If you thought the bikini was invented by the French after the war (and cleverly named for the Bikini Islands where “explosive” atomic tests were being conducted), think again. There are floor mosaics of athletic women in Sicily, with very well-toned abs, competing in running and weightlifting in what would pass for bikinis on any beach in Europe, and that predates the post-WWII bathing sensation by about seventeen hundred years.

The “Bikini Girls” are perhaps the most astonishing, unexpected, and famous mosaic in the Villa Romana del Casale in the town of Piazza Armerina (see “Hall of the Hunt”). When these 4th-century Roman mosaics were made known, to quite a bit of publicity, one hundred years ago, these portraits of stunningly modern-looking young women were originally thought to be a beauty contest. Closer analysis (of what clearly seem to be barbells and a discus) reveals that they most likely depict a kind of montage of female athletes in a competition; in the center is the winner with her trophies of a floral crown and palm scepter.

This interpretation is supported by evidence from the 4th century that it was expected for a wealthy aristocratic Roman woman to participate in sports—these were not Stephen Sondheim’s “ladies who lunch.” The sponsorship of contests of female athletes was clearly an elite pursuit attesting to the elevated status of the owner of the Villa Casale, no doubt one reason for the celebratory mosaic. Also, this sort of garb was for female participation in sport, since Romans swam nude.

Which means that the young women in the mosaic don’t just anticipate the bikinis of the 1950s, but the sports bras and female triathlete gear of the 21st century! Well, Italians have always been “fashion forward.”

The “Inner Italian”—a concept that will have resonance for anyone reading this book regardless of inherited ethnicity—is that part of our nature that most easily falls in love, dreams, and revels in the senses. It is our most expressive, exuberant, spontaneous self—there inside just waiting to be set free.

We associate Italians with being convivial and festive. We’re used to visiting sunny Italy and encountering a host of garrulous, gregarious, and ebullient people. But it’s worth remembering that we also love Italy for its centuries of monumental (especially in Rome) achievements in art, architecture, music, clothing, glassware, not to mention, of course, the cuisine . . . and the list goes on and on.

Still there seems to be a lightness of spirit that’s gone along with these centuries of struggle and labor, and a feeling of celebration of life as the embodiment of the Dionysian (Bacchus in Roman mythology) archetype. Demeter, it was said, put Dionysius, the god of wine, on earth to “lift the care of mortals.” And not just with drunkenness. Dionysius is also the god of divine inspiration, releasing the best in us.

For part of his spell is an acute passionate experience of the presence of life in the present moment, being at one’s most receptive and responsive. Perhaps that, and not just the tendency to speak more honestly when not so inhibited, was what Pliny the Elder meant when he so aptly said “In vino veritas,”—in wine, truth.

To be truly in the moment, open to life, enraptured by it. . . that was captured by another lesser-known Italian sage, Domenico Modugno, in his very Italian song “Volare.” He sang about flying in an endless “blue painted blue” sky of love and art (Marc Chagall, to be specific) to “the heights of the sun” as a soft music played just for him.

Letting yourself go, flying free, as one arranges beautifully words, and art, and life.

We all love and need to travel to Italy, with or without a plane ticket.

Lions had disappeared from what is now considered Western Europe by the time of Christ, half a millennium before the first settlement formed near what is now considered Venice. One might wonder, then, why lions seem to pop up on buildings, flags and countless other surfaces throughout the city.

It all began with a heist.

The year was 828. Two Venetian merchants, Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, made their way to Alexandria, Egypt on a surreptitious mission, their objective to retrieve the remains of St. Mark the Evangelist who had been martyred in that African city seven and a half centuries earlier.

Although Venice possessed the remains of Theodor of Amasea who it claimed as its patron saint, the Adriatic city was by then well on its way to becoming a commercial and territorial world power, fully deserving of a patron saint of sufficient status to affirm its rightful standing before God as well as man. In a sense, snagging an evangelist’s bones was like securing ecclesiastical plutonium: one instantly became a member of “the nuclear club” (along with, say, Rome, which boasted the primo apostle Peter) in first millennium terms.

The two Venetians had willing accomplices: priests from the church of St. Mark in Alexandria who feared for the saint’s remains from the ruling Saracens. Thus the heist was in part an inside job. Employing an ingenious gambit, the merchants were able to smuggle Saint Mark’s body past Muslim guards at the port of Alexandria and out of the country by wrapping it in a layer of pork and cabbage; the guards recoiled at the porcine cargo and readily let it pass.

When St. Mark’s body (sans head, as it happens) arrived in Venice, it immediately supplanted the remains of St. Theodor in the doge’s private chapel, and work began almost immediately on sumptiousand grand basilica— also a property of the doge, but open to citizens of the Republic—that would serve as a more suitable setting for such a prize possession. (Back in Alexandria, St. Mark’s remains had been replaced by a lesser known martyr, St. Claudia, so something of a slow motion “three-saint monte” had just played out across two continents.)

The ubiquitous lion of Venice is in fact the winged lion symbol of St. Mark (established in the Apocalypse of St. John 4:7), the patron saint to which the rising Venetian Republic had traded up.

La Serenissima gained a high octane saint and the ruling caliphate in Alexandria lost a strategic asset, if only for blackmail purposes. Had the Muslim port guards only known of Homer’s Odyssey they might have been better prepared: Beware of Venetians importing pork.

The experience of gelato in Italy is a revelation. As in so many of their native products, Italians seem to achieve something bordering on magical with this dessert.

The word “gelato” is derived from the Latin for “frozen,” but that does not remotely begin to capture its essence. Those who know both gelato and American ice cream tend to equate the two, but it’s truly “different in kind” from its American counterpart.

For starters, in warm weather months gelato is ubiquitous throughout the Boot, which is not necessarily good, but in this case, it is. In every village, town, and city you will find dazzling displays of colorful flavors swirled into creamy peaks garnished artistically with fresh fruit and nuts, which create curiosity and wake up your appetite even if you have none (so often eyes tell the stomach what to think). Most gelato cases are filled with a plethora of flavors, usually no less than twenty, some of which you may have never had before or even imagined. Many proprietors, especially in a busy place, are not much for letting you sample, but you can get multiple flavors in a cup, and you can have gelato more than once a day. Still nothing quite prepares you for that first experience on your palate (and being reminded of “The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa”… or, in other words “I’ll have what she’s having”). The differences come down to both texture and flavor. Typical American ice cream is whipped at high speed with air, something it sometimes contains by as much as 60 percent, while gelato contains very little. You’ll notice as soon as gelato touches your tongue that it’s exceptionally creamy.

Fat conscious? Don’t fret; creamy richness does not equate to fat grams! The intense “true” flavor you experience when you sample well-made gelato is a result of the significantly lower fat content (up to 50 percent). Extra fat serves to coat your tongue and mask your taste buds’ ability to more directly experience the true flavors from the finest ingredients. So in the case of gelato less fat means more flavor (for many of us, this is perhaps the most important food fact we will ever learn). And much of the gelato served in Italy is held at higher temperatures, softening it and further amplifying the flavor.

Cool refreshing indulgences similar to gelato have a long history dating back to biblical times. Isaac served Abraham a yummy concoction of snow, honey, and goat’s milk: this was referenced as “sherbet.” Around 3000 bce, Chinese emperors began enjoying frozen treats made from snow, fruit, wine, and honey. Later the Chinese introduced their delicacy to Arab traders who then shared their delicious discovery with the Romans and Venetians. Something similar to sorbetto was a favorite of Emperor Nero who sent an army of slaves into the Apennines each year to gather snow that could be stored in caves so that he could enjoy his favorite cool fruity indulgence throughout the year.

It was in late Renaissance Florence that the revolutionary idea of using cow’s milk was first conceived by one of the personal chefs of Caterina de Medici. When Caterina married Henry II of France, she was accompanied by her chefs, who were included as part of her dowry along with their recipes and many other ingredients of modern cuisine. A century later a Sicilian opened a wildly successful café serving gelato on the Left Bank of Paris that is still in business today—Café Procope, at 330 years of age the oldest restaurant in continuous operation in Paris. Remaining more a delicacy of the noble class, these frozen delights spread to England and then made their way to America, where they evolved (devolved?) into ice cream. Gelato, meanwhile, never waned in its hold on Europe and especially Italy. You can find outstanding gelati everywhere on the peninsula (however quality does vary and there is more and more mass production; look for “artiginale” and beware of colors that are too bright and peaks that look too uniform). If you are in search of the Holy Grail of gelato, many suggest Sicily, where most gelateria still make gelato by hand in small batches. In the modest yet dazzling baroque city of Noto on Sicily’s southeastern coast, legions of visitors come to Caffè Sicilia on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele in search of its artfully made marmalades, honeys, nougats, pastries, and, above all, gelati. Aficionados describe the store’s fourth-generation owner and chef as a (mad) genius and an alchemist of flavors. They say his fragola sorbetto tastes like the iced cool essence of luscious, sun-ripened strawberries, freshly picked; the chocolate gelato is so dark and rich it is said to be almost a spiritual experience; and that seismic sensations can be brought on by tasting gelato di fior di spezia (spice flower) and gelato di insalata di arance (blood orange salad) flavors, fusions of tastes woven from centuries of cultural history combined in the heavenly experience of true gelato.