Perhaps the most famous poem in the Italian language is a brief idyll composed of fifteen loose hendecasyllables in which the poet, about to climb a hill, sees a hedge that blocks his view. His mind begins to wander, and he fantisises about unknown and endless places, where peace and tranquility reign. The hedge blocking his view becomes a springboard to the inner self.

Baldessin/Whiteley: Parallel Visions is an exhibition on display at the NGV Australia until January 28th 2019. The retrospective proposes two expressionist artists who made a name for themselves in Australia and overseas during the ‘60s and ‘70s.

The first time he landed in Rome, he burst into tears of emotion. He was a recently graduated 23-year old. He’d bought his ticket to Italy with his meagre savings and he didn’t even know why he was going, but he went and fell in love. A love that is renewed each time he goes back, as if he had lived there in a previous life and is simply going home.

The mark left by the artists that have spent time at John and Sunday Reed’s homestead is still evident today not only through the exhibitions, it now houses as the Heide Musuem of Modern Art, but also from the traces that they have left in the building itself.

If you have a flair for art, you’ll be familiar with the National Gallery of Victoria, the Ian Potter Centre and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), but you may not have heard of Heide, the museum of Modern Art, Hidden in the hills of Bulleen, this museum will immerse you in contemporary Australian art. I have overlooked this jewel for too long. and now it’s time to see what I’ve been missing out on!

The Corsini family have been one of the most influential and notable Florentine families for the last seven centuries. Like the Borgias and the Medicis, in Florence, the Corsini family name is one that is synonymous with prestige, wealth and nobility.

To know Stefano Costabile’s work is to know a mastermind in action. Likened to the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s imaginative world of Alice in Wonderland, Stefano is indeed mad about hats. With a career spanning decades, and with work gracing various industries and fields, Stefano has proven that he has what it takes to lead the millinery industry and set a new standard in functional Italian fashion. As it goes, there is certainly more to hats than meets the eye: medium, design, artisan technique and styling.

Vittorio Sgarbi is a famous Italian art critic and historian. He is a most prolific author and some of his books, though quite expensive, have become best-sellers. Sgarbi is a media personality, and has made a name for himself with his boisterous invectives at people who in his view are incompetent or inept in their role as public figures.

Pizza for us Italians is more than an appetising dish. It’s a magnet for getting together and spending good time with family and friends. It’s our gastronomical mandala, symbolising our gregarious spirit. Over a pizza we laugh, we joke, and most of all, we talk.

James Liotta is a young Australian-Italian actor, performer and comedian that had drawn from his Italian heritage the tools of his trade. He had his first experience on stage when he was 8 years old taking part in one of his father’s community theatre productions and grew up refining his acting skills, however his professional career as a comedian started as a result of a friend’s suggestion.