Buondì. In Friday’s episode twenty-four of our FREE 30-part Summer Series of articles with audio on the medieval period in the Italian peninsula (scroll down past The Romans to get to it) we heard and read about the new, self-governing ‘comunes’, which were, perhaps, an early form of democracy. So what happened next? Did this […]
Italy is no Sweden!
Buondì. Episode 24 of our FREE summer series on the medieval period in the Italian peninsula is ready for you to read and listen to. Rivolte e disordini nei Comuni (XIII-XIV secolo) For any aspiring or actual revolutionaries out there, this is quite an exciting one as it explains how the ‘comunes’ (basically cities, those […]
Sicily becomes French, then Spanish!
Buondì. Episode 23 of our FREE 30-part Summer Series on the medieval period in the Italian peninsula is ready for you to read and listen to: Episodio 23, Gli invasori francesi e la rivolta dei siciliani (XII-XIII secolo) As you can see from the title, this time we’re in the twelfth/thirteenth centuries, in Sicily. ‘Italians’, […]
Know your Guelfi from your Ghibellini?
Buondì. Episode 22 of our FREE Summer Series of articles with audio, on the medieval period in the Italian peninsula, is now ready. Below are the links, to that one, and to the club’s History page, where you’ll find the previous 21 along with all thirty articles from last year’s Summer Series on the Romans: […]
The Antichrist is dead, long live the communists!
Buondì. A short one today, as I messed up and spent ages proofreading (and listening to) the wrong episode of our FREE Summer Series, then had to go do the correct one as well. Also, we got up late this morning, after a disturbed night of vomiting, diarrhoea – what a horrible word to spell […]
Wonder of the World (an emperor who knew six languages!)
Buondì. I quite often hear from club members that they’re not, or weren’t before they started hanging with us, ‘good at languages’. It’s common that people in Britain think this, though hardly surprising given that they live on an island and that if they mistakenly venture off it, their native tongue is used just about […]
Back to normal in Northern Italy (no place to park!)
Buondì. Here we are, the final week of August! And the hot weather is supposed to break today, at least in Bologna, where I live. We’re looking forward to a storm, plenty of rain, and a welcome drop in temperature – from the mid-thirties to the mid-twenties! The final week of August in Italy, besides […]
The adventures of the Genovese, Drunk William Chainmail Head
Buondì. You’ve probably never heard of Drunk William Chainmail Head (my translation) but, according to the writer of our FREE 30-part series of texts with audio on the middle ages in the Italian peninsula, he was an imaginative Genovese merchant who sought his fortune in the Crusades, and ended up capturing the Sarcen-held city of […]
Trouble at the top
Buondì. Episode 17 of our FREE 30-part Summer Series of articles with audio on the medieval period in the Italian peninsula is ready for you to read and listen to! Which should help pass the time if you’re locked down in New Zealand, or Australia. Here in Europe, it looks like we’re having a few […]
Name some famous vikings, can you?
Buondì. Yet again I am confronted by the vast gaps in my knowledge of history (despite having half-heartedly studied the subject at college…) Name some famous vikings, can you? I came up with Erik the Red, and that was about it. Perhaps you’ll do better? If not, you can Google it, as I did, and […]