Silvio laments the winds, the constant winds which have whipped our house and deposited extraordinary amounts of North African sand on us. Just one shower last night – one of dozens recently – has transformed my car. But this long winter, coming after a drought last summer, also included days of severe frost. Mortared stones have slipped off in the aftermath. Worse still, the olives have taken a beating. Silvio grasps an olive branch and shows me the split bark. The leaves ha

‘..to the tombs, to the tombs! On a sunny April morning we set out for the tombs. From Rome, the eternal city, now in a black bonnet. It was not far to go – about twenty miles over the Campagna towards the sea…’ D.H. Lawrence, Etruscan Places [1932] 1986, 32. Tom Campbell is visiting and he wants to see the Euphronios Vase. It was repatriated to Italy just before he became Director of the Meteropolitan Museum in New York. The week before we call Cerveteri Museum to check and

Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels are a treat. Over the past decade, having avidly read the first three from the 1990s, I have awaited each annual publication date of a new episode as a cherished benchmark in my year. His latest, Greeks Bearing Gifts, came out earlier this month and I resisted reading it until I had a long weekend. The writing is compelling, often very witty and the settings – in Nazi Germany or 1950s Europe – are rich (but never excessively so) in granular

The indefatigable 96-year old Harry Shindler (see previous post for more about Harry) called last night. He was very excited. He has been contesting Brexit using pro buono lawyers through the European Union. His simple case is that Brexit would not have occurred if British citizens abroad all had had the vote. Those, like Harry, who have been abroad more than 15 years do not currently have the vote. Millions were disenfranchised at the June 2016 Brexit vote. Harry has lobbied

Sauro Gelichi and I organized a conference in Nonantola, near Modena, to celebrate the 6th and final monograph on his excavations of the early medieval monastery. In a magisterial presentation Sauro showed how the legendary 8th-century monk, Anselmo founded the monastery at the limits of old Roman cultivation on the edge of a wilderness. Amazingly, it was constructed by a brook only identified at the very end of the 2002-9 excavations. The excavations also found remains of An

One topic always arises when I am in the company of members of the Soprintenza for Beni Culturali: should foreigners be running Italy’s national cultural sites? In 2015 Minister Dario Francescini appointed a dozen or so foreign experts to oversee Italy’s most prestigious museums and sites, hoping to bring fresh energy to these places. Of course it has long since been a fashion in the USA and UK to appoint foreigners to manage cultural assets - there’s a German, after all, hea

Europe has privileged the humanism of the (late medieval/early modern) Renaissance above the earlier renaissances of the Carolingian and Romanesque periods. Possibly the art of the earlier renaissances fails to speak to our industrial and post-industrial ages with the same voice as the neo-classical images created by Michelangelo and Raphael. Yet the artists of the first renaissances played an essential part in re-envisioning our Europe after its collapse in the 7th century.

The aggressive attack on the Central European University (CEU) at Budapest by the Hungarian government concerns us all. It is a transparent attempt to pervert democracy in an EU country. All Europeans and all academics should support President, Michael Ignatieff, and his colleagues. Having twice taught at CEU, I can attest not only to its high international standards, but above all to the opportunities the university has given to thousands of students from all parts of the ol

Harry is in his 97th year and is as indefatigable as ever. Following the showing of the film at AUR about him, this veteran of the 1944 Anzio landings had a simple message. Thousands of young men the age of our students perished for a purpose – the liberation of Europe from totalitarianism. We have had more than 70 years of peace thanks to their sacrifice. We need to remember and honour that sacrifice, because democracy and peace are more precious than ever. It is a privilege

My daughter ran the Rome marathon. The course took in all the sights, including the Pope giving mass. It began and ended on the Via Fori Imperiali, and was marvellously organized. On a relatively hot Sunday, it was a challenge for the 35,000 runners. But the biggest challenge was to come. Running Rome On finishing 42 kms there was no public transport. The Metro station at the Colosseum was closed. The adjacent taxi ranks were closed. Buses? I had discovered the same problem w