A priest dances in a famous piazza in Rome surrounded by four gyrating parishioners. Tourists stare and dozens of children on a school trip from France start to twist and turn to the music.
Gladiators, horsemen and women with flowers in their hair brought history alive Monday at Rome's Circus Maximus where thousands gathered to celebrate the Eternal City's 2,767th birthday.
Pope Francis attended an emotional night of prayers for hot-button social issues including domestic abuse, prison overcrowding and unemployment to mark the Good Friday before Easter.
Italy has granted political refugee status to the family of a Kazakh tycoon, who is in prison in France fighting an extradition order from Russia and Ukraine where he is wanted for massive fraud, lawyers said.
A woman who underwent fertility treatment at a clinic in Rome became pregnant with the twins of another couple after their embryos were mixed up, press reports said.
Italy has rescued 896 migrants crossing the Mediterranean by boat overnight, the navy said on Friday, after the government warned of an "emergency" caused by a surge in new arrivals.
Pope Francis on Friday personally asked forgiveness for thousands of child sex abuses carried out by priests and promised more action following accusations of cover-ups and excessive leniency by the Vatican.
The lead singers of Astana Opera Medet Chotabayev and Sundet Baigozhin have signed contracts with Italian Lirico di Verona to the perform primary roles in Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme.
Italian prosecutors on Thursday approved a request by Silvio Berlusconi's lawyers for the three-time prime minister to do community service rather than face house arrest following a tax fraud conviction.
An Italian court on Wednesday recognised a gay couple as married for the first time in Italy, which does not have any form of official acknowledgement of same-sex unions.
Italy's Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino plans to make a debut television series entitled "The Young Pope" about Lenny Belardo -- a fictional first-ever Italian American pontiff, an Italian daily reported on Tuesday.
Two Italian priests and a Canadian nun have been kidnapped by gunmen in northern Cameroon, Italy's foreign ministry and media reports said on Saturday.
Domenico Rancadore, the convicted Italian mafia boss who last week was told he was free to remain in Britain, has been arrested on a fresh international warrant, police said Saturday.
Queen Elizabeth II meets Pope Francis for the first time on Thursday on a visit that coincides with the anniversary of the start of the Falklands War between Britain and Argentina.
Italian industrial giant Finmeccanica on Friday said it had won a $1.2 billion (873 million euro) contract for building and operating unmanned metro lines in Lima.
Italian prosecutors on Friday said two former top executives at the Vatican bank will go on trial for money laundering, while the bank's ex-chairman was declared innocent.
Barack Obama will meet Pope Francis for the first time Thursday for talks on a shared agenda to fight inequality which the US President hopes will help boost support at home.