Alzano Il Sipario: Rome's Strega Finale, the Vespucci's Farewell, and Williamsburg's Giglio Share One Wednesday

Italy Today

• Update — Ankara turns the meme war into a real one: Trump and Meloni called relations “cordial” at Wednesday’s NATO leaders’ dinner in Ankara, but Trump used the summit stage to turn last week’s photo-meme spat into a substantive complaint: “She’s a good person, I like her, but she made a mistake” refusing to help enforce the Strait of Hormuz after this week’s US strikes on Iran. Meloni, seated between Trump and Erdoğan at dinner, used the same summit to meet Zelensky and reaffirm Italy’s commitment to Ukraine — the disagreement, this time, is policy, not a photo.

  Review

  “Wednesday’s NATO leaders’ dinner” — the Trump/Meloni/Erdoğan dinner appears to have occurred Tuesday, July 7 (per the Adnkronos URL slug and Il Giornale/Sky TG24/ANSA dating), not Wednesday; only the separate Zelensky meeting was Wednesday morning — suggested action: fix to “Tuesday’s NATO leaders’ dinner.” [!review] The quoted line “She’s a good person, I like her, but she made a mistake” reads as a composite — independent wire coverage (US News, Al-Monitor) renders this as two separate remarks with different wording (“I like her, I think she’s a nice person, actually” and, separately, “she made a mistake” on Iran) — suggested action: verify against the linked source or convert to paraphrase. [!review] “seated between Trump and Erdoğan at dinner” — coverage indicates Meloni was at the same table but arrived late and was not necessarily seated directly between them — suggested action: verify seating or soften to “at the same table as.” [!review] The Zelensky-meeting link is dated July 7, but that meeting appears to have happened Wednesday July 8 morning with separate July-8 coverage — suggested action: verify and re-link to the correct-day source.

• Seven and counting: Rome’s Ros carabinieri arrested two former Italian intelligence officers accused of selling classified material — including the names of undercover agents — to a Russian operative under diplomatic cover. The case, open since May 2025, now touches seven suspects across military and civilian courts.

• Bollino arancione, again: Italy’s third African heat wave of the summer pushed ten cities to orange alert Wednesday — Bologna, Florence, Milan, Turin, Venice among them — with highs pushing toward 40°C by the weekend.

Brooklyn Dispatch

• Update — the Vespucci’s actually gone: Monday’s “last morning” became Wednesday’s real departure: the tall ship Amerigo Vespucci cast off from Pier 86 after its four-day New York call, bound next for Sail Boston (July 11–16), then Québec and Montréal before recrossing the Atlantic.

• Update — the Giglio’s first day: The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel opened Wednesday on Havemeyer Street for its 12-day run through July 19 — food stalls, rides, and nightly entertainment ahead of Sunday’s main event, when over a hundred men hoist the 70-foot Giglio tower and dance it through the Williamsburg streets.

Arts & Culture

• Sei diventa uno, stasera: Rome crowns the 80th Premio Strega tonight in Piazza del Campidoglio, broadcast live on Rai 3 and projected across four more corners of the city. Michele Mari’s I convitati di pietra — thirty old schoolmates bound by a decades-old pact to keep paying into a shared fund until three of them are left — has led every round of voting so far, including the youth-jury Strega Giovani. The favorite doesn’t always win in Rome, but it’s rarely led by this much.

  Unverified

  Winner is announced after this brief’s research cutoff — Mari is the clear front-runner, not a confirmed result.

• A café concert with no espresso machine in sight: Marni is turning a 60-year-old Milan pastry counter into a concert hall, booking live sets inside Pasticceria Cucchi every Thursday through mid-July — proof that in Milan, even the pastry case doubles as a stage.

Parola del Giorno

Parola: giglio (noun, m.) — lily; from Vulgar Latin jilju, worn down from Latin lilium (Greek leírion), the same root that gave Florence its heraldic emblem. This week: the word painting Havemeyer Street orange and gold as Williamsburg raises its first Giglio of the season — a 70-foot devotional tower, not a flower, but named for one anyway. Usage: “Si balla il giglio domenica” — “They dance the Giglio on Sunday.”

Takeaway