Italian News Snippets: 10.28.07

Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:

• Ryanair isn’t the only low-cost airline that’s increasing their presence at Milan’s Malpensa airport – now easyJet will expand service at Malpensa over the next few years.
• You’ll remember my post about the Trevi Fountain’s waters running red? Well, there are some news stories about it in English now – there’s one here about the dying incident and here about the clean-up afterwards.
• Air pollution isn’t just unhealthy for living things, it’s apprently also bad for inanimate objects as well – officials are now saying that air pollution is destroying Italian art. In Florence, that may lead to Giambologna’s “Rape of a Sabine” statue being moved indoors from the Piazza della Signoria.
• The Italian blog network is still up in arms about the government’s attempt to regulate Italian websites. You can read more posts about it here, here, here, here and here.
• Dan Brown didn’t corner the market on Leonardo-related msyteries – this one holds that there’s a “lost fresco” painted by Leonardo da Vinci hidden somewhere in th Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, and there’s now an effort underway to find it. More here.
• A recent report says that the Mafia is Italy’s biggest “business” – generating more than $127 billion every year and representing about 7% of the Italian economy. More here.
• With clothing that is made from sweet-smelling fabric, you may never need to wear perfume again. Now if only that would stop certain people from bathing in cologne.
• There is a show of Antonio Canova’s most well-known sculptures at Rome’s Villa Borghese Gallery which runs through February 3, 2008.
• I’ve never been able to put my finger on exactly why I love Italy so much, but a study just published shows why the Italian culture is at least to be admired – Italy boasts one of the healthiest lifestyles in all of Europe. This is odd news against the results of another study recently released which says that Italian children are among the heaviest in Europe. Hmmm…
• The Renaissance ritual of “calcio storico” in Florence had been banned this year because it seemed to be less about soccer and more about violence, but it looks like it’s getting the green light to be back on the calendar next year.
• Remember my post about buying fake goods in Italy? Well, apparently the U.S. isn’t happy about the amount of fakes in the country, either.
• A new ad campaign in Italy is attempting to show that sexual orientation is something you’re born with – so the picture shows a newborn baby with the word “homosexual” on its wrist ID tag. Not surprisingly in this Catholic country, the campaign has stirred up some controversy – including a tsk-tsk from the Vatican.
• In another example of how devoted Italians can be to their own cuisine, a weekly “ethnic menu” offering in a Roman elementary school has been met with less-than-enthusiastic responses on the part of many students – and even more of the parents.
• The husband is job-hunting in Italy right now. Perhaps he should try on this T-shirt resume for size.
• If you’re visiting Milan and looking for a nearby place to visit that doesn’t get flooded with tourists, check out the area around Lake Iseo, says Alexander Reed.
• It may not be the end of the world, but there’s an exhibit about the apocalypse at the Vatican. And if you feel the need to convert on the spot, you’re in a pretty good place to do it. The show runs through December 7, 2007.
• Although I’m focused on trying to move to Italy legally, there are countless people who do it illegally every year – and some of them do it because (they say) the Italian bureaucracy forces them to. Some Italian immigrants have adopted that favorite Italian pastime, the protest, to attempt to make it easier to be in Italy legally.
• A document from the Vatican archives suggests that Padre Pio, a beloved Italian saint, faked his stigmata.