There are some nice shops on Via D’Azeglio. From Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore, on the right-hand-side as you face the Basilica di San Petronio, head south-east, gently up hill towards the city wall and then the Apennines. And now, I even know who D’Azeglio was. Another of those pesky Risorgimento politicians. Listen to today’s brief biography […]

Here’s the ninth in our series of twelve short articles about famous Italians who have streets, schools or hospitals named after them in my home city of Bologna. You’ll find the others here: Garibaldi | Marconi | Cavour | Galvani | Leonardo da Vinci | Mazzini | Malpighi | Galileo Today, Enrico Fermi, who dedicated his life to physics, […]

Buongiorno, today we have a short biography of Galileo, known as “the father of modern science”, according to my teenage daughter. Scroll down to find the listening plug-in, and the transcript. But first, a reminder about our new promotion on online Italian lessons. In the P.S. at the end of this article you’ll find a discount […]

Here’s the latest in our ‘street names’ series – short biographies of famous Italians who have streets named after them in my home town of Bologna. Today you’ll read about another famous alumnus from the world’s oldest university. This guy has both a high school and a hospital named after him, but as you’ll discover, […]

I think this is number 6 in our series of mini-biographies of Italians with streets or schools named after them. The others were: Garibaldi | Marconi | Cavour | Galvani | Leonardo da Vinci If you’re finding the level of this material difficult (it is), there are plenty of easier listening texts and other materials accessible from our ‘Free […]

OK, Leonardo da Vinci was not Bolognese. He was, in fact, from Vinci… But he still has a street named after him here, so makes it into our ‘Street names’ series of short biographical Italian listenings. First though, ‘Ciao’ to Michael Bigarelli, who commented: Do you provide an English translation of the text? I understand that […]

Here’s the next in our ‘street names’ series of free Italian listening texts. Each one is a short biography of a famous Italian who has a street or school named after him in my home town of Bologna. So far we’ve found out about Garibaldi, Marconi and Cavour. I’m learning a lot, and hope you […]

OK, our recent Italian listening tracks on Garibaldi and Marconi have gone down well. Garibaldi has already had over 150 plays, and Marconi more than 60. But as there are around 1500 OnlineItalianClub.com ‘members’, I guess that means that plenty of you are not managing with the technology. Cono wrote to me saying: I have […]

Here’s the second in our new series of Italian listenings with transcripts. The subjects of these short biographies are all Italians who have streets or schools named after them in my home city of Bologna. If you missed the first one, which told the fascinating story of Giuseppe Garibaldi, click here. So today we have […]

Today we start a new series of Italian listening exercises. We have texts on well-known Italian scientists and political figures, the sort of people who have streets or piazze named after them. The idea, apart from providing listening/reading practice, is to work on your ‘cultural knowledge’, background info that will put your study of the […]