Reckless Reality |

It’s billed as the world’s most expensive, most beautiful new book.

Valued at well over US$100,000, a 28-kilogram handmade tome depicting the life and work of Michelangelo has arrived at the New York Public Library, fresh from publication in Italy.

The velvet-and marble-bound book will go on public display next Tuesday.

It takes six months to make each book, using Italian artisan skills dating to the Renaissance. The copy on display was donated to the library but more than 20 books have been sold.

“I love books,” Marilena Ferrari, the Italian publisher who produced the extravagance, said in a telephone interview from Bologna, Italy, where she’s president of a company called FMR, which publishes fine books about art. Read the rest of this entry »

The Italian air force acrobatic team, “Frecce Tricolori” (Tri-colour Arrows), leave trails of green, white and red smoke, the colours of the national flag, during a flypast over Rome November 9, 2008. The team was performing in observance of the 90th anniversary of the end of World War One. The First World War ended at 11 a.m on November 11, 1918 with an armistice signed in a railway carriage at Compiegne, France, which brought to a close a conflict in which more than 10 million people died.

The leaning tower of Pisa is not the most leaning tower in Europe anymore as a retired geometrician from Neatherlands, Jacob van Dijk, said measurements of the Bedum church tower of Walfridus revealed that it is leaning more than its counterpart in Italy, which lost part of its tilt due to restoration works.

The tower of Walfridus is a 12th-century building in the northern Dutch town of Bedum and is 36-meter high. At an exact height of 35.7 meters, it leans 2.61 meters. However, the leaning tower of Pisa leans 4 meters at a height of 55.86 meters.

Putting it another way, if both towers were the same height, Bedum would have a greater tilt of 6 cm, van Dijk argues.

“In Italy they’re happy with the result, but here in Bedum we are much more happy, because the tower of Pisa is now leaning less than the tower of Bedum,” said Van Dijk.

Silvio Berlusconi has banned Mafia bosses from singing in jails in Italy after they used songs to pass criminal messages to each other.

Godfathers and their foot soldiers have been allowed to rule the roost in Italy’s jails, giving orders from their cells, as well as enjoying home comforts such as TV, gym and conjugal visits.

But now Silvio Berlusconi’s new centre-Right government has toughened up regulations governing the treatment of convicted crime bosses. As part of sweeping new measures against crime, the justice minister Angelino Alfano has banned inmates from singing and socialising with fellow mobsters. Read the rest of this entry »

ROME (Reuters) – When in Capri, don’t wander off the beach in a bikini. If you go to the sea in Eraclea, near Venice, remember that building sandcastles is forbidden. And don’t even think about mowing your lawn at the weekend in Forte dei Marmi.

Emboldened by a nationwide crackdown on crime and a government decree giving them extra law-and-order powers, Italian mayors have issued a string of often bizarre by-laws to enhance “public decorum.”

Public displays of affection in a car can earn you a fine of up to 500 euros ($745) in Eboli, feeding pigeons is off-limits in the centre of Lucca while in Novara groups of more than two people are forbidden from lounging around in parks at night.

Italian newspapers have dubbed this year’s holiday season “the summer of bans.” But this week one town hall was forced to acknowledge things may have gone too far.

Rodrigo Piccoli, 33, called national radio to protest after he was fined 50 euros for lying down in a park in the northern city of Vicenza to read a book. The mayor has since promised to drop the ban.

ROME (Reuters) – Italians are used to buying bogus Gucci bags or Rolex watches to look stylish but police found a new height of craftsmanship and cunning when they broke up a ring selling fake Ferrari cars for a fraction of the real price.

Police accused 15 people of building the blood red sports cars and selling them to car fanatics on a budget, most of whom knew they were buying a counterfeit classic.

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