Travel and Educational Consultant

Celebrating 42 Years in Italy

Rome and central Italy have few secrets for Elegant Etruria’s founder, Dr. Mary Jane Cryan: she has lived there for four decades, working in the fields of education, journalism and travel.

For 30+years her weekly columns on antiques, lifestyle and travel appeared in Italy’s English language press.

 Over 2,500 articles have been published worldwide – from “Wanted in Rome” and "Moscow  Magazine" to the Italian glossy “Ville & Casali.”  

Some best-selling guide books  she has authored and contributed  to:

• Eyewitness Guide to Rome

• Buying a Home in Italy

• Living  and Working in Italy

• Designer  Bargains  in Italy

• Fodor’s  Upclose  guide 

Dr. Cryan is a researcher, lecturer (Italian Culture professor,  Università della Tuscia semester abroad program for foreign students) and  writer  specializing in Italian history and travel .

. Read about Italy’s history, curiosities, travel, antiques and art here

. Sign up to receive her free newsletter which is published every 2 months. Read Latest Newsletter here.

. To order signed copies of her latest book “Travels to Tuscany and Northern Lazio” click here.

Her previous books about  the Viterbo  area  “Affreschi-Exploring Etruria”  and  “Vetralla - The English Connection” have gained her many  prestigious awards including: 

• Rose di Viterbo award from the City of Viterbo, March 2005  
• City of  Vetralla  citation  “.for the promotion of  our city throughout  the world”-May 2002
• Ettore  Petrolini Prize, City of  Ronciglione - 2002
• The Tarquinia - Cardarelli  Prize  for  the   promotion of  the Viterbo  area – 2001
• City of  Capranica Prize for Historical Research - 2000

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Recent talks and presentations

·         Presentation of “Travels to Tuscany & Northern Lazio, Biblioteca degli Uffizi, Florence with  Cristina Acidini, Superintendent of Polo Museale Fiorentino, Claudio Di Benedetto, Director of the Uffizi Library, and Maurizio Bossi, head of the Centro Romantico, Gabinetto Vieusseux, Florence, Thursday, Nov 22, 2007

La Tuscia vista dagli Inglesi, Conference  Hall, Provincia di Viterbo, Nov  21, 2007

With USAC students 

·        Italian Culture series–Università della Tuscia,  USAC  Program -Spring & Fall semesters 2006-2007 

         Fall semester  2007  -Visit to Palazzo Papale, Viterbo  (photo M. Anderson)

·         “La Tuscia  vista dagli inglesi – pittori e scrittori di ieri e di oggi”-Tuscia as seen by English painters and writers of yesterday and today”- Rocca Farnese, Valentano (VT) , 11-17 agosto, 2007  with week long Art exhibit by contemporary painters  (with Rosetta Virtuoso & Museum of Valentano)

                                                    With artists Jackie Leto, Nancy Hart, Pat Smith

·         “Vetralla: storie di  papi, re e gente comune- Stories of popes, kings and common people” Comune di Vetralla, 17 agosto, 2007- Memorial day for Prof. Enrico Guidoni .

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·         2nd Art Retreat - “Drawing and Pastels in Etruria”  with Martha Wakeman,  Lake of Bolsena , May 2007

·         “Early Expats- international contacts in the Viterbo area”- Museum Vetralla, March 2007 

·        “Prima degli Svedesi- i contatti internazionali nella Tuscia”, “International contacts in Etruria before the Swedish” Biblioteca di Blera, Jan 7, 2007

  (with Luciano Santella & Maristella Carrisi)

• Book presentation -Brockton Public Library,  Massachusetts,  June 2006

(with Mary Jane McCool)

• Presentation at “Italian Weekend” Hawthorn Inn, Camden, Maine, June 2006

(with Maryanne Shanahan)

• “La Storia Segreta di Vetralla- Vetralla’s  Secret History” Scuola  di Vetralla,  Nov. &  Dec.  2006

·        “Gli Stuart  in Italia-200 anni dopo”-The Stuarts in Italy-200 Years Later” SISA Italian Heraldry Society - Atlantic Hotel, Rome, Nov. 2006

·         Presentation  at Feltrinelli International bookshop, Florence, Nov.  2005

 (with Contessa  Rezia Corsini Miari )

·        “Artisti Stranieri a Civita Castellana -Foreign Artists at Civita Castellana -1700 to Today”  - Palazzo Montalto-Belei,Civita Castellana, April, 20,2005

·        Santa Rosa Prize presented by  Viterbo’s Mayor , G. Gabbianelli

·         “Montefiascone nei Diari del Cardinale Henry Stuart”, Montefiascone in the Stuart Diaries”  Biblioteca di Montefiascone, April,2005

·        “Travels to Tuscany-the Diaries of  Cardinal Henry Stuart”- at  British  Society of 18th Century Studies,  St. Hugh’s College, Oxford,   January 7, 2005                                       

·         “Il Cardinale Henry Stuart -I suoi viaggi e le sue permanenze a Pisa tra il 1763 e 1776  “Stuart’s Travels and Stays in Pisa -1763 -1776” - at Palazzo dei Cavalieri di S. Stefano, Accademia Nazionale dell’Ussero, Pisa, Nov. 2004  (with Conte A. Agostini  Venerosi Della Seta & Sergio Scarselli)

·        Presentation at Museo della Città e del Territorio, Vetralla, June 2004

(Fulvio Ferri, author, Antonio Mattei, Enrico Guidoni)

·          “Stemmi Farnesiane a Vetralla: una crocevia d’arte, architettura e araldica”-“Farnese  heraldry in Vetralla: a crossroads of art, architecture and heraldry” presented at SISA Heraldry conference in Torino,   Nov. 2004

·         “Due Cardinali Inglesi a Vetralla”- “Two English Cardinals in Vetralla” -Heraldry conference, Società Italiana di Studi Araldici-Basilica di Superga  Torino, May 2002 (with Conte Gustavo di  Gropello )

·        “Stuart mementos in Viterbo Province” - Guest Speaker - The Caledonian Society of Rome, Scots College- Rome, Oct.2002

• Papal Palace, Viterbo with Rome’s American church, Santa Susanna

(with Rev. Greg Apparcel)

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A CORNER OF ENGLAND IN NORTHERN LAZIO

2007 - Year of the Stuarts in Montefiascone & Vetralla

Vetralla, an hour north of Rome and the airports of Fiumicino and Ciampino, is a small town known for its olive oil, Etruscan sites and excellent climate.

 It is the only town in Italy (and perhaps the world) that can boast the historic protection of the English crown for almost 500 years.

Visitors from England will feel doubly at home when they arrive here and see the town banner fluttering from the city hall for it is emblazoned with the red  St. George Cross on a white background.

Climbing up the city hall’s staircase they will note the large marble plaque dated 1512 sculpted with three majestic heraldic crests.  Flanking the arms of Pope Julius II (under whose direction Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel) are those of Henry VIII Tudor  and of his ambassador, Christopher Cardinal Bainbridge.

Ambassador  Cardinal Bainbridge  sent shipments of local food  back to England including olive oil, wine and huge forms of cheese of which the king was particularly fond. 

 These are indications of Vetralla’s official status and the protection of the English crown, a relationship which has continued irregardless of the Spitfire incursions the town endured in 1944 during World War II.  Bullet holes still mark the venerable old buildings and not far from town abandoned prison camp barracks where shot-down British airmen were held in 1944 can be glimpsed among the olive groves.

Hundreds of letters conserved in Windsor Castle’s archives make up part of the correspondence between the Stuart rulers and Vetralla’s town fathers during the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

The last of the Stuarts in exile, Cardinal Henry, the Duke of York, visited the town in October 1776 during one of his month-long holiday voyages to Tuscany and northern Lazio.  His elegant marble portrait bust donated to the town in 1802 can be admired in the city council chamber where nostalgic Jacobites often leave bouquets of heather carried from the Scottish highlands. 

Since the Bicentenary of the Cardinal-Protector’s  death is coming up next year, the towns  of Vetralla and nearby Montefiascone, where the royal parents(James Stuart and Polish princess Maria Clementina Sobieska) were wed in 1719, would do well to  proclaim 2007  as Stuart Year .

What better sponsors  for the goodness of Vetralla’s  extra virgin olive oil and Montefiascone’s  white wine than exiled royalty and important cardinals ?  

The diaries of the Stuart Cardinal’s voyages form the basis for the recently published book “Travels to Tuscany and Northern Lazio”  by Mary Jane Cryan and contain descriptions of Lucca, Bologna, Florence, Orvieto, Pisa and other towns visited by the Cardinal and his entourage during the years 1763 to 1776.

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About Etruria

The area stretching along the Mediterranean coast from Rome to Florence, and beyond, was known as Etruria by the ancient Romans who subdued and then absorbed this mysterious people, destroying most of their written documents. It was the Anglo-Saxons who helped to renew the information about this lost civilization when Thomas Dempster wrote his “De Etruria Regali” in 1619, dedicating it to the  Medici ruler of Florence.

In the 19^th century vestiges of the Etruscan civilization were found and popularized in London by the Campanari brothers of Tuscania. The Etruscan necropoli, cities of the dead dating from 8^th century B.C.  were studied by George Dennis who published “Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria” in 1848.

Until recently the Etruria region ( aka Tuscia or Viterbese) has been snubbed by visitors in favour of neighbouring Tuscany. If the names Cerveteri, Tarquinia, Tuscania, Viterbo and Vetralla are little known, it is because the area is about 50 years behind the times, touristically speaking, due to their proximity to the overwhelmingly important Rome and Tuscany.

Here there is everything a visitor to Italy dreams about: wonderful nature, friendly population that are interested in meeting foreigners, inexpensive lodgings, food wine and the world’s finest extra virgin olive oil. The important historical, artistic and architectural sites are another reason for visiting Etruria.

You can learn more about the Tuscia or Etruria area in M.J. Cryan’s two books.

Viterbo

Viterbo, capital city of the province (population 72,000) deserves an unhurried visit to appreciate the perfectly preserved medieval quarter, city walls, fountains and piazza and the palazzo where the papal court  held the first conclave in the 13^th century.  The surroundings are blessed with hot springs, Renaissance palazzo and gardens, lakes and hill towns rich in history, festivals and traditions. The area’s excellent wines, olive oil and other products are celebrated at festivals throughout the year.

Vetralla

This small city of 12,000 inhabitants is a layer-cake of history. First inhabited by the Etruscans (600 B.C.) then a Roman forum town known as Forum Cassii.  It was under the jurisdiction and protection of the English crown in 1512 when Pope Julius II donated it to Henry VIII’s ambassador, Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge. Their coat of arms can still be admired in the city hall.

Read more about Vetralla here.