An unwelcome and unwanted relationship cannot be imposed, supreme court rules
Italy’s top court has ruled that children are under no obligation to see their grandparents if they do not wish to do so.
The ruling from the supreme court of cassation relates to an appeal by the parents of two children against the decision of a lower court which had forced the youngsters to spend time with their paternal grandparents.
Continue reading...P38-La Gang perform in balaclavas, namecheck the Red Brigades – and are under criminal investigation for inciting terrorism. Are they, as they believe, being scapegoated for their politics?
For P38-La Gang, everything changed on 1 May 2022, Labour Day. The Italian rap group were performing at the club Arci Tunnel in Reggio Emilia. The location appeared to be no coincidence. It is the city that birthed the Red Brigades, the far-left terrorist group that shocked Italy with kidnappings, kneecappings and more than 80 political assassinations in the 1970s and 1980s – a period of social turmoil known as the “Years of Lead”. On stage that day, the four-piece covered their faces with balaclavas and made a three-fingered gesture representing the P38 gun – the symbol of the 70s leftist movement Autonomia Operaia. As usual, the group flew the Red Brigades flag at the back of the stage – the title of their 2021 debut album, Nuove BR, translates as “new Red Brigades”.
Until then, the Bologna-based band had been considered one of the most bizarre and original newcomers in the Italian trap scene: angry, funny, outrageous, paradoxical, even a novelty act, depending on who you asked. Mixing bad taste with offending politicians and talkshow reporters, making fun of terrorism and dictatorships, P38-La Gang showed a face of Italy that few people want to see: the anger of workers paid €3 an hour and of a generation defeated by the class struggle who are surviving on memes and desperate irony.
Continue reading...Giuseppe Graviano files for defamation against Gomorrah author over origin of nickname
A Sicilian mobster has asked a judge to order the seizure of all copies of a book by the author Roberto Saviano, who is living under police protection after he faced death threats for exposing mafia secrets.
Giuseppe Graviano, who is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison, filed a lawsuit for defamation last week against the author of books including Gomorrah, and Solo è il Coraggio (Lonely is the Courage), about the life of the judge Giovanni Falcone, who was killed by the mafia in 1992.
Continue reading...Piece acquired by English painter in antiques shop in 1960s has been confirmed as lost work by Italian sculptor
Sometimes a hunch pays off, and when the English painter John Craxton recognised a work of genius for sale in a London antiques shop, he made very much the right call.
Craxton parted with £250 for an unusual chandelier he suspected was by the great sculptor Alberto Giacometti. Now that chandelier, made in the late 1940s, may sell at Christie’s in a few weeks’ time for as much as £7m. Pieces by the revered Swiss artist are the most expensive sculptures to buy at auction, and his work regularly breaks saleroom records.
Continue reading...Work depicting mythological hero and apparently dating back to Roman imperial period found near Appian Way
An ancient Roman statue of Hercules has been discovered during repairs to the sewerage system underneath a park in Rome.
The statue, which apparently dates back to the Roman imperial period (27BC to AD476), emerged from the ground around the second mile mark along the ancient Appian Way, a famed historic road.
Continue reading...Thousands sign petition calling for better postnatal care amid concerns over conditions in maternity units
Controversy is mounting in Italy over conditions in hospital maternity units after a newborn is believed to have died by suffocation under the weight of his mother who fell asleep after breastfeeding him.
An investigation is under way into the tragedy, which occurred at the Sandro Pertini hospital in Rome on 8 January. The results of the autopsy are expected within 60 days.
Continue reading...Italy celebrates return of 60 artefacts, some dating back to first century BC, with total value of more than $20m
Italian art investigators have exhibited a fresco that survived the destruction of the ancient Roman beach town of Herculaneum in the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius only to be plundered from its ruins and smuggled to the US, among 60 relics returned to home soil.
The total value of the works, some of which date back to the first century BC, looted from Italy over the past five decades and eventually traced to the US is estimated at more than $20m (£16m). The relics, which were displayed during a press conference in Rome on Monday, include a terracotta Etruscan kylix, bronze busts, ancient vases and kitchenware.
Continue reading...Russians have replaced Ukrainians since the war began and at least 14 have been arrested in Italy, NGOs claim
People-smugglers are recruiting dozens of Russian citizens to replace Ukrainian sailors captaining boats carrying migrants from Turkey to Italy, NGOs have claimed.
Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine at least 14 Russian nationals have been arrested by the Italian police on charges of illegally transporting asylum seekers.
A report by the Italian non-governmental organisation Arci Porco Rosso and the nonprofit Borderline Europe “noted a doubling in the number of arrests of Russian citizens” accused of piloting the vessels compared with the previous year, as well as many more arrests of ‘‘Syrians, Bengalis, and even people from landlocked countries, such as Kazakhstan and Tajikistan’’.
The Turkey to Italy route was established by a criminal network of Turkish smugglers as an alternative to the long Balkans overland route to the EU, in part in response to pushbacks, typically using small fast yachts, most often stolen or rented. About 11,000 migrants arrived on the Italian coasts of Puglia, Calabria and Sicily in 2021 from the Turkish ports of Izmir, Bodrum and Çanakkale.
Initially the smugglers almost exclusively recruited Ukrainian skippers, many of whom had fled the country to escape military service during the war against Russian-backed separatists in Donbas. But since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of Ukrainians recruited by Turkish smugglers has been decreasing.
Dmitry Mazepin’s vessels, both called Aldabra, went missing within weeks of each other last summer
Italian authorities are on the hunt for a Russian oligarch after two of his luxury yachts that were seized under EU sanctions mysteriously disappeared from a port in Sardinia.
A public notice informing Dmitry Mazepin, the billionaire owner of a mineral fertiliser company, of the penalties against him over the alleged illegal removal of the vessels has been issued by the town hall of Forte dei Marmi, the Tuscan coastal resort where the oligarch owns a home.
Continue reading...Coffin is accompanied into church by estranged son, grandson and ex-husband who are embroiled in inheritance feud
Fans of the Italian screen legend Gina Lollobrigida shouted “goodbye, Queen of Rome” as they gathered for her funeral in the city while defending her against relatives embroiled in a bitter inheritance feud.
Lollobrigida, one of the most glamorous actors of Hollywood’s golden age, died on Monday at the age of 95.
Continue reading...‘Last godfather’ of Sicilian mafia Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested after 30 years on run
Italian military police have found a possible secret bunker suspected of being used by Matteo Messina Denaro, the “last godfather” of the Sicilian mafia who was arrested on Monday after 30 years on the run.
The entrance to the bunker was concealed in a closet full of clothes in a house in Campobello di Mazara, a small town in Sicily where the apartment Denaro, 60, had been living in was discovered on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Italian investigators discover designer clothes and expensive shoes inside ‘normal’ two-storey building
The mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, one of the world’s most-wanted criminals who had spent 30 years on the run, lived in a modest apartment in western Sicily in his final months as a free man, Italian investigators said.
Denaro, 60, who was apprehended as he came out of a well-known private clinic in Palermo, lived in a small apartment inside a two-storey yellow building in the centre of the town of Campobello di Mazara, in the province of Trapani, in the heart of his territory.
Continue reading...‘Last godfather’ was apprehended as he came out of the private health facility on outskirts of Palermo
An Italian mob boss regarded as the last godfather of the Sicilian mafia was arrested after investigators received a tipoff that one of the world’s most wanted criminals had been receiving medical treatment for a tumour at a well-known clinic in Palermo, police sources have said.
Matteo Messina Denaro, 60, who has been in hiding since 1993, was apprehended as he came out of the private La Maddalena health facility on the outskirts of the Sicilian city, where special forces had been on guard since authorities first learned of his whereabouts three days ago. He was wearing luxury clothes and a €38,000 (£33,700) watch.
Continue reading...Despite not doing shock tactics and trends, the designer’s signature is something of a ‘mood’ this season
If the fashion industry sometimes seems obsessed with creating the next sell-out trend, then the men’s autumn collection by Giorgio Armani served a poignant reminder this season that you do not always need to chase the purse strings of generation Z.
Armani, the world’s most successful fashion designer and proprietor of one of its few independent fashion brands, does not do shock tactics and trends. While his contemporaries roll out logo-heavy bags and zeitgeisty moments, the 88-year-old has always been consistent in his polished offering of 1% chic for the best part of five decades. Ironic, then, that it is this very signature that makes him something of “a mood” this season.
Continue reading...Alleged to be a boss of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia, Denaro had been on run for 30 years and was arrested in Palermo
Matteo Messina Denaro, the last “godfather” of the Sicilian mafia and one of the world’s most-wanted criminals, has been arrested in Palermo after 30 years on the run.
Denaro, 60, who has been in hiding since 1993, was apprehended in a private clinic in the Sicilian city.
Continue reading...Fashion label has taken items you might already own – a white vest, a backpack – to its menswear show
No one comes to Milan fashion week for its “useful clothes”. Yet this was the verdict of the director Luca Guadagnino, who sat in the front row on Sunday’s menswear show: “Useful, yes, wearable, yes, all those things. Everyone can wear this.”
Price tags aside, his point was this: just as in previous collections, Prada took things you might already own – a ribbed white vest, a backpack – and turned them into must-have pieces. They did the same with duffle coats, donkey jackets, black office brogues and navy parkas. Sometimes fashion holds up a mirror to what’s happening in the world, but sometimes it reminds us of what we already own.
Continue reading...Saga continues over property housing Caravaggio’s only ceiling fresco as fifth auction fails to attract bids
A princess living in a villa in Rome that contains the only ceiling fresco ever painted by Caravaggio has said she would “vigorously defend” her right to stay in the sprawling property after a judge ordered her eviction.
The US-born Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, the only occupant of the 16th-century Villa Aurora, has been embroiled in a long-running inheritance dispute with the three sons of her late husband, Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi, who was the property’s last owner.
Continue reading...Critics say warnings are a ‘direct attack’ against Italy as a key exporter of wine
A plan by Ireland to put stark health warnings on bottles of wine, beer and spirits has caused anger in Italy.
Ireland is free to go ahead with the measure, which would warn consumers about the risks of cancer and liver diseases linked to alcohol, after a deadline passed for the European Commission to oppose it.
Continue reading...House of the Vettii features ornate and erotic friezes – and a fresco of the god Priapus with a huge phallus
An ornate house – containing a fresco featuring a huge phallus – that was owned by two freed men freed from slavery in the ancient city of Pompeii has reopened to the public.
The House of the Vettii was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD74 before being rediscovered in a largely preserved state during excavations in the late 19th century.
Continue reading...Emanuela Orlandi case has triggered several theories but never yielded any concrete answers
The Vatican has reopened an investigation into the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a case that has gripped Italy for almost 40 years and embroiled the powerful Holy See.
Emanuela was 15 when she vanished on 22 June 1983 while making her way home from a flute lesson in Rome. The Orlandi family lived in Vatican City, where her father was a lay employee in the papal household.
Continue reading...