New York is the Big Apple, Chicago is the Windy City and Los Angeles is, as its very name tells us, the City of Angels. Cross that pond and come to Italy, where you’ll find of course Rome, the Città Eterna, and Venice La Serenissima. Cities love nicknames, all over the world, but it’s about the Italian flair for alternative geographical denominations we’ll chat a bit about today.

Well, that Rome is called “the Eternal City” comes as no surprise, as her millennial history is witness and memory to the fact Rome is just that, timeless. And La Serenissima, the “most serene” Venice, where does that image come from? Alas, even I use it continuously when writing about the city, yet, beside the fact the expression dates back to the times of the Repubbliche Marinare, I known nothing about its origin.