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Hershey Felder’s latest musical film is “Musical Tales of the Venetian Jewish Ghetto.” (Courtesy of Hershey Felder)

For the past few years, the prolific, multi-talented Hershey Felder — who forged his career in the U.S., and then moved to homes in Paris and Florence — has taken a new direction in the form of an ever-expanding series of what he has dubbed “musical films” that are available for screening on the web.

Florence, Italy (Paolo Palazzi-Xirinachs / Facebook photo)

Paolo Palazzi-Xirinachs was about four weeks into his post-retirement studies at the University of Florence when Italy went into full quarantine. Now he’s stuck in a country with the highest reported coronavirus death toll in the world.

In April, Chicago Tonight got a behind-the-scenes look at a school of comic book and sequential art that started in Italy in 1979. When Italy's International School of Comics opened its first North American location, they chose a quiet block of Hubbard Street on the near West Side.  We revisit that story.

Geoffrey Baer's newest program -- A Taste for the Past: Architect Pier Carlo Bontempi -- is a profile of a little-known Italian architect who is this year's winner of the Driehaus Prize, a prestigious, Chicago-based award for architects who design classical and traditional buildings. It debuts on WTTW11 at 8:00 pm Thursday. Geoffrey joins us to tell us about his adventures in Italy. Watch an anecdote from Bontempi's childhood, read an interview with the documentary's producer and co-writer, and see behind-the-scenes photos from Ialy.

First Greece, now Italy. The Italian economic crisis has put the country on the brink of default on its massive debt, and the colorful Italian prime minister may be one of the casualties. Eddie Arruza and his panel look at how events in Europe are impacting things on this side of the Atlantic.