Emma Ursic, CEO of The Human Safety Net Foundation, tells us how Generali transformed this extraordinary space into a global home for social innovation, reaching more than 1.3 million vulnerable people across 25 countries since 2017.

From a refugee turned Parisian barber giving back to his community, to free exhibitions, family workshops & very good Italian coffee, this is the story of a building, a foundation & a quietly radical idea: that the most famous square in the world should also be a place where people rise by lifting others.

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But Marianne's heart belongs equally to Italy. She tells us about her grandfather, an Italian count who gave up everything to follow a young Scala singer to France, the elegance of Italian women on set in the 1960s, and the morning a purple Saint Laurent shirt cost her the role of a lifetime with the great Dino Risi in Profumo di donna.

It's a story of two countries, one career, and the quiet wisdom of an actress who has walked the Cannes red carpet forty-nine times — and still believes the best is yet to come.

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She is the founder of United Voices for Peace and the force behind Global Women in Music, a project born with the United Nations Symphony Orchestra to put female composers and conductors back where they belong, on the world's greatest stages. And it began in Italy. Veronika tells us how a chance meeting at UNESCO with the late artist Patricia Atkinskisi led to a landmark concert with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, celebrating the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through pieces written by women.

It's the story of a promise kept, of an idea that travelled from Rome to New York, and of an Italy that, from the Venice Biennale to the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, has always known that culture is the most powerful form of diplomacy there is.

A conversation about closed doors, open stages, and what the next generation of Italian girls picking up a violin needs to hear.

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The producer behind Riddle of Fire, which premiered at Directors' Fortnight in Cannes edition 2023, tells us how a single ride on a Venetian water taxi sparked the idea for his next project, why he sought out Luca Bigazzi, the cinematographer of Certified Copy, to shape its visual language, and how Italian actor Riccardo Scamarcio came on board after a long dinner at the St. Regis in Rome that had almost nothing to do with the film itself.

It's a conversation about family legacy, the gravitational pull of Italy on global cinema, and what happens when an American filmmaker steps into a 1,500 year old city where every corner is already set design.

A new name to keep on your radar, and you heard it here first.

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Selin tells us about the mother and daughter who chased her down a Positano street at half past six in the morning, the Napoletano café owner who FaceTimed his grandmother on the spot - and then watched her leave the house for the first time in years just to meet her favourite actress, and the journalists at Mediaset who unearthed details about her childhood she didn't think existed online.

We also follow her on the road: Milan, Florence, Naples, a rented car all the way down to Sicily and back, and the dream of one day producing a Turkish-Italian co-production of her own. It's a conversation about two Mediterranean cultures that, as Selin puts it, share the same daily rhythm - and recognise each other on sight.

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Marsili explains why a global think tank founded in Los Angeles chose Venice over Berlin, Paris or Rome, and how three Venetian buildings have quietly become a gathering place for some of the most provocative minds of our time, from Carlo Rovelli and Giorgio Agamben to Slavoj Žižek and Peter Sloterdijk.

From a Joseph Kosuth solo show at Casa dei Tre Oci to a Hans Ulrich Obrist exhibition on protocol art at Palazzo Diedo, this is the story of a city that has always traded in ideas, and the next chapter being written from a window on the Giudecca.

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Luca has spent years cataloguing and teaching the more than 250 recognised Italian gestures, touring his one-man show La Voce del Corpo from San Francisco to Sydney, often with his mother Angela on stage beside him. He tells us why a Roman hand in motion can say more than a paragraph, how regional gesture dialects survive alongside a shared national code, and why he is fighting to have Italian gestural language recognised as UNESCO intangible heritage.

By the end, you may find yourself gesturing along, and wondering how you ever communicated without it.

Photo credits:Cinzia Capparelli.

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Giuseppe Di Martino walks us through 260 handcrafted shapes, each one designed not for beauty alone but for the precise company it will keep on the plate. He speaks about 100 percent Italian wheat, bronze dies and slow drying at low temperature, and about a family philosophy as old as the town itself: pasta will never make you rich, but it will never let you go hungry.

From a landmark collaboration with Dolce & Gabbana that gave rise to the Devozione restaurant in New York, to the pastificio's sponsorship of the San Carlo opera house in Naples, Giuseppe draws a straight line from pasta to Puccini, and traces how this most Italian of arts travelled with emigrants to every corner of the world.

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Maria Grazia Di Lauro and her daughter Chiara Tommasino tell us how a holiday home became an agriturismo by accident, shaped entirely by the guests who loved it first. And they reveal what comes next: a monastery in Nardò, six years in the making, where the ancient philosophy of healing through craft, connection and slowness is being brought back to life.

It is a story about olive oil, whitewashed walls and the particular kind of hospitality that only happens when a family opens its home and never quite closes the door.

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She tells us how Tignanello broke every rule of late-1960s Chianti Classico, why wine and food are inseparable in Italian culture, and what a 27th generation is already bringing to one of the world's great wine estates.

Six hundred years in, the direction has never been clearer.

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Miriam tells us how she and her husband Lionel gave up two years of their lives to a restoration that their own architect told them was madness — and how Helen Mirren, at the grand opening, offered the word that made it all make sense: anima, soul.

With twelve suites hung with works from their private collection, a noble floor given over to contemporary exhibitions, and a frescoed grand salon overlooking Lecce's Roman theatre, this is the story of a place built entirely out of love. And occasionally, a very beautiful kind of madness.

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His mother's cooking and the shared experience of working the dough made of ancient grains are the heart of the estate: less a class, more an initiation into the southern Italian art of being together.

Mettere le mani in pasta — to put your hands in the dough — is, here, an act of belonging.

We also discover how sustainable cycling is quietly opening Salento to a new kind of traveller, who pedals through the inland villages, stops at the cheese farmer, lingers at the small winery, and leaves having seen a part of Italy that most tourists never find.

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Anna Gennari, who leads hospitality at the cooperative, tells us how Primitivo arrived in Manduria as a bride's dowry in the 19th century and grew into one of Italy's most celebrated appellations.

From star-vaulted cellar rooms turned community museum to a sweet red wine conquering China, this is the story of a wine, a town, and the quiet persistence of the people who kept both alive.

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Standing beneath some of the most breathtaking mosaics ever created, Robin explains why this small city in Emilia-Romagna holds a place in art history that Rome, Florence and Venice simply cannot match. From the shimmering gold tessera that lines every surface to the famous panels of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora, he brings one of the ancient world's greatest achievements back to vivid life.

King Charles made a special pilgrimage here during his 2025 royal tour of Italy.

Once you see it, you will understand why.

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Curator Pamela Golbin walks us through the most breathtaking pieces, from the vision behind the show to the surprising collaborations that made it possible.

It's the Rome exhibition everyone is talking about, and we got a front-row tour.

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The third-generation owner of Alfredo alla Scrofa tells us how this iconic dish conquered the world, from Hollywood legends to Masterchef Turkey, and why the secret is still in the hands.

It's a love letter to Roman tradition, family pride and the perfect plate of pasta.

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Meet us, understand our approach, and get a glimpse of the stories ahead.

Consider this your press pass to the real Italy.

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