’s speakers are Patrizio Abrate, Francesca Dragotto and Cristiano Ruggiero.
What if I told you that the good, old sandwich has both a birthplace and a birthdate? What if this place was Italy and the year was 1926? In this episode of Italian Culture, we discover how a humble recipe changed the life of its inventor, a young woman who turned the entire restaurant business upside down. This is the story of the Mulassano caffé, the place where the sandwich was invented. Or was it?
Today’s guests are Patrizio Abrate, Francesca Dragotto and Cristiano Ruggiero.
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3.35 Opera and gender construction
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5.36 “Tuneful scarecrows”: orchiectomy and its effects
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6.35 Masters of the voice: the castrato training
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9.20 Voice and femininity
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11.25 The ambivalence of the church
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13.10 The apex of the castrati era
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14.03 The end of the castrati era
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17.49 The influence of the Cecilian movement on religious music
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20.37 The legacy of the castrati
Today’s speakers are Noemi André and Nicholas Clapton.
A candid angel, a bratty popstar and a cunning smuggler: what have they in common? They sacrificed their testicles and gained a splendid voice. In this episode of Italian Culture, we investigate the fascinating world of the castrati singers. From the Baroque era to the Twentieth century, we’ll follow the stories of three emblematic castrati, trying to understand how and why such a joyous expression of human talent had his roots in violence and blood.
Today’s guests are Noemi André and Nicholas Clapton.
- 2.27 Who is Antonello da Messina?
- 4.45 The portrait of Unknown
- 5.47 Two smiles
- 6.44 Antonello’s eyes
- 9.18 Enrico Piraino, il Mandralisca: politician and philanthropist
- 12.35 Francesco Vitale: the bishop, the humanist
- 14.20 The last traces of Francesco Vitale
- 17.00 The journey of the Unknown
Today’s speakers are Alessandro dell’Aira, Sandro e Salvatore Varzi, Antonio Purpura and Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa
The painting is cursed, it portrays the devil who’ll drive crazy whoever looks at him – that’s what people say. Why is his gaze so unsettling? Who is he really? No one knew, until now. In this episode of Italian Culture, we investigate the story of the Portrait of Unknown by Antonello da Messina, one masterpiece clouded in mystery.
Today’s guests are Alessandro dell’Aira, Sandro e Salvatore Varzi, Antonio Purpura and Giovanni Carlo Federico Villa.
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2.42 The (old) frontiers of electronics
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3.50 Adriano, Roberto and the Electronics Division
- 6.58 The “rescue-team”
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10.25 The political scenario
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13.50 Who needs a personal computer?
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14.53 Piergiorgio Perotto, his role and efforts
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17.25 Magnetic cards, machine language and toilet talk
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20.10 The Programma 101 goes to the Moon
- 21.21 The first computer game on the first personal computer
Today’s speakers are Beniamino De Liguori, Gastone Garziera and Giovanni De Sandre.
The machine that wasn’t meant to be created, and yet it was: the merit goes to a small team of engineers, who disobeyed their bosses’ orders, messed with international politics and crafted something unthinkable for the time. This episode of Italian Culture unveils what’s behind the first personal computer ever produced, the Olivetti's Programma 101. We’ll investigate how Piergiorgio Perotto and his group managed to make computers humane and paved the way for the modern information society.
Today’s guests are Beniamino De Liguori, Gastone Garziera and Giovanni De Sandre.
Short and sweet, this trailer gives you a vague idea of what the actual show’s gonna be.
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