Friends of Friends

With two generations of family preceding me in Rome, you might well imagine the number of people who make up my continually expanding circle of Italian friends.  This has been especially so since I started Insider’s Italy in 1989, 35 years ago.

My maternal grandparents arrived in Rome in 1919 when my grandfather assumed the position of commercial attaché at the U.S. Embassy.  Shortly thereafter, my mother was born and, in short order, my uncle and aunt followed.  While Mussolini’s regime obliged the family to leave in 1934, my mother returned to Italy soon after the war.  My father too was American but at heart very Italian—in fact he wrote a marvellous novel, The Crime of Giovanni Venturi, that is set in the Roman neighborhood of Trastevere. It was subsequently a Broadway musical, starring celebrated Italian tenor Cesare Siepi.