Italy

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Unrestorable Renaissance Painting Proves Them Wrong

Giorgio Vasari's 'The Last Supper' is restored 50 years after flood

(Newser) - Renaissance artist Giorgio Vasari's The Last Supper was so badly damaged by floodwaters a half-century ago that it was considered beyond repair. Today, however, it is once again on display in all its glory, the Art Newspaper reports. The 96-square-foot painting, commissioned by a cloister of Italian nuns in...

UN: Survivors Report 240 Dead in 2 Mediterranean Shipwrecks

More than 4,200 migrants have died in the Mediterranean this year

(Newser) - Survivors say as many as 240 people have died in two shipwrecks off Libya, a UN refugee agency reported Thursday, bringing this year's toll to more than 4,220 migrants dead or missing in risky Mediterranean Sea crossings, the highest count on record. A spokesperson for UNHCR says 31...

Italian Prince Dies in Horrific Cycling Accident

He was pinned beneath a truck in London

(Newser) - An Italian prince has died in a tragic accident on the streets of London. Filippo Corsini, 21 and "the heir to one of Florence's oldest and most illustrious families," per the Guardian , was cycling in the city around 12:30pm Monday when he was hit by a...

Italy Rocked by Biggest Quake Since '80

6.6 temblor hits region already rattled by devastating quake in August

(Newser) - The earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 that rocked Italy on Sunday morning is believed to be the strongest quake to strike the country since 1980, reports the AP . A 6.9-magnitude quake in southern Campania that year killed some 3,000 people and caused extensive damage. The...

World's Rarest Pasta Is Made by Only 3 Women

You're going to have to travel to taste su filindeu

(Newser) - There's a kind of pasta in the world that is so hard to find and so difficult to make that you're going to have to travel to the tiny hamlet of Nuoro on the Italian island of Sardinia to get a taste. That's because su filindeu, which...

Italy Rattled by 'Apocalyptic' Quakes

Two earthquakes shook central Italy 2 hours apart Wednesday

(Newser) - "It was an unheard-of violence," the AP quotes Ussita mayor Marco Rinaldi as saying. "It was something terrible." Two earthquakes shook central Italy about two hours apart on Wednesday, causing mass panic but few injuries in an area where nearly 300 were killed during a quake...

One of Rome's Busiest Exorcists Tells of Woman Vomiting Pins

Fr. Vincenzo Taraborelli performs as many as 30 exorcisms on a given day

(Newser) - Italy is no stranger to exorcisms, with half a million Italians reportedly requesting them each year. The Independent in 2015 reported on an exorcism of an entire town, performed via helicopter. Three years prior, the Catholic diocese of Milan instituted an exorcism hotline, reported the BBC . But in the wake...

Woman Dies After Miscarriage, 'Conscientious Objector' Doctor Blamed

Family says Italian woman requested abortion because her life was in danger

(Newser) - The story of an Italian woman who died after giving premature birth to twins isn't turning out to be a straightforward "complications during childbirth" story, with her family now claiming her doctor refused to perform a life-saving abortion, reports the BBC . On Sept. 29, Valentina Milluzzo was rushed...

Obama 'Saved Best for Last' at Final State Dinner

He welcomes Italian PM, 400 guests

(Newser) - "Bittersweet" was the word of the night at President Obama's 13th and final state dinner. "We saved the best for last," he said Tuesday as he welcomed Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and his wife, Agnese Landini, to the White House. He wasn't joking. The...

These Wine Grapes Listened to Mozart, to Their Benefit

Inside an interesting experiment in Italy

(Newser) - A taste of black cherry, leather, and just a hint of G minor? In the hills of Montalcino in Tuscany, winemaker Giancarlo Cignozzi has, for more than a decade, been playing Mozart 24 hours a day to a section of Sangiovese grapes growing in his vineyard, reports CBS News . At...

Amid Thousands of Migrants Rescued, a Grim Discovery

On jam-packed boat alone, 22 people were crushed and suffocated

(Newser) - The boats were crammed with thousands of migrants hoping to make it to Italy and a better life. But when rescuers reached the vessels off the Libyan coast this week, what they found shocked even veterans of the migrant crisis, the New York Times reports. Aboard one fishing boat alone,...

Fugitive Mob Boss Found Hiding at Home

Italian crime boss had been on the run 5 years

(Newser) - One of Italy's most-wanted fugitive mob bosses was arrested after five years on the lam Wednesday when police found him hiding in a home bunker built between the bathroom and his son's bedroom. Antonio Pelle, 54, crawled out of his hiding place on his stomach to the top...

Sorry! Italian Town Apologizes for Exiling Dante

Town council of Gubbio asks for pardon for persecuting the poet Dante 700 years ago

(Newser) - It's never too late to say you're sorry. An Italian town has apologized for sending the nation's most famous poet into exile seven centuries ago, the Telegraph reports. A death warrant hanging over his head, Dante Alighieri fled the city of Florence in 1302, never to return...

No Photo Exists of World's Most Wanted Migrant Smuggler

Guess that means he's pretty good at his job

(Newser) - German outlet Der Spiegel has published an in-depth investigative piece on the sprawling network that's bringing illegal African migrants across the Mediterranean and into Europe. Focusing on the operation of one man targeted by Italian and Libyan authorities, the paper traces the long, dangerous path migrants must cross before...

Modern Literary Mystery May Be Solved

Italian journalist thinks he knows who the real Elena Ferrante is

(Newser) - It's what the New York Times calls "one of the most intriguing literary mysteries in recent history." But now Elena Ferrante, author of several best-selling novels who has lived under that pseudonym since the early 1990s, appears to have been unmasked by Italian journalist Claudio Gatti. In...

Cops Didn't Expect to Find 'Priceless' Works in Mob Raid

But Italian police turned up two Van Gogh pieces stolen in 2002

(Newser) - It was a day that Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum may have never thought would come. "The paintings have been found!" Axel Rueger, the museum's director, said at a Naples, Italy, press conference Friday, per a release . Those paintings, according to NBC News , are two of the...

Italy's Procreation Campaign: A 'Sexist Mess'

Fertility Day promotion has not gone over well

(Newser) - "Racism is in the eye of the beholder," according to Italy's Health Ministry—and an awful lot of people are beholding just that in ads the ministry sent out to promote a national push for procreation. NBC News reports on the country's much-ballyhooed Fertility Day, an...

Billionaire: I Paid to Restore Spanish Steps, Now Stay Off

Benefactor Paolo Bulgari says people ruin the landmark with their slovenly habits

(Newser) - Audrey Hepburn ate gelato on the Spanish Steps in Roman Holiday, which makes her one of the "barbarians"—the residents and tourists who've ruined the famous landmark over the years, per the billionaire benefactor who's paying for its makeover, NBC News reports. The steps, built nearly...

Woman Kills Herself After Sex Video Goes Viral

4 men being questioned in Italy

(Newser) - An awful story out of Italy, where a 31-year-old woman committed suicide after being tormented for a year over a sex video. Four men, including her ex-boyfriend, are being questioned for their role in posting it online, reports the BBC . The woman, Tiziana Cantone, made the private tape with her...

'Air Surgery' Saves 110 Trapped in Cable Cars Overnight

Tangled cables stopped the cars initially

(Newser) - Dozens of tourists, including a 10-year-old child, were safely rescued Friday after being trapped in cable cars dangling above the slopes of Mont Blanc in the Alps overnight. The mountain rescue service in the French city of Chamonix says cables entangled Thursday were repaired, and the cable cars were able...

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