Dianne Hales

I am thrilled to announce the publication of my new book: LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World. Let me offer seven reasons, based on my discoveries as I traveled through Italy in search of la passione italiana. Whether or not you are Italian by blood or aspiration, have visited or dream of visiting Italy, love pasta and pizza (and who doesn’t? ), let yourself by seduced by a passion that resonates in all our souls. Instead, I am debuting a new blog, "A Passion for Italy," which will be available on my website, along with a complete archive of my previous posts.

The old cliché of lazy Italians doesn’t apply—to modern Italy or to people who do things. This is the place, often untidy or even unruly, that feeds the desire to live and love fully, to pursue beauty, to cherish family and enjoy the company of kindred spirits, to speak and act with flair, to recognize but not entirely care about the things that matter little, and to care fiercely about those that matter most. A Life Discovered and the upcoming LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World. Instead, I am debuting a new blog, "A Passion for Italy," which will be available on my website, along with a complete archive of my previous posts.

Italian itself has become trendy, ranking as the world’s fourth-most-studied languag From Boston to Berlin, Sydney to Singapore, people nibble on biscotti, sip capuccino, drive Fiats, stream Italian films, and zip up Diesel jeans. People around the world are attracted to what’s inside these objects– to the universe of values that they sense,” observes the distinguished author Federico Rampini, US bureau chief for La Repubblica. Read more in my new book: LA PASSIONE: How Italy Seduced the World,available to preorder here or on sale everywhere April 16. My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language, MONA LISA:

Every  year the ancient port of Trapani brings the Passion of Christ to life in La Festa dei Misteri (the Feast of the Mysteries). Over the course of twenty-four hours, a parade of massive altars, each depicting a scene of Christ’s final days, winds through the town’s narrow streets. The altars, fashioned in elaborate detail in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have survived floods, fires, and Allied bombings in World War II. Inching its way behind them is yet another altar with a single regal statue: La Madonna Addolorata, the sorrowful mother of Christ, draped in velvet robes.