Australian author Lisa Clifford’s Death in the Mountains is a true story about the murder of a peasant farmer in the mountains of Casentino in north eastern Tuscany. The murder took place in the winter of 1907, it happened to the great-grandfather of Lisa’s Italian husband and it was never Read more…
An example of local history: history of Lucca economy. At hte end of the middle ages, and at the beginning of modern era, the Lucca economy was founded in large measure on the production and trade in silk cloth, business in which Lucca had long been one of the most Read more…
I came across the Italian word tight some years ago. In fact, it looked so incongruous on the page, it fairly jumped out and smacked me in the eye. I’d no idea what it meant and it didn’t even occu to me to look for it in a dictionary, so Read more…
The Clothes Show Hundred years of fashion is on show in Lucca until the middle of May. The State Archive in Piazza Guidiccioni (where the open air summer cinema is held) has been rummaging through the family wardrobe and various private collection to display clothes and fashions from the past. Read more…
Forgotten treasures of Lucca Some Grapevine readers may have seen the recent exhibition in Lucca, “Lucca abbandonata, Lucca ritrovata” feauturing stunning black and white photographs of over 60 significant buildings in and around Lucca which have fallen into disuse and are lying empty. Now the exhibition organisers wanted to draw Read more…