Chiuso per ferie
I'm taking a little summer pause this week
⭐NEW ONLINE LECTURE SERIES⭐
“Tale of Two Cities: Florence and Rome under the Medici Popes” starts September 10th! Dive head first into the artistic and architectural patronage of Popes Leo X and Clement VII who employed the likes of Raphael, Michelangelo and illustrious others to ensure that papal power was communicated in the most brilliant, meaningful, and beautiful way. I am offering a two-for-one ticket and for those who need more Medici IMMEDIATELY, you can add on the series “Beauty and Power in Florence: Giovanni di Bicci, Cosimo the Elder, and Lorenzo the Magnificent” for delivery straight to your inbox.
What a strange summer this continues to be. The heat has been terrifying, with strings of days and weeks in the high 90s and low 100s, and tropical nighttime temperatures hovering around 72 degrees. I can’t seem to settle down in weather like this—how I can be both whirring and depleted at the same time is a mystery to me.
But somehow here we are (mostly intact!) in August, which means the summer holidays are now in full swing. Not the school holidays, mind you, which started exactly two months ago and still have five more weeks to go, but the Ferragosto holidays that see the mass exodus of Italians to the beach or increasingly, the mountains. Most of the shops in my neighborhood started their ferie over the weekend, and things won’t be back to business-as-usual until the first week of September.
I’ve decided to take a page from my neighbors and will be back with you in a couple of weeks—hopefully refreshed, revitalized, and ready to write. In the meantime, here is a book club reminder and some posts from earlier in the year you may want to (re)visit.
Sending love and big air-hugs to you all.
September Book Club
We are continuing our International Booker nominees with Domenico Starnone’s The House on via Gemito, translated by Oonagh Stransky. Please join me and Lauren Mouat of Open Doors Review on Monday, September 21st at 6pm CEST to discuss what the New York Times calls "A masterpiece on the elusive nature of truth.” This family drama set in postwar Naples is the perfect escapist summer read and we can’t wait to discuss it all with you. Register here to receive the Zoom link.
Summer 2026 Reading List
I am currently barricaded in the house, windows sealed against the searing Florentine heat, teenage son’s clothes strewn all about as “we” (royal we, you understand) pack him up for a week-long camp. Said camp has provided multiple checklists and a 60-page vademecum. It’s a lot—even for me, a true lover of lists—and I have been putting off the packing, …
The Book Lover's Guide to Venice
Whenever I go to Venice I always bring two books. One is a guidebook—usually the Corto Sconto: Itinerari Fantastici e Nascosti di Corto Maltese a Venezia or the delightful Venice for Pleasure by J.G. Links—for use when I am in the city.
Fire Signs
There is an Italian proverb about springtime that I love: “Aprile, dolce dormire”—it is a nod to how sweet sleep is in April, a month that calls for more rest so our bodies can get used to the change of season, the wildly varying temperatures, and the renewed swiftness of life in general. As usual, I think the Italians got it just right. All of that
All hail Piero
Last week I was in Arezzo for a few hours. It was a rainy day in late January and the churches and chapels were all completely empty, almost eerily silent. While Arezzo is never really mobbed (save for Christmastime and the highly lauded monthly antique fair), I was surprised not to find at least a few more people in front of what is considered some of …
Buone ferie, and here is the view from the side of the street that stays open, because it is the one thing your readers planning an August trip never get told. A trattoria is one of the few trades that does not close in August, and not out of virtue: it is a service, and services exist when everybody else is free. The counter-intuitive part is the money. In Milan the average bill goes down in August, not up, because the people left are the ones who live and work here, not the ones celebrating. So the cities are not empty in August, they are filtered: what stays open is what has a neighbourhood rather than an audience, and that is a very good way to choose where to eat. One practical note, since the shops on your street have started their pause: the paper sign in the window is now the least of it. If a place does not load its special hours into Google, the listing says the hours may vary, and in front of a maybe nobody calls. That cost never shows up anywhere, because it is not a lost sale, it is a sale that never began. See you on the 24th.