The Italy Now Podcast

We sit down with Luca Vullo, actor, director, author and cultural ambassador, to explore the gestural language that runs beneath Italian speech like a second grammar. And makes Italy unlike anywhere else on earth.Luca has spent years cataloguing and teaching the more than 250 recognised Italian gestures, touring his one-man show La Voce del Corpo from San Francisco to Sydney, often with his mother Angela on stage beside him. He tells us why a Roman hand in motion can say more than a paragraph, how regional gesture dialects survive alongside a shared national code, and why he is fighting to have Italian gestural language recognised as UNESCO intangible heritage.By the end, you may find yourself gesturing along, and wondering how you ever communicated without it.Photo credits:Cinzia Capparelli. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We travel to Gragnano, a hilltop town outside Naples where the mountain wind, sea air and light conspire to create conditions unlike anywhere else on earth. And where Pastificio Di Martino has been making Pasta di Gragnano IGP for over a century.Giuseppe Di Martino walks us through 260 handcrafted shapes, each one designed not for beauty alone but for the precise company it will keep on the plate. He speaks about 100 percent Italian wheat, bronze dies and slow drying at low temperature, and about a family philosophy as old as the town itself: pasta will never make you rich, but it will never let you go hungry.From a landmark collaboration with Dolce & Gabbana that gave rise to the Devozione restaurant in New York, to the pastificio's sponsorship of the San Carlo opera house in Naples, Giuseppe draws a straight line from pasta to Puccini, and traces how this most Italian of arts travelled with emigrants to every corner of the world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We arrive at Masseria Potenti near Manduria, a 16th-century fortified farmhouse in the heart of Puglia, where a family's dream of sharing their corner of southern Italy has quietly grown into one of the region's most beloved destinations.Maria Grazia Di Lauro and her daughter Chiara Tommasino tell us how a holiday home became an agriturismo by accident, shaped entirely by the guests who loved it first. And they reveal what comes next: a monastery in Nardò, six years in the making, where the ancient philosophy of healing through craft, connection and slowness is being brought back to life.It is a story about olive oil, whitewashed walls and the particular kind of hospitality that only happens when a family opens its home and never quite closes the door. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We sit down with Albiera Antinori, at the Forum della Cucina Italiana in Manduria, where the 26th generation of Italy's most storied winemaking family talks dynasty, disruption and the long view. She tells us how Tignanello broke every rule of late-1960s Chianti Classico, why wine and food are inseparable in Italian culture, and what a 27th generation is already bringing to one of the world's great wine estates. Six hundred years in, the direction has never been clearer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We sit down with Miriam De Rienzo Gazzola at Palazzo Maresgallo in Lecce, a sixteenth-century residence rescued from sixty years of abandonment and brought back to life as one of Puglia's most extraordinary boutique hotels and art spaces.Miriam tells us how she and her husband Lionel gave up two years of their lives to a restoration that their own architect told them was madness — and how Helen Mirren, at the grand opening, offered the word that made it all make sense: anima, soul.With twelve suites hung with works from their private collection, a noble floor given over to contemporary exhibitions, and a frescoed grand salon overlooking Lecce's Roman theatre, this is the story of a place built entirely out of love. And occasionally, a very beautiful kind of madness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At Tenuta Donna Anna, a working country estate in the heart of Salento, food is not a product — it is a memory. Carlo Cascione and his family grow Senatore Cappelli, an ancient variety of wheat that nearly disappeared in the twentieth century, mill it themselves, and turn it into pasta shaped by hand at a table where guests from across the world come to learn, to eat, and find themselves, more than once, moved to tears. His mother's cooking and the shared experience of working the dough made of ancient grains are the heart of the estate: less a class, more an initiation into the southern Italian art of being together. Mettere le mani in pasta — to put your hands in the dough — is, here, an act of belonging. We also discover how sustainable cycling is quietly opening Salento to a new kind of traveller, who pedals through the inland villages, stops at the cheese farmer, lingers at the small winery, and leaves having seen a part of Italy that most tourists never find. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We step inside the cellars of Produttori di Manduria, the oldest active wine cooperative in Puglia, where more than 300 grape-growing families have been tending the same ancient vines since 1932.Anna Gennari, who leads hospitality at the cooperative, tells us how Primitivo arrived in Manduria as a bride's dowry in the 19th century and grew into one of Italy's most celebrated appellations.From star-vaulted cellar rooms turned community museum to a sweet red wine conquering China, this is the story of a wine, a town, and the quiet persistence of the people who kept both alive. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We step inside the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna with Professor Robin Cormack, one of the world's leading authorities on Byzantine art and author of Byzantine Art for Oxford University Press.Standing beneath some of the most breathtaking mosaics ever created, Robin explains why this small city in Emilia-Romagna holds a place in art history that Rome, Florence and Venice simply cannot match. From the shimmering gold tessera that lines every surface to the famous panels of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora, he brings one of the ancient world's greatest achievements back to vivid life.King Charles made a special pilgrimage here during his 2025 royal tour of Italy. Once you see it, you will understand why. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We sit down with Toni D'Angelo, director and son of Nino D'Angelo, to talk about Nino. 18 Giorni, the documentary that took him back to his father's extraordinary rise from poverty in Naples' San Pietro a Patierno to stadiums at Wembley, Madison Square Garden and the Olympia in Paris. The film's title refers to the 18 days Nino missed at the start of Toni's life, away on stage when his son was born. Toni tells us what it took to finally ask his father those questions, and what he found when he did. Winner of the Special Nastro d'Argento for best biographical film, and premiered at Venice 82, this is a story about Naples, sacrifice, and a son coming to terms with who his father really was. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We go inside Palazzo Mignanelli in Rome, where the Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti has unveiled Venus, a stunning exhibition running through May 2026 that brings together art and fashion in spectacular fashion. Curator Pamela Golbin walks us through the most breathtaking pieces, from the vision behind the show to the surprising collaborations that made it possible. It's the Rome exhibition everyone is talking about, and we got a front-row tour. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 2 – We speak with Daniele Kihlgren, the visionary behind the regeneration of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, a medieval village in the mountains of Abruzzo. Find out how one man's bold idea brought a crumbling hamlet back to life, and and created a new model for Italian hospitality. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We sit down with Mario Mozzetti at Alfredo alla Scrofa in Rome, where fettuccine Alfredo was born and where the art of mantecatura has been passed down through three generations. The third-generation owner of Alfredo alla Scrofa tells us how this iconic dish conquered the world, from Hollywood legends to Masterchef Turkey, and why the secret is still in the hands. It's a love letter to Roman tradition, family pride and the perfect plate of pasta. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this introductory episode we unveil the blueprint to the Italy Now podcast. Meet us, understand our approach, and get a glimpse of the stories ahead. Consider this your press pass to the real Italy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.