ADF News

Unassuming Melbourne: Arts Capital of Australia

As so often in Australia’s history, Melbourne was founded through fraud when adventurer John Batman, an Australian who spoke in several aboriginal languages, made a “deal” with aborigines to lease land on behalf of investors. While offering the Aborigines any compensation at all was progressive in a colonial culture that preferred to simply run them [...]

Piazza San Marco - One of Venice’s Most Elegant Squares

  One of the world’s most evocative squares, Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) is the heart of Venice, a vast open space bordered by an orderly procession of arcades marching toward the fairy tale cupolas and marble lacework of the Basilica di San Marco. Perpetually packed by day with people and fluttering pigeons, it can be [...]