Today marks the anniversary of Garibaldi’s landing in Bourbon Sicily in 1860 with his 1,000 Redshirts.  That bold adventure led to the addition of southern Italy and Sicily to what would become the Kingdom of Italy nine months later.  It ...

A note to my readers: I am taking a two-week trip to Rome (with a few days in Lucca and perhaps a side-trip to Florence) and will probably not be able to write a new blog until after my return ...

Contrary to Ken Burns’ recent documentary on the American Revolution, it was a band of Italians, the ancient Romans—not the Iroquois—who served as the model for our fledgling republic. Those are Roman fasces mounted in the U.S. House of Representatives ...