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History of Modern Italy – S.Anna di Stazzema
“… .Tiny, reduced to scattered houses under the peaks north-east of Farnocchia, amidst the named houses there is an oratory dedicated to Sant’Anna … " Thus mentioned in “ Versilia granducale”, 1700.
Sant’Anna, a hamlet of Stazzema (Lucca), is located on the southern-most offspring of the Apuan Alps, 660 metres above sea level. The village can be reached by a panoramic road, 10 km long, who mender through Versilia hills, touching the villages of Monteggiori and La Culla.
Sant’Anna can also be reached by means of the ancient mule-traks, which were part of the old Via Francigena, as well from Farnocchia, as from Capriglia-Capezzano and from Valdicastello.
On the morning of August 12th 1944, in Sant’Anna di Stazzema, one of the most terrible crimes, who injured the civilians during the second war, was commited.
The cruelty of Nazi-fascists flinged, suddendly and inexorably, against everything and everyone. In the course of a few hours, in the suburbs of the small village (Vaccareccia, Case, Moco, Pero, Coletti), hundreds of corpses, which was massacred, burned and teared, remained on the ground.
That morning of August in Sant’Anna were killed the olds, the women and the children. The Nazists killed the villagers and the evacuees who rised to Sant’Anna to live in safe.
The slaughter of Sant’Anna di Stazzema still arouse a sensation of civil and moral dismay and desolation, because it represent one of the most brutal pages of nazifascist’s barbarism, the cancer who affected Europe and annihilated the values of democracy and tolerance. It represented an hateful outrage who damaged the human dignity. That day man decided to deny itself, to renounce to the respect of people and to the civil rights .
The tragedy of St.Anna inspired the movie “Miracle at St. Anna,” directed by Spike Lee and based on a novel by James McBride. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Miracle_at_st_anna.jpg

Italian Fashion Industry – Milan and the Fashion week
SRISA Fashion Students at Milan Fashion Shows
Milan (Italian: Milano; Lombard: Milan is one of the largest cities in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. The city is one of the world's major commercial and financial centres, and one of the wealthiest cities in the European Union[citation needed]. Milan is also reknown as one of the world capitals of fashion—along with New York City and Paris.[1] Indeed the English word milliner is derived from the name of the city. The Lombard metropolis is famous for fashion houses and shops (such as along via Montenapoleone) and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in the Piazza Duomo, reputed to be the world's oldest shopping mall.

Milan is one of the major artistical centres of northern Italy. An incomplete list of landmarks includes:
• The Duomo, the second largest cathedral of the world and the world's largest collection of marble statues with the widely visible golden Madonna statue on top of the spire, la Madunina (little Madonna), the symbol of Milan.
• The Castello Sforzesco
• The Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio
• The Palaeo-Christian Basilica of San Lorenzo
• The Biblioteca Ambrosiana, containing drawings and notebooks by Leonardo da Vinci among its vast holdings of books, manuscripts, and drawings, and is one of the main repositories of European culture. The city is also the home ofthe Brera Academy of Fine Arts.
• The church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, housing one of the most famous paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper
• The Pinacoteca di Brera, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Poldi Pezzoli, the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum and the Musei del Castello galleries, which host a great number of pictorial masterpieces
Milan is also one of the most important centres in the world for Opera lirica, with its famous Teatro alla Scala (La Scala).

Italian Opera - VERONA
Located in the Veneto region in Northern Italy, Verona is only half an hour's drive from Lake Garda, one of the country's most beautiful lakes. It is also surrounded, to the north and east, by the hilly landscapes of the famous Valpolicella and Soave wine districts.
Known by most for its Roman amphiteatre, the Arena, one of Italy's largest and the home of its annual summer opera festival, Verona also boasts one of Italy's finest Romanesque churches as well as one of the country's most beautiful Renaissance gardens.
The city's old castle, Castelvecchio, is a famous attraction in its own right too, built by the powerful della Scala family in the Middle Ages and restored in the 20th century by world-famous architect Carlo Scarpa.
Arguably, however, the reason behind Verona's thriving tourist industry has less to do with architecture or history than with literature - William Shakespeare's romantic and tragic play about the young lovers Romeo and Juliet is set in the city, and such is the power and resonance of this story that every year a stream of tourists flocks to Verona to visit the famous courtyard and balcony at Casa Giulietta (Juliet's House) on Via Cappello in the Old Town.
Nor does Shakespeare represent the only important literary link with the city. When Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, was forced to flee his hometown Florence in the early 14th century, he was welcomed and protected by the Veronese noble lord Can Grande della Scala. Piazza dei Signori, where Can Grande's palace stood, is sometimes called Piazza Dante, and there is a statue of the famous poet on this square.
Verona is a lively city with the Old Town, framed by the River Adige to the north, east and west, as the picturesque centre for cultural activities, tourism, shopping and nightlife.

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