Radio Big World APS - Italy

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Every year during Carnival, 120 masked horsemen take part in Oristano’s Sartiglia—the largest equestrian festival in Sardinia and one of the most popular in all of Italy.

All competing guilds take part in the Corsa alla Stella (Star Joust), a race where horseback riders try to pierce a suspended star with their swords at full gallop.

Afterward, the guilds compete in the Pariglie, where riders ride in trios to perform high-speed acrobatics on horseback.

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Picture: Giorgio Gazzaniga, son of the late sculptor Silvio Gazzaniga, inserts the original plaster World Cup trophy sculpture into a wooden case at a warehouse in Pioltello, Italy

The World Cup trophy was designed in Milan

Silvio Gazzaniga designed the trophy in his studio in Milan’s Brera neighborhood after FIFA issued an open competition for a new design when Brazil took permanent possession of the original trophy by winning its third World Cup in 1970.

The elder Gazzaniga, a sculptor and trophy designer who died in 2016, worked for G.D.E. Bertoni Srl and created some of the most prestigious trophies in the world, including the UEFA Cup and European Super-Cup.

Picture: The original plaster World Cup trophy sculpture

The official World Cup trophy hoisted by the winning captain at the end of the final is 36 centimeters (14 inches) tall cast in 18-carat gold, sitting on a base featuring two rings of green malachite, symbolizing the playing fields.

After the tournament, the original trophy goes back to FIFA, which keeps it at its Swiss headquarters between World Cups. The winning team brings home a gold-plated replica.

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Panoramic view of the inner courtyard at Palazzo Farnese following its restoration. Rome, July 2026. Photo: Mauro Coen

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A wine resale shop in Rome in the 1950s.

At that time, wine was sold in the "fiasco," that is, a pear-shaped 1.5-liter bottle protected by a straw casing at the base, which allowed the fiasco to stand upright. Nowadays, wine, even in Italy, is almost all distributed in Bordeaux-style bottles. The Bordeaux bottle (750 ml) made its appearance in Italy mainly between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, following the Napoleonic invasions. However, its mass commercial diffusion in Italy occurred much later, starting in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Jorit, Teso, and Calaveras, Oltre il Muro (Beyond the Wall), Sasso di Castalda (Potenza), June 2026

A young girl embraces the Earth while passages inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s final speech in The Great Dictator gradually appear across the wall. Together, image and text invite reflection on compassion, responsibility, peace, and our shared future.

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The Fontana del Gigante (Fountain of the Giant) is located in Naples near Castel dell'Ovo. It was designed by architects Pietro Bernini and Michelangelo Naccherino and completed in 1601.

The fountain appears in a special episode of Tom and Jerry titled "Neapolitan Mouse", released on October 2, 1954. It is the 86th theatrical animated short in the series, directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

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Massimiliano Iocco, Suddenly [in Rome], Watercolor en Plein Air, 2026, Artist Collection.

In this work, Iocco succeeds in capturing with remarkable subtlety the noonday light of Rome — and of many other cities of central Italy.

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A famous bull mosaic at the centre of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan now requires substantial restoration after being worn down by tourists honouring a tradition involving its delicate body parts. As the legend goes, visitors who grind their heels on the bull’s testicles and spin three times in place are guaranteed good fortune and destined to return.

Over time, the crowds twirling clockwise for luck have carved, by May 2026, a small crater into the bull’s “lucky spot.”

“Thousands of people every day have performed the famous heel‑spinning gesture,” city councillors said. “The pink tiles that form its testicles are being worn away.”

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"Tronco annodato" (Knot trunk) by German/American artist Rainer Gross, located in the Arte Sella open-air art park in Trentino, Italy.

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A frame from the exhibition-show "Magnificent" held in Sala d'Arme di Palazzo Vecchio (Firenze) in 2015

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1 oz .999 copper Italy-themed round, issued by GSB Canada Gold & Silver Bullion, 2026

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In 2014 artists Caitlin Levin and Henry Hargreaves created a series of maps made entirely out of the foods for which the countries and continents are known.

“Exploring new places through the food you eat is often a portal to the cultural complexities of that place,” Hargreaves told TIME in an email. “While we know that tomatoes originally came from the Andes in South America, Italy has become the tomato king. These maps show how food has traveled the globe—transforming and becoming a part of the cultural identity of that place."

All the other maps - TIME

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Rome in Terracotta: a scale model of ancient Rome, made entirely of terracotta using selective laser sintering (SLS)

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Hugh Hayden, Huff and a Puff, Island of Saint James (San Giacomo), Venice, Italy. Photo: Jacopo Trabuio

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Propaganda car used for the Italian Communist Party (PCI) during the 1958 Italian general elections. The reference is to Sputnik, the satellite launched into orbit by the Soviet Union the previous year.

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Late afternoon at the loggia bar of Hotel Palazzo Guadagni, Florence. That light ....

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From inside a courtyard, Milan. By Marco Bottigelli.