In May, the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy was shocked by two significant earthquakes, just 9 days apart. These leveled homes, damaged historic churches and buildings, and sent hundreds of thousands of wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano, “The King of Cheeses,” crashing to the ground from the high shelves on which they are aged for over a year.

Eataly, the bustling high-end food hall that Mario Batali, Joseph Bastianich, his mother, Lidia, and their partners opened in Manhattan more than two years ago, has reached an agreement to open its second United States store in Chicago, Mr. Bastianich said.

ROME — Marco Tirelli lived the life of an artist from an early age. He grew up surrounded by the children of visiting scholars and artists at the Swiss Institute in Rome, where his father was the manager. The family lived in an apartment in the Institute’s grand 19th-century Villa Maraini and, in view of his precocious talents as a draftsman, the aspiring artist was assigned a studio of his own there at the age of 15.

GROSSETO, Italy — The captain of the cruise ship that crashed into an Italian reef appeared in court Monday to hear the evidence against him, while hundreds of passengers who survived the deadly shipwreck and the families of those who died in it showed up just “to look him in the eye.”

Former Italian premier and European Commission president Romano Prodi on Friday hailed the decision to award the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union.

Italian Premier Mario Monti has made great progress since his appointment in November last year, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after meeting with Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi in Washington.