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National Geographic
28 minutes ago
- National Geographic
This city in the shadow of Venice is filled with UNESCO treasures
About 40 miles from Venice's winding waterways and busy plazas lies Vicenza, an elegant Renaissance jewel. To visit Vicenza is to breathe in the genius of one of history's most influential architects, Andrea Palladio. Though born in nearby Padua, this 16th century architect made his study of classical Greek and Roman architecture central to the design style that later reached throughout Europe and across the Atlantic—a style that inspired Thomas Jefferson to design Monticello after Palladian ideals. Come for the architecture, but stay to explore a rich tapestry of history and gastronomy. From its museums full of fine art to its stately villas, Vicenza is worth the day trip from Veneto's more crowded destinations. Explore Vicenza's main piazza Piazza dei Signori is a beautiful starting point. It's here in the historical center that the city's heartbeat pulses outward with breathtaking views of Palladian Basilica and the adjacent Torre Bissara. The Basilica—not a church, but rather a town hall—features handsomely as the city's symbol and is one of its many UNESCO sites. Leisurely stroll through the piazza, found empty in early morning, or drink in the soft evening glow with an aperitivo at any one of the bustling bars lining the piazza. (Say ciao to these alcohol-free takes on Italian aperitivo classics) Piazza dei Signori is home to the Palladian Basilica, a town hall with rotating exhibits. Photograph By Toni Anzenberger/Anzenberger/Redux Today, the Basilica's spacious council hall now serves as the scene of changing exhibits, with admission to the terrace for views of the square. The rooftop bar makes for a magical viewpoint to watch the evening sun set. Tour Palladio's final masterpiece The year 1555 saw the formation of Accademia Olimpica, a group of artists and noblemen who shared an appreciation for the arts and borrowed inspiration from Greek and Roman ideals. Within this group, Palladio proposed the construction of what would become his last work and masterpiece, Teatro Olimpico. This architectural marvel serves as a beautifully preserved reminder of Renaissance ingenuity. Soak in the atmosphere of the world's oldest covered theater with one of many classical music concerts or jazz performances throughout the year. (Europe's city tours are better than ever—here's where to go) See fine art at Palazzo Chiericati A work of art itself, Palazzo Chiericati owes its appearance to Palladio, built at the behest of Vicenza nobleman Girolamo Chiericati. It was completed at the end of the 17th century from Palladio's own sketches and draws heavily on his study of classical Roman architecture. Today, it forms a stunning backdrop for the art collection within. A city museum, it contains more than 31,000 works of art spanning from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Before you exit, wander through the salons for a glimpse of the spectacularly frescoed ceilings on the main floor. The Chapel of the Rosary in the church of Santa Corona is made up of 34 canvases. Photograph ByClimb Monte Berico Challenge your lungs with a walk up the two sets of porticoes that connect the city with the Basilica of St. Mary of Mount Berico. More than just a sanctuary for pilgrims and sacred art, Monte Berico's hilltop features sweeping views of Vicenza on a clear day, best enjoyed from Ai Sette Santi's outdoor terrace. Tour Villa La Rotonda Villa la Rotonda exists today as the celebrated union of grace and geometry, prominently located on a hilltop position at Vicenza's edge. Visitors to this Renaissance home enjoy the abundance of clean lines, pure, unfiltered sunlight, and magnificent symmetry that justifies its designation as a UNESCO Heritage Site. One of 24 total Palladian villas in the Veneto, this estate provides an exemplary balance between agrarian function and self-glorification. Its public portion can be accessed with tickets for self-paced tours or with a private guide at various times throughout the year. Villa la Rotonda is one of 24 Palladian villas in the Veneto that are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Photograph By trabantos/Shutterstock Where to eat and drink Caffe Pigafetta is named for Antonio Pigafetta, a lesser-known, but still famous, Vicenza local. This 16th-century navigator left his mark as the keeper of explorer Ferdinand Magellan's travel log, and his namesake cafe is the perfect spot to sit and jot down a few travel notes of your own. You'll need to squeeze through the cafe's jostling and cozy interior; a testament to Pigafetta's popularity among the locals. Order a shot of one of their artisanal coffee blends or try a velvety smooth mint or pistachio latte. Vicenza supplies not only a wealth of splendid art and architecture, but also a rich gastronomy scene. There's no better way to end a day of sightseeing than by having dinner at Angolo Palladio. Sit outside in the shadow of the Basilica or tuck into a cozy table indoors. Dine on upscale takes on Veneto specialties: Start with cured ham from Veneto Berico Euganeo and move onto bigoli with duck ragu. The star of Vicenza's cuisine is cod with polenta for a main course, expertly paired with one of many artisanal wines. (Explore the wilder side of Venice—with the help of its fishermen) Veneto Berico Euganeo ham is produced in the Veneto region. Photograph By Anika Buessemeier/laif/Redux Where to shop Vicenza shares notoriety not only with Palladio's architectural prowess, but also a long tradition of gold work. Roughly a third of Italy's gold work comes from 'the city of gold,' a history and craftsmanship you can learn more about with a brief visit to the Jewelry Museum, located just under the Basilica's archways. Next, shop for a glittering souvenir to purchase from the family-owned jewelers next door, right where the city's first guild of goldsmiths was founded in 1333. How to get to Vicenza Hop a train from Venice's Santa Lucia train station direct to Vicenza's only rail stop. You can book your roughly 45-minute journey on Trenitalia or Trainline apps. Once there, it's a 10-minute walk to Vicenza's compact city center. Alyssa Blakemore is an American freelance writer based in northern Italy, specializing in culture, history, and international relations.
Associated Press
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Thomas Jefferson's Monticello & More Perfect Launch Declaration of Independence Book Club Ahead of America's 250th Birthday
A National Invitation to Revisit America's Founding Ideals and Reflect on Their Meaning Today CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., July 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Monticello and More Perfect are proud to announce the launch of the Declaration of Independence Book Club, a nationwide invitation for Americans to reflect on the founding document that declared our independence and continues to define our democratic promise. The Book Club, launched on July 4, 2025 at Monticello, marks the beginning of a year-long civic engagement initiative leading up to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. In three guided sessions, participants will explore the Declaration's revolutionary ideas, its complex legacy, and what it means to affirm those ideals today. Designed for book clubs, classrooms, faith communities, and civic groups, the Declaration of Independence Book Club Reader is free and available online. It includes short essays, historical timelines, discussion questions, and video content to support both in-person and virtual conversations. The sessions are organized around three themes: 'The Declaration Book Club is one of the many exciting elements of our celebration of the nation's 250th birthday in 2026,' said Jane Kamensky, president of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. 'We think Americans are hungry for the opportunity to rediscover, discuss, and celebrate the Declaration. We can all take inspiration from its global impact and lasting legacy.' The Declaration of Independence Book Club is part of a growing constellation of efforts to mark America's semiquincentennial by reconnecting Americans across differences in conversation about the values that define us. The initiative will also be featured at a Constitution Day event on September 17 hosted by More Perfect and iCivics at American University. 'The Declaration is more than a historical artifact; it's a living promise,' said More Perfect CEO, John Bridgeland.. 'This Book Club offers Americans and communities across the country a space to consider how we carry that promise forward.' To explore the toolkit, visit: About The Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello The Thomas Jefferson Foundation was incorporated in 1923 to preserve Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Today, the foundation seeks to bring history forward into national and global dialogues by engaging audiences with Jefferson's world and ideas and inviting them to experience the power of place at Monticello and on its website. Monticello is recognized as a National Historic Landmark, a United Nations World Heritage Site and a Site of Conscience. As a private, nonprofit organization, the foundation's regular operating budget does not receive ongoing government support to fund its twofold mission of preservation and education. For information, visit About More Perfect More Perfect is a nonpartisan alliance of 37 Presidential Centers, National Archives Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Karsh Institute for Democracy at the University of Virginia, and more than 100 organizations working together to advance five foundational Democracy Goals: 1) Universal Civic Learning; 2) Expanding National Service & Volunteering; 3) Bridging Divides & Building Trust; 4) Trusted Elections & More Representative and Responsive Governance; and 5) Access to Trusted News & Information. For press inquiries, contact: [email protected] View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE More Perfect
Observer
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Observer
Donald Trump, our foundering father
I called my brother, Kevin, to ask if he would spend Independence Day with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and me. Monticello has a new tour focusing on the relationship of Jefferson and Adams, which culminated in an exchange of 158 letters in their last 14 years of life. Historian David McCullough deemed this attempt of the fiery Bostonian and reticent Virginian to overcome their political feuds and understand each other 'one of the most extraordinary correspondences in American history.' My favourite anecdote about Adams and Jefferson, who both loved Shakespeare and used the Bard's psychological insights as inspiration when they conjured the country, concerned their visit to Shakespeare's house in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Our family trip to Monticello on Wednesday was suggested by Jane Kamensky, a very cool historian of the American Revolution and the president and CEO of Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. She thought that my Trump-supporting brother and I might appreciate the new tour, 'Founding Friends, Founding Foes,' as inspiration for 'a thoughtful dialogue across the divide.' Kevin laughed when I told him about the invitation. 'I'm amused,' he said, 'that we are the example of modern-day comity and civility.' Americans are at one another's throats, living in a world of insults, coarseness and cruelty — a world where Donald Trump and JD Vance excel. At Monticello, we talked to Ken Burns, who was giving a preview of his upcoming PBS documentary on the American Revolution. He is finishing it in the nick of time, given Trump's attempts to slash PBS' federal funding. 'The Revolution — no pictures, no newsreels, and more violent than we could possibly imagine,' the film-maker told us. 'The Revolution was not just a quarrel between Englishmen over Indian land and taxes and representation, but a struggle that would involve more than two dozen nations, Europeans as well as Native Americans, that also somehow came to be about the noblest aspirations of humankind.' A year from now is the 250th birthday party for the country. In retrospect, the odds seem impossible. When the patriot militias engaged at sunrise at Lexington Green in April 1775, Burns noted, 'the chances of the success of the operation were zero.' Then, somehow, eight years later, 'we created something new in the world. We were the original anticolonial movement. We turned the world upside down.' Adams and Jefferson constantly talked about virtue and what virtues would help mold our anti-monarchical society. Trump, who plays at being a king, is not interested in virtue; only in humiliation, conflict, enrichment and revenge. (The popular president of the University of Virginia, the school here founded by Jefferson, just announced that he would resign because of Trump's anti-diversity, equity and inclusion pressure campaign.) As Trump rammed through his horrible bill, a humongous wealth transfer, he scoffed at those who suggested there was no virtue in hurting the most vulnerable to make the obscenely rich richer. He keeps insisting that no one will lose Medicaid benefits, but Republicans are cutting more than $1 trillion from the programme, so a lot of people are going to suffer. The Declaration of Independence aspired to equality, while Trump's bill deepens our inequality. I asked Burns if it was possible now to persuade anyone across the aisle of anything, or is everyone just howling into the storm? 'The best arguments in the world won't change a single person's point of view,' he said. 'The only thing that can do that is a good story. Good stories are a kind of benevolent Trojan horse. You let them in, and they add complication, allowing you to understand that sometimes a thing and its opposite are true at the same time.' Reading the Adams-Jefferson letters, I felt that these founders were able to resurrect their relationship the same way I'm able to preserve mine with my siblings. We approach politics carefully, without venom or overblown expectations of changing one another's minds. We look for slivers of common ground: None of us thought Joe Biden should cling to office when he was clearly declining. 'Lord! Lord!' Adams exclaimed with exasperation. 'What can I do, with So much Greek?' Burns said that his half-century of making documentaries about America's wars and pastimes has taught him to embrace contradictions. 'The binaries that we set up are the biggest trap, whether they come from the left or the right,' he said. 'When you see somebody making a 'them', you have to be careful. That's antithetical to what the Declaration is saying. I hope that what we do on the Fourth of July is try to put the 'us' into the US.' Maureen Dowd The writer is an American columnist for The New York Times and an author
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ken Burns Condemns Republican Plan to Defund PBS: ‘I Couldn't Do Any of My Films Without Them'
With the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Ken Burns is set to release a six-part series on the American Revolution this November. But it could be premiering on a PBS deprived of federal funding by Donald Trump and Republicans. In an interview with 'CBS Sunday Morning' set to air this weekend and taped at Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello, Burns praised PBS as essential to both his filmmaking career and America as a whole after the GOP-controlled House of Representatives voted to strip the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of $1.1 billion over the next two years after the funds were approved by a previous Congress. More from TheWrap Jensen Ackles Still Has a Surprising Connection to 'Supernatural' Costar Jared Padalecki Kelly Clarkson Postpones Vegas Residency Opening to Prevent 'Serious Damage' to Her Voice 'My Life With the Walter Boys' Sets Season 2 Premiere Date, Teases First Look Images 'Reasonable Doubt' Season 3 Sets September Premiere on Hulu 'I couldn't do any of the films I've done without them being on PBS. I could go into a streaming service or a premium cable tomorrow and get every one of the millions of dollars it took to do this in one pitch, but they wouldn't give me 10 years. They want it in a year or a year and a half, and that's the deal. I can't do that,' he told CBS' John Dickerson. Burns pointed out that the majority of PBS' 330 affiliates serve largely rural areas, some of which could be at risk without federal funding. PBS and National Public Radio have been longtime targets of conservative derision for their perceived liberal bias even though, as Burns pointed out, conservative icon William F. Buckley hosted the show 'Firing Line' on PBS from 1966 to 1999. 'They also have not only our good children's and prime time stuff, they have classroom on the air continuing education, homeland security, crop reports, weather emergency information. That we're going to take away?' he said. In a wide-ranging interview in which Burns reflected on the American Revolution, his relationship with the history of the United States, and Donald Trump's plans for America's 250th anniversary, Burns also discussed what he believes the Founding Fathers meant when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence that the 'pursuit of happiness' is one of humanity's 'unalienable rights.' 'The Pursuit of Happiness is not the acquisition of things in a marketplace of objects, but lifelong learning in a marketplace of ideas. That's what the founders said, to be virtuous, to live a virtuous life, to continually educate yourself, is what was required to sustain this republic and I think that's what we've gotten away from. Everything is sort of all individualized. We're all free agents. We don't realize that freedom, the thing that we tout, is not just what I want, but also that's intention with what we need,' he said. The post Ken Burns Condemns Republican Plan to Defund PBS: 'I Couldn't Do Any of My Films Without Them' appeared first on TheWrap.
Irish Times
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Maureen Dowd: talking past our Foundering Father
I called my brother, Kevin, to ask if he would spend Independence Day with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and me . Monticello has a new tour focusing on the fond and fractious relationship of Jefferson and Adams, which culminated in an exchange of 158 letters in their last 14 years of life. Historian David McCullough deemed this attempt of the fiery Bostonian and reticent Virginian to overcome their political feuds and understand each other 'one of the most extraordinary correspondences in American history'. My favourite anecdote about Adams and Jefferson, who loved Shakespeare and used the Bard's psychological insights as inspiration when they conjured the country, concerned their visit to Shakespeare's house in Stratford-upon-Avon. As Abigail Adams recalled, her husband cut a relic from Shakespeare's chair, while Jefferson 'fell upon the ground and kissed it'. READ MORE [ Musk announces forming of 'America Party' in further break from Trump Opens in new window ] Our family trip to Monticello on Wednesday was suggested by Jane Kamensky, a very cool historian of the American Revolution and the president and chief executive of Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. She thought that my Trump-supporting brother and I might appreciate the new tour, 'Founding Friends, Founding Foes,' as inspiration for 'a thoughtful dialogue across the divide'. Kevin laughed when I told him about the invitation. 'I'm amused,' he said, 'that we are the example of modern-day comity and civility.' Americans are at one another's throats, living in a world of insults, coarseness and cruelty – a world where Donald Trump and JD Vance excel. At Monticello, we talked to Ken Burns, who was giving a preview of his upcoming PBS documentary on the American Revolution. He is finishing it in the nick of time, given Trump's attempts to slash PBS' federal funding. 'The Revolution – no pictures, no newsreels, and more violent than we could possibly imagine,' the film-maker told us. 'The Revolution was not just a quarrel between Englishmen over Indian land and taxes and representation, but a bloody struggle that would involve more than two dozen nations, Europeans as well as Native Americans, that also somehow came to be about the noblest aspirations of humankind.' A year from now is the 250th birthday party for the country. In retrospect, the odds seem impossible. When the patriot militias engaged at sunrise at Lexington Green in April 1775, Burns noted, 'the chances of the success of the operation were zero.' Then, somehow, eight years later, 'we created something new in the world. We were the original anti-colonial movement. We turned the world upside down'. Adams and Jefferson constantly talked about virtue and what virtues would help mold our antimonarchical society. Trump, who plays at being a king, is not interested in virtue; only in humiliation, conflict, enrichment and revenge. (The popular president of the University of Virginia, the school here founded by Jefferson, just announced that he would resign because of Trump's anti-diversity, equity and inclusion pressure campaign.) As Trump rammed through his horrible bill, a humongous wealth transfer, he scoffed at those who suggested there was no virtue in hurting the most vulnerable to make the obscenely rich richer. He keeps insisting that no one will lose Medicaid benefits, but Republicans are cutting more than $1 trillion from the programme, so a lot of people are going to suffer. The Declaration of Independence aspired to equality, while Trump's bill deepens our inequality. He wanted it rushed through for a flashy July 4th ceremony so he could sign this dreckitude on the same day that our soaring origin statement was adopted. He timed it for maximum drama at 5pm, with military planes flying over the White House. I asked Burns if it was possible now to persuade anyone across the aisle of anything, or is everyone just howling into the storm? 'The best arguments in the world won't change a single person's point of view,' he said. 'The only thing that can do that is a good story. Good stories are a kind of benevolent Trojan horse. You let them in, and they add complication, allowing you to understand that sometimes a thing and its opposite are true at the same time.' Reading the Adams-Jefferson letters, I felt that these founders were able to resurrect their relationship the same way I'm able to preserve mine with my siblings. We approach politics carefully, without venom or overblown expectations of changing one another's minds. We look for slivers of common ground: None of us thought Joe Biden should cling to office when he was clearly declining, and none of us like it when Trump belittles people or cashes in with cheesy products like his new $249 perfume, 'Victory 45-47'. We talk about other things, movies and sports, just as Jefferson and Adams discussed wine, books and ancient Greek philosophers, with Jefferson sometimes throwing in Greek phrases. 'Lord! Lord!' Adams exclaimed with exasperation. 'What can I do, with So much Greek?' Burns said that his half-century of making documentaries about America's wars and pastimes has taught him to embrace contradictions. 'The binaries that we set up are the biggest trap, whether they come from the left or the right,' he said. 'When you see somebody making a 'them,' you have to be careful. That's antithetical to what the Declaration is saying. I hope that what we do on the Fourth of July is try to put the 'us' into the US.' – This article originally appeared in The New York Times
