"He (Merk) is a friend and I have to say sometimes it is difficult to make a judgement about a friend, " the Italian said.

BBC: SPORT | Football | Euro 2004 | Merk to referee final

"Back in Piemonte, nature is not totally our friend, " notes northern Italian wine icon Angelo Gaja, who began planting for his Ca'Marcanda near Bolgheri in 1996.

FORBES: The Other Tuscany

Benanti, who would go on to win a Tony Award, still recalls the night when her friend Darcy returned from a terrible waitress shift at an Italian restaurant.

WSJ: Laura Benanti gets in a cabaret mood

One study of the Red Brigades, the Italian terrorist group of the nineteen-seventies, found that seventy per cent of recruits had at least one good friend already in the organization.

NEWYORKER: Small Change