Feast of the Immaculate Conception – Festa Immacolata Conezione – Our Kiwi Harvest

 

The Immaculate Conception by Murillo, 1660, Museo del Prado, Spain.

 

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrates belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is celebrated every year on 8 December in a number of countries including Italy where the date is a Public holiday.

I do not know much about the celebrations as I am not Catholic but assume that the church has special services. There is a widespread misunderstanding of the term ‘immaculate conception’ as many believe it refers to Mary's conception of Jesus, that the date of this celebration occurs only seventeen days before Christmas should make the error obvious!  Annunciation of the Lord or the Incarnation of Christ, as it is also known is celebrated on 25 March, exactly nine months before Christmas Day. It was at the Annunciation, when the Blessed Virgin Mary humbly accepted the honour bestowed on her by God and announced by the angel Gabriel, that the conception of Christ took place.

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, goes back to the seventh century, when churches in the East began celebrating the Feast of the Conception of Saint Anne. In other words, this feast celebrates the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the womb of Saint Anne; and nine months later, on September 8, we celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

I also wrote a post on the 8th of December last year about the Festa Immacolta Conezione and Our Persimmons. http://lindyloumac.blogspot.com/2009/12/feast-of-immaculate-conception.html

With thanks to Wikipedia for facts and picture.

Also sharing with you here today some photographs of our successful Kiwi Harvest last weekend. Those of you that have been reading my ‘Our Garden’ posts since the Spring will have seen photos of the Kiwi vines as the season progressed and they gradually grew to become these impressive looking fruits.

 

 

I will link this post to Outdoor Wednesday again this week for the last time this year.

Welcome to ‘News From Italy’ to the other participants, thankyou for calling by.

http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/

San Nicola - Saint Nicholas Day

 

Today is the Saints Day for Nicholas, December 6th not only a special day for all the Nicholas’s and Nicola’s in Italy where Saints Days are celebrated by the namesakes, but also today for many other children in Italy this day is seen as the beginning of the Christmas festivities when they receive a present from San Nicola.
This day is celebrated in many different parts of the world, several countries within Europe including Italy, as the day when one of the most popular saints in history died in AD 354.  There are many stories circulating about his life, but true or not there is certainly no doubt that this is the Saint that inspired the much loved character Father Christmas or Babbo Natale as he is known in Italy.
Saint Nicholas (270–6 December 346) was born into a wealthy Greek family and at a young age he devoted his life both to God and to assisting those in need. He grew up in a Greek speaking colony of the Roman Empire Myra, now part of Turkey, where he became a Bishop of the city. When he died his bones were placed in the cathedral of Myra which became a popular pilgrimage destination until 1087 when the Turks conquered the city and sailors from Bari rescued the remains and took them to rest in their own city.
He was well known for his generosity and acts of kindness towards others, especially children, according to Wikipedia he is the patron saint to a long list of different groups of people around the world. Children, sailors, fishermen, merchants, broadcasters, the falsely accused, prostitutes, repentant thieves, pharmacists,archers and pawnbrokers, what an interesting and varied selection!
The major celebrations in Italy for St. Nicholas (San Nicola) take place in Bari,Puglia where he is believed to be buried and is the patron of the city. Similar celebrations and traditions are observed in Sassari, on the island of Sardinia where he is also a patron saint of the city. One of the traditions carried out here is the distribution of gifts to young brides to be whose parents cannot afford to help them. This stems from the legend that Saint Nicholas once helped a man by providing dowries for his three daughters, so they could find husbands, rather than being sold into prostitution.  In Trieste, St. Nicholas (San Nicolò) is celebrated with gifts given to children on the morning of 6 December and with a fair called Fiera di San Nicolo during the first weeks of December.

There has been an interesting development since Saint Nicholas Day 2009 as it has been proposed that his bones are returned to Turkey.
On 28 December 2009, the Turkish Government announced that it would be formally requesting the return of San Nicola’s bones to Turkey from the Italian government. Turkish authorities have cited the fact that Saint Nicolas himself wanted to be buried at his birthplace. They also state that his remains were illegally removed from Turkey.  Apparently the town of Demre where the ancient town of Myra, once was has plans to build a museum which once constructed will exhibit relics of ancient civilisations. There is no schedule for these plans yet as far as my research found out, but the Turkish minister stated last year ‘that once built they would naturally ask for the remains of Babbo Natale to be returned from Italy’.

 Buon San Nicola                    


Italian Male Variations of Nicholas: Niccolò, Nico, Nicola, Nicolò, Nicolas  
Italian Female Variations of Nicola: Nicoletta, Nicla, Nicole, Nicolina
I researched the facts quoted in this post with thanks to Wikipedia
In case you are interested here is the link to the post I wrote for St Nicholas on December 6th last year   St Nicholas Day Post for 2009

Christmas is coming to Marta the festive lights have gone up and many of the shop windows are seasonally decorated.

This is one of my favourites, unfortunately I was unable to get rid of the reflection of the car in any of the shots I took of this shop window.

Sunday Song – Lili Rocha – Selection

 

 

Lili Rocha released her latest album ‘Lili Rocha Rocks’ just a few days ago on December 1st so I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to feature her on Sunday Song. Lili Rocha is in fact Brazilian but she resides in Switzerland, and has a huge Italian following and her record label Idea Musica is Italian. This latest album is the first that she has recorded entirely in English. Her genre is considered to be adult contemporary melodic rock and in her unique and unusual voice with the songs in this album she is interpreting American folk rock music. The album can be purchased via her Official Website.

Lindinalva de Souza Rocha was born on December 23rd, but seems to be secretive about which year, she is better known by her stage name Lili Rocha. Lili started her career in her native Brazil but soon found herself performing in Portugal, Italy and Switzerland. She fell in love with Europe and pursued her dream by moving permanently to Switzerland. She has since studied at the Accademia di Musica Italiano and gained a huge following in Europe, particularly in Italy. She has released four albums since 2003, containing songs in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian and with ‘Lili Rocha Rocks’ in English she hopes to expand her fan base in the rest of the world, particularly in the USA.

Albums

• Me Deixa Sonho (2003)
• Recomeçar (2004)
• Amulet (2007)
• Lili Rocha Live (2009)
• Lili Rocha Rocks! (2010)

I have chosen three songs to share with you here two from earlier albums are in Italian and finally a track from her new album ‘Lili Rocha Rocks in English.

First the title track from the 2007 album of the same name.

Lili Rocha – Amuleto – Amulet

IdeaMusica

 

Lili Rocha - Acqua i Pietra – Water the Stone

Next up is a slide show presentation of Lili Rocha performing in Milan at the Teatro Delle Erbe.

 

Courtesy of fioretto0

Finally in English

I'm Alright is a track from the recently released album ‘Lili Rocha Rocks’

 

Courtesy of Official LiliRocha

I was unable to find any lyrics to accompany the videos today but hopefully this will not prevent you enjoying Lili Rocha and her unique rock style. Two of the female pop stars that she admires are Cher and Tina Turner. which I think reflects in her style.

With thanks to the following sites, Wikipedia, Lilli's Official Website, YouTube, Facebook and My Space for information and images.

More Sunday Songs can be found by visiting 5 Minutes Just for Me

Buono Domenica a Tutti

 

This will be the last Sunday Song link up with 5 Minutes Just for Me until sometime in January 2011 as like everyone else at this time of the year Natasha is going to be very busy over the next few weeks and like me she is going to have a blogging holiday over Christmas and New Year.

I have decided that this week will also be the last Sunday Song post of 2010 for ‘News From Italy’. It will be back in 2011 but before then I will be sharing some seasonal music in Italian with you. 

Lavazza – ‘ A Modo Mio’ – Italian Advertising Series No 5 – Friday Feature

 

              

 

It appears that famous film stars are more than happy to appear in Italian television commercials for coffee as this one for Lavazza features none other than Julia Roberts.

Lavazza are another company that produce coffee in capsules for their own machines similar to another company I have featured recently but they are an Italian company.

       

AUTHENTIC ITALIAN ESPRESSO MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

The Luigi Lavazza S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of coffee products. Founded in Turin in 1895 by Luigi Lavazza, it was initially run from a small grocery store at Via San Tommaso 10.The business of Lavazza S.p.A. is currently administered by the third and fourth generation of the Lavazza family.

To find out all about the real Italian Espresso Experience visit the Lavazza Website, or the Facebook page, there is also an On Line Store for the purchase of the special capsules.

I have used Lavazza ground coffee at home and I like it, but I have no experience of their capsule coffee machines.

I think you will find that you will understand this advert without the need to speak Italian. I think the similarity with the other companies commercials is also obvious do you? God and the residents of heaven all seem surprisingly fussy about their coffee choices.

I have absolutely no idea who came up with the theme first but both companies have now produced a whole series of commercials in a similar vein. You can view some of the older commercials in the Lavazza series on YouTube and here is the latest one to appear on our screens in Italy where Julia Roberts says not a word as Botticelli’s Venus!  She appears with Paolo Bonolis and Luca Laurenti in heaven where she is in the process of having her portrait painted, but needs something to put a smile on her face.

kiteflyer553

During my research I learnt that the two Italian actors mentioned here have been appearing in these commercials since 2000.

With thanks to the following web sites for the information for this post, YouTube, Lavazza, Facebook and Wikipedia