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VICENZA, ITALY — The first and most imposing exhibit of the new Palladio Museum at Palazzo Barbarano is the Palazzo itself, built by the architect in the 1570s for the Vicentine nobleman Montano Barbarano.

The family of the little Fiat 500 is growing. After this year’s introduction of the larger, five-door 500L model, the Italian brand is set to give its baby car electric power. The 500e, as it’s called, “brings Italian flavour to the electric vehicle market” says Fiat.

Bigger. Faster. Cheaper. The pressure to produce in an increasingly competitive marketplace has led many global fashion houses to face due north and take a sharp turn toward China.

My grandfather Agostino Coppola came to America from the southern Italian village of Bernalda, in the region now known as Basilicata. An irascible character known for his stories, he had seven sons, who all tended to imitate him and to whom he passed his stories. Of those seven sons, only two are left (my father, Carmine, died in 1991): my 98-year-old uncle Mikey, who is my godfather, and my uncle Anton, a noted composer and conductor still working at the age of 95. In the past 12 years he’s written an opera, “Sacco and Vanzetti”; rewritten the libretto of Puccini’s only failure, “Edgar;” and done extensive revisions for “The Merry Widow.” Anton became known to us as Uncle Kiki, so named because my brother, as a child, had a friend named Dickie and called everyone “Kiki.” The name stuck.