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Think about some of the best Italian restaurants in town and chances are, the LaRocca family had something to do with them. The family will be honored Monday with a Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the Best of the Valley Restaurant Awards. The event is hosted by the Fresno chapter of the California Restaurant Association. While all sorts of re...

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Maestro Carlo Ponti received the “Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy” honor, presented to him by Consul General Raffaella Valentini. At the end of the last concert of the season for the Los Angeles Virtuosi Orchestra last May 12 at the Raymond Kabbaz Theater, conductor Ponti was awarded the honor by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarell...

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Cities as diverse and far-flung as San Francisco, London and Melbourne have a neighborhood they call Little Italy. Now, Sacramento has one, too. In late 2021, the city council adopted a resolution designating a portion of East Sacrament —the area bounded by Folsom Boulevard and 48th, 59th and J streets—as Little Italy, in recognition of the role It...

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The week of May 22nd, San Francisco welcomed SMAU | Italy RestartsUp, an event dedicated to innovation between Italy and the Bay Area Ecosystem, organized by SMAU in collaboration with ICE, the agency for the internationalization and promotion abroad of Italian companies.  Innovation and excellence of “Made In Italy” were at the center of the conve...

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The 37th I Madonnari Italian street painting festival is coming alive at the Santa Barbara Mission. It's referred to as a romantic Italian festival in line with a sister festival in Grazie di Curtatone, Italy. The event takes place for three days beginning Saturday and through the end of the Memorial Day weekend. Some of the artists have already be...

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Music history has long been shrouded in myth—from the lore around Delta bluesman Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil to become a guitar master to the tall tale that Jimi Hendrix lived in Haight-Ashbury (he didn’t). Similarly, the story of how the accordion became the official instrument of San Francisco may sound legendary. But in this c...

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The Museo Italo Americano celebrates the 100th anniversary of San Francisco Opera with a new exhibition: BRAVO—Celebrating San Francisco Opera, Its Italian Roots and Legacy. Presented in partnership with San Francisco Opera and Museum of Performance + Design, the exhibition runs through October 22, 2023 at the Museo Italo Americano located at Fort...

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For Battista “Tita Pito” Pordon, being named to the 1960 Italian Olympic Team was a dream come true.  As one of Europe’s top young ski racers, it was a golden opportunity to make his mark on the world’s grandest sporting stage.  The allure of skiing on an unknown mountain, nearly 6,000 miles away in Northern California, added to the prestige of the...

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Amadeo Pietro Giannini had seen disaster before. He’d survived an earthquake, the stock market crash and world war. And he’d done so with remarkable aplomb and grace. His childhood had been marked by struggle due to the violent death of his father. When his mother remarried, Giannini, who was known as “A.P.,” left school and worked furiously to bui...

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The voices that have endured from the Classical period describe what life was like in ancient Rome for their authors, who were literate and educated elites. But what about everyone else? One way to learn about life outside the privileged classes is to examine how people engaged with laws and politics, particularly voting. Finding the evidence howev...

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