The ITALIAN DISPATCH By Eric J Lyman

Almost Roman

For outsiders, living in the Eternal City is an apprenticeship that never ends

Nov 10 • 

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✍️ Notebook: A Cathedral of Cheese

My pilgrimage to the soul of Parmigiano-Reggiano

Nov 4 • 

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October 2025

Twenty-Five Dispatches Later

Stories about Spies, Saints, Police, Popes, Molise, and the Mona Lisa

Oct 28 • 

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Exploring Italy’s Unwritten Rulebook

‘Tranquillo’: Lessons on Mondays, meatballs, ossobuco, and the Olympics

Oct 21 • 

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The Eternal City of Spies

From the Cold War to Cyber-Espionage, Rome Has Long Been a City of Secrets

Oct 14 • 

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Waiting for the Fall

Here’s a Chestnut: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Oct 7 • 

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September 2025

Italy Has a Migrant Problem, but Not the One You Think

Refugees Dominate Headlines as the Country's Best and Brightest Depart

Sep 30 • 

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In Praise of Doing Nothing

Relax: Rome Wasn’t Built to be Seen in a Day

Sep 23 • 

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Going to the Dogs, Italian Style

A look into Italy’s canine love affair, from Rome’s founding myth to modern pups dressed as popes

Sep 16 • 

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Italy’s Fiery Soul

Grappa has warmed soldiers, laborers, and Hemingway. Should it be on your dinner table?

Sep 9 • 

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A Bridge Too Far?

Italy’s Messina Project May Be Its Most Enduring Obsession

Sep 2 • 

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August 2025

How Italy Won the West

Cheap, violent, and badly dubbed, Spaghetti Westerns were revolutionary

Aug 26 • 

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