Sybilla Oritur

The wikipedia article on this topic was just awful - incidentally - and i’m making an effort to rewrite it for the betterment of human knowledge.
Lauro Martines, April Blood: Florence and the plot against the Medici (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003).
Martines’ April Blood uses the Pazzi conspiracy as a nexus from which to analyse the volatile [...]

I haven’t been driven to buy an academic book “just because” in a long, long time. It was supposed to be skimmed for a paper, but as i couldn’t put it down, i ended up having to ask for an extension. I can’t recommend it enough.
Imperial City: Rome, Romans and Napoleon, 1796-1815 focuses on the [...]

I was first introduced to the concepts of colonial imperialism directed towards the peoples of Europe itself when talking a course on the Irish Famine in my freshman year. The exposure did not really legitimate the hardline separatist account of the Quebecois experience in Canada as a case of “imperialism” which should be likened to [...]

August 1-2, 2009: Beginning the Goodbyes
Saturday morning I had an appt at Prima Sole, a beauty salon recommended to me by Giulia from Rosso e Vino – I was apparently their first Canadian customer ever. Freshly defuzzed, I climbed back to San’Angelo, my favourite tanning spot in the entire city, and enjoyed some sun’s rays [...]

July 31, 2009 – Orvieto

Although Orvieto is a relatively short distance from Perugia as the crow flies, to get there by train is a two-hour ordeal lengthened by a required transfer at Cordona. This made us decide to plan our trip on a weekday, when trains are more frequent, and we still had a transport [...]

July 26-29, 2009< br/>
On Sunday we woke up early, stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast (yes, McDonald’s – they are better here and still very convenient even if in this non-breakfast culture we ended up having ham and cheese sandwiches and some cut-up peaches and nectarines), and took the train to Arezzo. On the way there, [...]

June 23-25, 2009

Thursday is cleaning day – and it’s a good thing as our landlord dropped by for a visit on Thursday evening after being a sweetheart again and taking us out for dinner at a local agriturismo where we were stuffed with black truffle gnocchi, roast veal and lamb and homemade cantucci (cookies). I [...]

June 22, 2009
It feels a little odd to attempt to write a travellog about my excursion to Spoleto yesterday given that there was a motorcycle accident which took the life of Alberto, our favourite barman at the often-mentioned cafeteria which I had been visiting every day. Sunday night we had sat talking for about thirty [...]

July 18, 2009

We are very lucky to have such a great landlady who decided to take us touring her favourite spots between Perugia and Spello on Saturday.
We told Jacqueline all about our previous day’s trip to Assisi – and she was unwilling to let us miss Santa Maria Maggiore – the church where St. Francis [...]

June 16-17, 2009
After a Thursday of house-cleaning and Latin, we decided to head to Assisi on Friday to let loose a little in this pilgrimage town. Little did we know that the day would be one of 37 degree heat and intense sunshine – but even as we wilted like proverbial flowers, there was still [...]