Italy News: 06.14.09

Some news from Italy for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• This is either truly hysterical or truly mental. Or both. Some of Berlusconi’s supporters are actually trying to get him nominated to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
• How do you pay a €5,000 fine while protesting said fine at the same time? You pay it in pennies, like one Italian butcher did.
• Although Berlusconi was successful in blocking the publication – in Italy – of photos of topless models and other partygoers taken at his Sardinian villa, beyond his country’s borders he holds less sway. So the Spanish paper El Pais published the photos. Needless to say, Silvio’s not happy. You can see a few of the pictures here.
• Every time I read that Berlusconi has finally told one yarn too many and may actually get caught up in his own web I get hopeful – even though I know it’ll probably come to nothing. So it is with this recent article.
• If you’ll be in Rome between June 15th and July 31st, be sure to swing into Al Vino Al Vino in the Monti neighborhood to check out Jessica Stewart’s (of Rome Photo Blog) photography show. And while you’re there, stay for some of the owner’s mother’s famous caponata.
• A mob boss jailed in Sicily says he’s suffering from depression and “can’t take prison any more,” so a court has allowed him to be moved to house arrest. Which makes me wonder, isn’t jail supposed to be kind of depressing?
• The parents of the English student killed in Perugia in 2007 took the stand recently in the trial of the two suspected murderers.
• And Amanda Knox finally took the stand in her defense in Perugia on Friday. Some excerpts of her responses can be found here.
• Among his other troubles, Berlusconi is also under fire for alleged misuse of a government plane to fly friends to his Sardinian villa for a party.
• A Renoir painting stolen from Rome a quarter-century ago has been found in Venice.
• Have you ever been in the Pantheon in Rome for the Pentacost? If you haven’t, you might want to check out the photos of this year’s post-mass celebration – which always include buckloads of red rose petals being dropped through the oculus – and plan your next Rome trip accordingly.
• And if you missed the military parade celebrating the Festa della Repubblica in Rome earlier this month, the eternallyCool folks have a two-part photo essay showing you some of the groups that made up the parade.
• Berlusconi thinks that Milan is looking more and more “like an African city” because of the number of non-Italians he sees on the streets. Oh, he’s such a charmer.
• Visitors to Venice now have another option for buying their transportation cards or vaporetto tickets – there are automated ticket machines popping up in a few points around the city.
• During my most recent trip to Rome, I walked by this apparent act of vandalism on a museum that the locals have been complaining about since it was built – but I kind of liked it. An enormous and otherwise plain white wall with a dash of paint here and there to mimic the Italian flag? Kind of cool, if you ask me.
• Venice might be ancient and crumbling, but in the last few decades it’s also established itself as a top destination for modern art lovers. Two new contemporary art galleries opening in Venice only add to that reputation.
• The Domus Aurea in Rome will soon undergo a two-year restoration project to make it safer for people to visit.
• A couple from Bologna who recently returned from New York have been confirmed to be suffering from the swine flu – making Italy’s total number of cases of the flu 37.
• The carved wooden cross which has been attributed to Michelangelo continues to be scrutinized, with many saying they believe it’s a fake.
• A long list of female Italian musicians has organized a benefit concert for the Abruzzo earthquake victims at San Siro in Milan on June 21st.
• The death of a man in Illinois led his relatives to discover more than 3,500 largely stolen Italian artifacts that he had tucked away in his house.
• It wasn’t long ago that Trenitalia introduced the Alta Velocità high-speed trains in Italy – now it seems there’ll soon be a new kid on the high-speed train block.
• Perhaps in an effort to make himself look like a kind and benevolent leader, Berlusconi hosted Libya’s longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi in Rome.
• During Gaddafi’s recent Italy visit, he evidently wanted to do something many male visitors to Italy want to do – he wanted to meet some Italian women. His reasons were pretty different from most of the guys, however.
• The iconic pizza margherita turned 120 years old last week, and it was celebrated with a parade in Naples.
• This is making a few people in Italy raise an eyebrow – the newly-elected mayor of the town of Viggiù is a member of the very anti-immigrant (and anti-anything-not-Italian) political party, Lega Nord. But that’s not the weird part. The weird part is that the new mayor is the first black mayor in the country. And she’s not even Italian – she’s Italian-American. One wonders if she knows that the party whose ticket she ran on is kind of opposed to her.
• Italy’s gay rights group says a recent survey shows that a majority of Italians support rights for unmarried couples, same-sex or heterosexual.
• There are occasionally attempts to make new lists of “7 wonders of the world,” and a recent one is pitting a few mountains against one another – including Italy’s Mt. Vesuvius.
• A show in Vinci with more than 5,000 pieces of art inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa includes a “nude Mona Lisa.”
• The Fiat-Chrysler deal is done. When can I get my Fiat 500?
• Now, this is one soccer game I would have loved to see – former French soccer stars vs. the Vatican’s Swiss Guards. It would have been especially wonderful if the Swiss Guards played the match in their traditional uniforms.
• To read that Milan is a better Italian city to live in than Rome according to a new study is one thing, but to then read that Milan is ranked 50th on the overall list and Rome is 52nd kind of changes things a bit.
• During her recent visit to Rome, Robin of My Melange happened to be on hand for a wedding in the Trastevere neighborhood.
• Reading about pizza al taglio on Robin’s blog is making me hungry. That is all.