It Was Twenty Years Ago Today

Enrico and I were married (by a justice of the peace in New Haven, Connecticutt) on January 17th, 1989. Here’s the story:

Part 1: Tanzania Surprise

Part 2: Coca-Cola, and an Ostrich

Part 3: Justice of the Peace

Part 4: The Wedding

Everyday Italian: Newspaper Headlines, Jan 2 2009

Lecco: Beats/strikes [female] companion – arrested

Pasturo [a small town in the mountains]: party in a mountain cabin, dies at 22 years. [We know from the local grapevine that the cause of death was probably a drug overdose. The young man dropped dead at the dinner table at a New Year’s party among friends.]

The Italian Adam

This week I was in Grenoble, France, filming for Sun. Enrico drove over from Lecco to join me on Friday, and we spent the weekend there together. It was too cold to do much roaming around outside, so we went to Grenoble’s fine arts museum, which features a small but impressive collection of paintings, arranged by date and country.

Even as I approached it from a distance, I knew this “God Chastising Adam and Eve” had to be by an Italian painter, using Italian models.

I mean, just look at that Adam. His entire expression and posture are eloquently Italian, a cross between a shrug and Che ci vuoi fare? E’ stata lei! (“What do you want? It was her!”)

Yup, sure enough: Domenico Zampieri, aka il Domenichino.

picture source: Wikimedia Commons

Deirdré Straughan on Italy, India, the Internet, the world, and now Australia