Monte dei Paschi began in 1472 as a charity pawn shop: you left a coat, got a loan, paid a little interest, and if the coat was sold for more than you owed, you got the difference. Commercial lenders charged 40% or more. In 2026 it is fighting off a €30.6 billion takeover bid from Intesa Sanpaolo and bidding for two banks of its own. The charity part has faded since. RR
The square is named for Lauro de Bosis, the poet who in 1931 flew over Rome dropping 400,000 anti-Fascist leaflets. A fine name for a place built as a Fascist academy of physical education, now home to the Italian Olympic Committee, hence the rings. Berlin's 1936
Paradiso sul Mare was built in 1924 to be Anzio's casino. It never opened as one. It became a film set instead: Fellini used it as the Grand Hotel in Amarcord, and The Talented Mr. Ripley turned it into a jazz festival in Sanremo. A casino that never
Rome has absorbed Greeks, Goths, Napoleon and tourists, so a few parakeets were never going to be a problem. Two are landing on this magnolia, and more are hidden in it. Bright green, and still nearly impossible to photograph, unlike the pigeons, who pose for anyone. They're believed
The front of the Pantheon says Marcus Agrippa built it. He did, in 27 BC, but it burned down twice, and what stands there now is Hadrian's. Hadrian kept Agrippa's name and left his own off. Nobody knows why. Modesty, or the best long con in