Chef Francesco Apreda, executive chef at Imago in the Hassler Hotel in Rome, demonstrates cooking techniques for a class at Arte Italia.
aS gOOd aS Italy gEtS Arte Italia celebrates “The Year of Italian Culture” with the UNESCO Italia exhibit by JESSICA SANTINA
The UNESCO Italia exhibit runs through Nov. 24 and is free. Arte italia, 442 Flint St., is open Thursday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.
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NOVEMBER 14, 2013
The Botanical Garden of Padua (Orto Botanico di Padova), in northern Italy, was possibly the world’s first botanical garden. Established in 1545, it has made a profound contribution to modern science, especially in the disciplines of botany, medicine, chemistry, ecology and pharmacy. It’s a kind of history that residents of the American West can hardly fathom, and it’s what landed the Botanical Garden of Padua a spot on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO’s) list of 981 World Heritage Sites, selected for their cultural, historical and creative importance to the world. The Botanical Garden is one of 49 such sites in Italy—more than
any other single country in the world. And right now you can see the garden and 22 other sites as captured through the unique lenses of 14 Italian photographers, as part of the UNESCO Italia exhibit, on display at the Arte Italia mansion gallery in downtown Reno. Featured in the exhibit are sites such as the rock drawings in Valcamonica, Venice and its lagoon, the city of Verona, the church and Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie with “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci, the Dolomites, the Piazza del Duomo in Pisa and Cinque Terre. The year 2013 has been designated the Year of Italian Culture in the United States, a year-long celebration of Italy’s artistic and cultural contributions to America,
which is what prompted the development of this exhibit. Reno is one of only three U.S. stops for the show—previously it has been in Miami and Joplin, Mo.—before it moves on to Vancouver, B.C., and then returns to Italy.
Saluté RENO How does the Biggest Little City land a cultural event the likes of which is usually found in cities such as San Francisco or New York? According to Arte Italia president Kristen Avansino, it’s a combination of the nonprofit organization’s unique focus on the marriage of visual and culinary arts, its historic location, a larger-than-average population of Italian Americans for
a city this size and the support of the E.L. Wiegand Foundation, which operates Arte Italia. In the early 2000s, it was Avansino, the wife of a fifth-generation Italian American/Nevadan, who realized that her in-laws were among hundreds of Italian families that had come to Northern Nevada at the turn of the century to work in the logging and mining industries. “In my husband’s family, for example, there were two sisters who married Avansinos, and they weren’t even related,” she says. “You had families coming here, living side by side, one generation after another, loving the country and buying acreage to settle here, particularly in the Old Southwest and in Sparks. … The mountains and verdant valleys were obviously
