The Italian Almanac for September 30: stories and curiosities

Vanished Italy 📅 1950

The bell tower rising from Lake Resia

A fourteenth-century bell tower stands in the water of Lake Resia, high in the Venosta valley in Italy's far north. It is all that remains visible of the old village of Curon, flooded in 1950 when a dam merged the two small alpine lakes of Curon and Resia into a single reservoir. The houses were demolished and the inhabitants had to move to a new village rebuilt on the eastern side of the valley, today's Curon Venosta. The spared tower, alone in the lake, has become a protected monument and a magnet for visitors.

📍 Discover Curon Venosta

Today's tidbits

It started here 1897

Frank Capra's American dream began in Bisacquino

The director of It's a Wonderful Life was born in Bisacquino, an inland village in the province of Palermo, Sicily, on 18 May 1897, and sailed for the United States with his family at the age of five. That Sicilian child went on to conquer Hollywood, winning three Academy Awards for Best Director in five years: for It Happened One Night in 1935, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town in 1937 and You Can't Take It with You in 1939. The great storyteller of the American dream had lived it himself, starting from a small Sicilian village.

📍 Bisacquino →

Busted myths 1873

The David outside Palazzo Vecchio is a copy

Millions of visitors photograph the marble giant in front of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, often assuming they are looking at Michelangelo's original. The real David left the square in August 1873: strapped into a purpose-built wooden cart, it rolled on rails through the city centre to the Galleria dell'Accademia, where it still stands. Only in 1910 did a replica, carved by Luigi Arrighetti, take its place in Piazza della Signoria. For over a century now, the statue posing outside the palace has been a stand-in.

📍 Florence →

🎉 Celebrations today in… 6

6 towns with a guide celebrate their patron saint on September 30

San Girolamo 4

CittanovaCalabria MotteggianaLombardy Torre de' RoveriLombardy CedegoloLombardy

Saint Victor de Soleure 2

RoisanAosta Valley Challand-Saint-VictorAosta Valley