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/ 4 January 2008

Saints on your cell

Anyone who visits Italy sees one sooner or later, most likely tucked into the frame of a mirror above a bar or taped to the dashboard of a taxi. But lots of devout Roman Catholic Italians carry them in their wallets and purses — little cards bearing the picture (or at least the imagined likeness) of a saint or other religious figure.

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/ 13 October 2006

Three years in a cave, and trying for six

Maurizio Montalbini is Italy’s least gregarious citizen. The 53-year-old sociologist has distinguished himself by spending almost three years of his life in total on his own and underground. On Thursday Montalbini vanished into a pothole near the eastern Italian town of Ascoli Piceno having instructed his support team that, so long as all went well, he should be left undisturbed for another three years.