Francesco Quaranta - A sparkling mind

Propaganda

information, propaganda, freedom, listening, free speech, censorship Reasoning

April 12, 2026

When we hear the word "propaganda" in our media, we immediately catch two nuances: hatred and contempt. Hate because by definition propaganda is that of the enemy, contempt because it is 100% lies and deception. It is an evidently Manichean vision and therefore irrational and anti-empirica

Treatise on the Married Episcopate

Middleages-Christianity celibacy orthodoxy

March 02, 2026

by Denis M. Garrison In the Orthodox Church in the New World, since early in the twentieth century, the concept of the married episcopate has been an important and urgent issue. The question has arisen with increasing frequency and force: Is it allowable to elect and consecrate married Priests to

An unpublished escape to Byzantium

Filioque orthodoxy inquisition

November 24, 2025

The anonymous Calabrian refugee of the Greek Vatican Code 316 Cardinal Giovanni Mercati had reported in 1923 that the codex Vaticanus graecus 316 contained in last sheet, the 167v, the story, or rather its background, of an escape from Calabria of an anonymous Christian of the Orthodox faith, no

S. Augustine and sexuality

sexuality marriage celibacy

November 23, 2025

This article is the section on Augustine’s doctrine regarding sexuality that was omitted from the final version of my book *Married Priests in the Middle Ages* (Claudiana, 2000) as a digression to be developed separately. In the Italian context, it is the only book describing the origin of mandatory

Pope Joan

Middleages-Christianity Women

November 21, 2025

While studying the work of Barlaam of Seminara, a 14th-century Greek monk, I realized that he was the only Eastern polemicist who had mentioned the story of Pope Joan. Intrigued, I sought to explore this topic further, and what I found is presented in this article. The first mention

And Guanciale Seduced the Egg

On the table pasta cooking

November 20, 2025

Four first courses today give Rome its reputation as a stronghold of Italian pasta: cacio e pepe, gricia, amatriciana, and the most famous of them all, the legendary carbonara. A closer look at their recipes immediately reveals their simplicity — a quality universally acknowledged — as

Syrah, the wine of the Crusader

On the table Syrah Shiraz

November 20, 2025

It is one of the six most cultivated vines in the world; in France, in the middle Rhone valley, its wine is called Hermitage rouge, in the rest of the world Syrah. Its first historical mention is from 1665, when it was already a sought-after quality wine that was counterfeited by unscrupulous trader

The macaroni that Rossini didn't want to cook

On the table pasta Dumas

September 03, 2023

Pasta with tomato sauce, a simple and tasty dish, a familiar symbol of our cuisine, was created in Naples in the mid-1800s and was initially known as maccheroni alla napoletana. In its modesty, this dish marked the birth of a new Italian cuisine based on pasta, boiled only in salted water, cooke