The Famous Rambella 🍇 Leggi l'articolo »
Papal State, 15th century. Banners bearing the ‘green boughs’ of the House of Ordelaffi from Forli waved in the cool breeze blowing through the hills of Romagna. Covered in gleaming steel mesh, the soldiers of the Lordship of Forlì were moving to the border of Ravenna to the north, to scan the horizon for the […]
The Traianus Decius apple of Modena 🍎 Leggi l'articolo »
Attila, king of the Huns, may have been an undisputed symbol of atrocity, ‘earthquake and traccetia‘, but even he had to beat a retreat against the magister militum Aetius, in command of a fierce troop of Goths and Germans, in the mid-fifth century in the bloody battle where Theodoric I, king of the Visigoths, also
On the Pàm Campanéin or the Chime Apple Leggi l'articolo »
That the Campanino Apple, or Pomo di Modena as it was known at the time, was extremely widespread to the point of becoming proverbial in centuries past, there is no shadow of doubt. Since the Middle Ages the broli (ancient orchard-gardens) of the Estense lands were rich in apple orchards, which in all likelihood included
In Praise of Ulisse Aldrovandi Leggi l'articolo »
It would be completely foolish and inconsiderate to think of tackling a project dedicated to the historical research of biodiversity and culinary habits without talking about a figure who was born and lived in my neighbouring (and until less than a century ago, also the regional capital) Bologna: Ulisse Aldrovandi. I would therefore like to
The Forked Grapes Leggi l'articolo »
It was the early 1600s when Marquis Vincenzo Tanara in Bologna wrote the splendid L’economia del cittadino in villa (The citizen’s economy in the villa), which we have also mentioned in other articles. Tanara, a magistrate and marquis in the then papal state, leaves us writings rich in detail concerning the administration of a mansion
Chickens of Modena (and Nonantola and Reggio Emilia) Leggi l'articolo »
When in 1900 Gaetano Chierici, the recently elected mayor in the lists of the new socialist party, returned exhausted to his home in Reggio Emilia, he probably allowed himself to sink into the cushion of his soft armchair, observing the paintings hanging on the walls of the house, retracing his long past as a painter
Grandma’s apple Leggi l'articolo »
In the cities of Emilia, Romagna and Le Marche, the shouts of the Thirty Years’ War resounded, and the Baroque spread through churches and buildings, while the Este family held court in Modena. It was the 1600s, and far from the din of shouts and cannons in the surrounding countryside and hills, with the arrival
