let's do a wacky italian story of the day, shall we? i haven't done one of those in, say, about 72 hours. definitely overdue.

today i shall focus on the macabre obsession of italians who just adore exhuming centuries old bodies of ancient famous people in order to discover some obscure fact or prove some ridiculous point. it's like some crazy italian soap opera, but dealing solely with dead, rotted bodies. fun times, fun times.

for example: today it was decided that 49 members of the medici family will be exhumed to solve a '300 year-old murder' case.

Using latest technology, researchers will try to find out about the Medici lifestyle including what they ate and how they died, when the family vault is opened this month.

Above all they will try to solve the mystery of Francesco Medici and his wife, who died within a day of each other in 1587 of what appeared to be malaria but was probably poisoning.

because that is so, so important. man. celebrity obsession isn't only about the famous people who happen to be, you know, alive.

additionally, the poet petrarch, who was exhumed in november 2003, may not have been buried with his...head.

Scientists, who dug him up in November 2003 in hopes of learning more about one of the most prolific bards of the Italian Renaissance, discovered after DNA testing that the skull found in his tomb most likely belongs to a woman.

The skull switcheroo is sending shock waves through the Italian scientific community where dramatic celebrity exhumations have become frequent. Over the last decade or so, figures like painter Giotto and Dante's 'Cannibal Count' Ugolino della Gherardesca have made headlines and become the object of exhibits, books and documentaries following DNA testing.

Petrarch's exhumation was timed in order that he might 'star' in celebrations for the 700th anniversary of his birth in November 2004. Scientists wanted to reconstruct his face and determine his age, diet and general health. There was no immediate comment from officials about how the fete might carry on if the poet's body remains headless.

"I hope that whoever may have the skull will give it back," said scientist Vito Terribile Wiel Marin. "We're 100% percent sure it's not his, but we can't date the skull with certainty yet." Getting back Petrarch's head may not be a simple matter -- the tomb, in Arqua Petrarca near Padova had been opened once in the 1600s and in more recent times, when someone made off with an arm and fractured the skull.

Romantics are already speculating that the woman buried with Petrarch might be his mystery love Laura, to whom he dedicated the lines, "I feed on sadness, laughing weep: death and life displease me equally: and I am in this state, lady, because of you."

that is so romantic, i think i am going to throw up.