Queens, Bulls, and a Perfect Porchetta Sandwich

Before the tourists arrive and the season truly begins, Italy belongs, for a few precious days, to its farmers. Every spring, Italy exhales. And somewhere in that first warm breath, you will find a farmer’s fair.

There is something quietly magical about the agricultural fairs that mark the arrival of spring in Italy.

National Agriculture, Livestock and Food Exhibitions.

Long before the first warm days settle in, farmers begin preparing — combing, grooming, loading their most prized animals into trailers — and the whole countryside seems to hold its breath in anticipation.

The undisputed stars of these fairs are the cows. They arrive knowing their worth. Washed with the finest shampoos, udders carefully tended, coats brushed until they gleam — they carry themselves with the serene dignity of royalty, because that is exactly what they are here. They nuzzle each other, accept affection without fuss, and survey the crowds with calm, dark eyes that seem to say: yes, this is all for us.

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The Knights Without Fear And… (2)

 The “Pragmatic Nobles” who used diplomacy and Church alliances to rule for 400+ years. Dynasty that would learn to survive by being much ‘smarter’ than the rebel Alberico but… TOO much

The confiscation of 1014 was not the end of Castellengo. It was, in retrospect, only the prologue.

Part II: The Pragmatic Heirs — The Mystery of the Postern Gate

Into the space Alberico left behind stepped the De Bulgaro — a family who had looked at his fate and drawn a very different set of conclusions about how to survive in a world of kings and emperors.

Who Were the Bulgaro?

The name sounds foreign, and it raised eyebrows even then, but the De Bulgaro were almost certainly Lombard or Frankish — part of the great consortile tradition, clan-based families who held property collectively across multiple branches, like a corporation with a coat of arms. They were also crucially aligned with the Bishop of Vercelli, which made them the Emperor’s men by proxy, making them legally untouchable.

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The Knights Without Fear And… (1)

Every castle has its ghost. At Castellengo, the ghost isn’t a specter drifting through corridors in the small hours — it’s a political tragedy, sealed into the limestone like a man walled up alive.

Before the grand balconies, before the cellars heavy with wine, there was only a cliff, a river, and a man with a loyalty that would cost him everything.

Part I: The Exile’s Gamble — From the Tiber to the Alps

The story does not begin here.

It begins five hundred kilometers to the south, in the sun-hammered hills of Umbria, where a man named Alberico stood in the shadow of the Castello di Monterone and grasped, with the cold clarity that only younger sons ever know, that none of this would ever be his.

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fog

Winter has finally arrived in Biella, and I find myself in the peculiar position of wanting snow. After 22 years of southern living, this is character development I never saw coming.

Snow in Biella is a rare guest — arriving perhaps once or twice, staying for a polite day or two before disappearing, as if it had forgotten an important appointment elsewhere.

But this year? This year, I’m craving it

The Almost-Adventure

The walking group chat has been exploding with snow photos — gorgeous, postcard-perfect shots that make you want to lace up your boots immediately. So last Saturday, after a fresh snowfall dusted the city, I thought: Today’s the day. I’m going to the mountains.

I had errands to run first. No problem. Plenty of time for a little mountain walk afterward. Then I looked up.

Above the peaks: massive, brooding, seriously uninviting dark gray clouds.

My enthusiasm deflated like a sad balloon. Where exactly was I planning to go in that?

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The Pagan Magic of the Walnut Tree

There’s something about Italy that makes people want to believe in magic again. On witch-hunts, wish-granting, and what happens when modern women chase ancient magic

There is a walnut tree that grows over a gorge in the mountains between Salerno and Benevento. I know this because I danced around it with four other women on a Thursday afternoon, and the universe answered back.