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In the teeming markets and cobbled streets of Ancient Rome, where the thrum of the empire pulsed strongest, two women carved their names into the annals of commerce and industry, challenging the era’s traditional gender roles. Back then, societal norms largely confined women to private spaces, where they were expected to be custodians of the home b...

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Baci Perugina must be the best-known Italian chocolate in the world: with their silver wrapping covered in blue stars, they look like a precious stone and they are pretty enough to be gifted just like that, on their own and out of your hand. Then, when you open them, you don’t only find a delicious chocolate, but also a tiny piece of white wax pape...

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Luisa Spagnoli left her mark in the fashion world, but little do people know that she was the woman who invented the “Baci Perugina,” the famous little chocolate with the whole hazelnut surrounded by gianduia and wrapped in a short love poem.  A favorite for Valentine’s Day, the “Bacio” or Kiss, is today one of the best-known Italian chocolates, ea...

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A blue box of silver-foil chocolates wrapped with a note is a failsafe on February 14. But there’s actually a real-life love story behind the Baci. When Perugia-born clothing designer Luisa Spagnoli first invented the hazelnut-centred chocolate in 1922, she called it a cazzotto because it resembled a fist. The name didn’t ring right to Giovanni Bui...

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