The newly certified milky coffee, weighing in at only 150 ml and served in a ceramic cup, was offered to MPs and ministers at a Christmas event sponsored by the Italian parliamentary culture commission.
The institute has already given a government-backed certification to the perfect espresso coffee and yesterday the organisation’s president, Marco Paladini, stood up for the beleaguered cappuccino, promising “to protect this important expression of our national gastronomic culture… A great success abroad, but not always made with adequate sensory quality”, the newspaper Il Giornale quoted him as saying.

More froth than liquid, the Italian cappuccino can be swallowed in seconds, and according to purists should leave a smear of milk on the inside of the cup. Stirring the beverage to mix the milk with the coffee that lurks in the bottom should not produce an overall brown colour, but streaks of coffee in the pure white foam. A white moustache is de rigueur after drinking.

According to many Italians, the light brown colour is similar to that of the robes worn by Italy’s Capuchin monks, hence the name, while others credit Capuchin monk Marco D’Aviano with the invention of the drink, after he discovered a sack of coffee captured from the Ottomans during the battle of Vienna in 1683. D’Aviano was beatified in 2003 for his missionary work and miraculous power of healing.

There is no debate over when a cappuccino is drunk. Italians line up every morning in bars before steaming, shiny coffee machines to gulp down their coffee, possibly returning for a another cappuccino after a late night. One allowed variant is the caffelatte, usually served in a tall glass, with extra milk added.

Only tourists take a cappuccino or caffelatte after lunch, as Italians believe the milk plays havoc with digestion.

Nescafˆ© may be making inroads in Italy through advertising of its instant granules, but Starbucks and other global coffee chains have yet to set foot in the bel paese. And if they did, they might find their margins shrinking. An average cappuccino, drunk standing up at a bar in Rome, costs around 78 pence, an espresso 47 pence - although prices may rise by 100% if the drinker takes a seat and waits to be served.

Italians are very proud of their traditional coffee, and even have a National Institute for Italian Espresso. Use the following recipe to make your own perfect cup.

Ingredients
125ml milk, no warmer than 3-5C, containing a minimum of 3.2% protein and 3.5% fat
25ml shot of hot espresso coffee

Directions
Add coffee to a 150-160ml capacity ceramic cup
Froth milk with steam to a temperature of 55C, and add to cup
Add sugar and stir gently

Tom Kington - Guardian

The Medici Villa at Poggio a Caiano was built by Giuliano da Sangallo towards the end of the XV century over a villa that previously belonged to the Strozzi family. It belonged to Lorenzo the Magnificent and hosted illustrious royal personages including Vittorio Emanuele II. Its architecture is splendid, with a terraced ground-floor portico. A double-ramp staircase leads to the exquisite central loggia, inspired by classical motifs. Inside, it is a sort of little museum (outside sixteenth-century frescoes), while outside it is surrounded by a beautiful park.

In the vicinity of Comeana, “La Ferdinanda,” also known as Villa di Artimino was commissioned by Ferdinando I de’ Medici to Buontalenti towards the end of the XVI century.

The Medici Villa at Castello is a fine piece of Renaissance architecture, restored by Vasari and surrounded by a beautiful garden designed by Tribolo. The villa is headquarters of the Accademia della Crusca.

The Medici Villa of Petraia is among one of the most beautiful residences in the surroundings of Florence. It was transformed on a project by Buontalenti (second half of the XVI century), commissioned by Ferdinando I.
Not far from Fiesole is another Medici Villa also known as Belcanto or Palagio di Fiesole. It was built by Michelozzo (1458-1461) on order of Cosimo the Elder.

On the outskirts of Florence the Medici Villa of Careggi was purchased by the family during the first half of the XV century and restructured by Michelozzo for Cosimo the Elder. Surrounded by a splendid park, this residence was among the favourites of Cosimo who died there in 1464.

Another Medici Villa is located at Coltano, not far from Pisa, and is the Visitors Centre of the Migliarino-San Rossore-Massaciuccoli Natural Park. The Medicis commissioned Buontalenti to restructure it (1587) into a sort of hunting lodge.

The remote, sometimes primitive southern coast is dotted with a rich array of architecture ’Äî from medieval to Byzantine to Baroque ’Äî reflecting the relentless waves of invaders that washed over the Salento peninsula. Its picture-postcard buildings range from Otranto’Äôs castle, which resembles a child’Äôs sand castle on a grand scale, to trulli, the humorous conical huts in the Itria valley, to the lacy filigree of Lecce, ’Äúthe Florence of the South.’Äù

Compared with the dark, labyrinthine palace evoked by Horace Walpole in his famous novella, ’ÄúThe Castle of Otranto,’Äù the real thing is a benign, if hulking, presence, stuck on the edge of this city like a sturdy millenniums-old barnacle. The closest thing to a Gothic atmosphere is the turret used for falcons; a multitude of pigeons inhabit the castle, and the falcons and a falconer had been brought in to control the problem.

Sitting in one of the vaulted cells at the top of the castle, I paged through Walpole’Äôs story. Watching the falconer put the birds through their bloodthirsty paces, it was easy to imagine the place as a full-fledged fortress, cannons blazing. Although the surrounding moat was bone dry, used these days for events like concerts, a cannon and catapults stand sentry in the courtyard, reminders of the town’Äôs most vivid memory. In 1480, Otranto was attacked by the Turks, and 800 martyrs were decapitated during the slaughter, an event still constantly evoked, from the skulls on display in the crypt of the town’Äôs cathedral to Martyrs Hill (also called Minerva Hill after an ancient temple), where the Sanctuary of St. Mary of the Martyrs memorializes the dead.

The cathedral is an amazing potpourri of the architecture that permeates the region. Its bell tower (which clangs crazily to mark the hours ’Äî ringing, say, 13 times at 7 p.m.) was built by the Normans. The otherwise plain facade boasts a Renaissance rose window. But it’Äôs not until you get inside that you see its greatest treasure ’Äî a 12th-century mosaic floor beneath the 17th-century Moorish coffered ceiling.

Painstakingly created by a monk, Pantaleone, at the behest of the Archbishop Jonathan, the astonishingly detailed mosaic looks like the work of someone tripping on acid. The nearly 1,000-square-yard pictogram borrows its images from everything from pagan times to ancient Greek and Hindu mythology to the Old and New Testaments to medieval history. Using the Tree of Life as its central motif, it weaves a wildly chaotic chronological web ranging from creation to the fall of Adam and Eve. Here King Arthur and Alexander the Great share floor space with the Tower of Babel, elephants, dragons, hydra-headed beasts, griffins, unicorns, minotaurs, Norse gods and horned devils. The cathedral’Äôs ornate crypt, columns and even the charming remnants of its early-Italian frescoes pale beside this nutty masterpiece.

Carlo Pisanelli, our guide, spoke an ornate broken English as he described the details of the floor. ’ÄúThe mosaic covers the history of man,’Äù he said, pointing out some ’Äúbad angels,’Äù as well as a ’Äúlegendary, very dangerous cat living in Switzerland that King Arthur had to fight.’Äù Like all of Otranto, the ancient merges seamlessly with the current, and the mosaic, rather than being off limits, is covered with chairs for the congregation.

During my two-week stay as member of a residency for artists and writers planned by the BAU Institute, a cultural organization, the cathedral was the scene of at least a dozen fancy weddings. It seemed that there was always a bridal limousine pulling up to the castle, or a glowing young couple posing in the ruined arches near a favorite lunch spot, Agli Angeli Ribelli, where even the simplest bruschetta with arugula, mozzarella and tomatoes was, thanks to the freshness of the ingredients, a feast.

From Piazza Basilica, it’Äôs just a narrow, winding street away to Otranto’Äôs main drag, Corso Garibaldi, which runs parallel to the sea. The street is a perfect example of Otranto’Äôs weird coupling of the antique and the honky-tonk; think Provincetown if it were set in a Crusades-era stone village. The narrow street, which leads down to the tiny park with its carousel, is filled with tourists and lined with shop after shop hawking everything from beach garb to coral jewelry to gelato. Colorful scarves and skirts from India and Indonesia flutter in the breeze. Everywhere there are bars and restaurants specializing in the hearty Pugliese cuisine. And then there’Äôs the harbor, with its cement boardwalk and stone quay, and the beaches. From dawn until past dusk, they are studded with swimmers and sunbathers.

In this part of the world, the ancient is omnipresent. Just outside the centro storico, or old city, about 10 minutes south of Piazza de Gasperi, is Torre Pinta, a bee-hive-shaped stone structure probably used as an ancient temple. A small group of us wandered through a field to enter the place, which contains a chamber that is illuminated by sunset. The cone’Äôs interior is honeycombed with odd, recessed pigeonholes, possibly meant for candles or religious items. It felt eerie even in daylight.

ANOTHER evening we took a field trip to an extraordinarily numinous place, driving through haunted valleys where ’Äúthe cats are not cats and the dogs are not dogs,’Äù as the founder of the BAU Institute, Paola Iacucci, puts it. Deep in the olive groves near Minervino di Lecce, just about a half-hour’Äôs drive from Otranto, are some of the mysterious stone mounds known as dolmen. These strange, carefully piled rock slabs were the sites of ancient rituals, including sacrifices.

The closest city to Otranto, about 45 minutes away, is Lecce, famed for its over-the-top Baroque architecture. Like Otranto (and for that matter, all of Italy) it shuts down between 1 and 5 in the afternoon, but in the evening the beautiful old city comes to life. The well-lit remains of a Roman amphitheater create a dramatic first impression.

The unique town square, the Piazza del Duomo, is gracefully asymmetrical, with a massive cathedral sandwiched between a five-story bell tower and the bishop’Äôs palace. But it’Äôs the 16th-century Basilica of Santa Croce that is truly jaw-dropping. With its extravagantly ornate facade entirely covered with beautifully carved cherubim and mythical beasts ’Äî from mermaids to wolves ’Äî it epitomizes the architecture known as Leccese Baroque, the diametric opposite of the dolmen hidden in the olive groves.

It is the dichotomies ’Äî the civilized juxtaposed with the pagan, the Eastern sensibility juxtaposed with the Western ’Äî that give Apulia its unique and unsettling flavor. In Galatina, for instance, a small inland town about halfway between Otranto and Lecce, there is the 14th-century church of St. Caterina d’ÄôAssandria, a Calvin Klein store and on the night of the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, June 29, the yearly ritual of the Pizzica Taranta.

Gathered in a circle, the men played accordions and slapped tambourines adorned with the image of a tarantula, while the women performed a frenzied dance originally intended to exorcise them of evil caused by the spider bite. The Cajun-sounding music was hypnotic as the dancers stalked each other, spider and prey, dangling weblike red scarves. (Freudians and feminists could have a field day deconstructing the origins of Tarantismo, which evolved as a way for the repressed peasant women to express their subconscious, dancing until they literally fell down in a hysterical trance.)

Otranto feels as though it’Äôs in the middle of nowhere, and to a certain extent it is. But toward the end of my stay, a group of us explored several other Apulian towns: Ostuni, Martina Franca and Alberobello, all within an hour or two to the north. Our first stop was Ostuni, ’Äúthe white city,’Äù where we arrived at high noon. The stark, whitewashed town shimmered like a mirage in the sun. It was Sunday, and almost everything (including the cathedral) was closed, but we found relief from the heat at a delightful restaurant, Taverna della Gelosia.

About half an hour west of Ostuni is the Itria valley, dotted with the unique huts called trulli. Like mushrooms, they seem to sprout everywhere, with their signature cone-shaped cobbled roofs topped with white orbs. They are as funny as they are magical ’Äî one half expects to see hobbits or Snow White’Äôs seven dwarves emerge from the low doorways.

When we returned to Otranto, the World Cup was on, and there was a video screen set up at the base of the park. But as soon as we stepped through the gates of the centro storico, we were once again plunged deep into the distant past.

PHOEBE HOBAN - NYT

An Italian biologist, Dr Paola Ottino, has discovered shark teeth in the Majella area of the Apennines that date back to the Miocene period - 23-5 million years ago.

“At that time the area was populated by sharks and all sorts of fish,” Ottino explained.

The teeth are part of evidence Ottino has compiled that show how Abruzzo was once home to a marine environment with a coral reef similar to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

“We have found fossil remains with typical elements of a sea bed, including molluscs and coral,” she continued.

“We have even unearthed the teeth of delta Crocodilian animals similar to today’s Gharial reptiles of the Ganges.

“This shows that in the Miocene era the area was covered by tropical seas that were not too deep and quite near to the coast”.

It is a scenario that present day visitors to the Majella national park will find difficult to imagine. Geological movements have since created peaks that climb over 2,700 metres above sea level.

Ottino said only the sharks’ teeth have survived because the rest of their skeletons were cartilaginous and decomposed.

But this has not presented any major problems for the researcher.

“It’s easy to imagine how the sharks would have lived and what they would have looked like,” she said.

“They are such perfect predators that they have hardly evolved since the Miocene period. So they would have been pretty similar to the sharks of today”. The Majella area is famous for its cluster of mountain peaks, over 30 of which are more than 2,000-meters high. The tallest is Mt Amaro, which at 2,793 metres is the second tallest in the Apennines.

The Majella national park spreads out over an area of 74,000 hectares split between the provinces of Pescara, L Aquila and Chieti.

The landscape is rich with rivers, waterfalls, fauna and flora, making it popular with trekking enthusiasts.

ANSA