2022_Volume 27_STEPS by Louis C. Brunelli

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An Introduction . . .

The Filò is published and distributed several times each year and targets the children of our immigrant parents. The Filò (pronounced fee-lò) was the daily gathering in Trentino stables where villagers met and socialized. The intent is to provide a summary of our culture, history, and customs in plain English to provide you with the background of your roots and ancestry.. If you wish to contact us, call Lou Brunelli at 914-402-5248. Attention: Your help is needed to expand our outreach. Help us identify them, be they your children, relatives or acquaintances. Go to filo.tiroles.com and register on line to receive the magazine free of charge or send your data to Filò Magazine, PO Box 90, Crompond, NY 10517 or fax them to 914-734-9644 or submit them by email to filo.tiroles@att.net.

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Our Towns: Mezzocorona

The village of Mezzocorona rises in the Piana Rotaliana, a green triangle bordered by the Noce stream and the Adige river. It is located about 12 miles north of Trento and 30 miles south of Bolzano. Since the time of the Roman Empire, the Adige river and the Via Imperiale Claudia Augusta contributed to

there, where the fearsome dragon is said to have lived. The castle is a rare example of a “crown”, which is a medieval architectural construction inside a cave or rock. It was formerly among the largest and most impressive in the whole Principality of Trento. Corona di Mezo is in fact the oldest name given to the castle, only later referred to as currently known: San Gottardo. Mezo, which derives from the Latin “medium”, meaning plain. It was the generic name of the entire underlying plain, which extends both to the right and to the left of the Noce stream. The existing records refer to the ancient castle as being built before 1181. The cave houses the ruins of the stronghold. It was once reachable on foot from the village, via a steep path that wound from the underlying Firmian Castle now unusable. Firmian Castle was built in 1480 by Nicolò I di Firmian, an energetic captain of the Valle di Non and Giudicarie. He decided to abandon the overhanging castle in the rock, Castel San Gottardo, in favor of a more comfortable residence more in line with the tastes and living styles of the time. In a privileged position, at the base of imposing rock walls and overlooking green vineyards, the castle has been, from then until today, the

The Piana Rtaliana as seen from Monte di Mezzocorona. Left:Adige River, Bottom: Village of Messocorona.Right: Noce River

making the village a vitally important road junction between the Adige, Noce and Avisio valleys. Inhabited since prehistoric times, replete with numerous interesting finds, Mezzocorona today showcases traces of its history through medieval castles and modern palaces. The Castel San Gottardo, now in ruins, is set in a vast and suggestive cave while Castel Firmian, immediately below, is still inhabited. Palazzo Firmian serves as the custodian of the prestige of the important Firmian family.

Castel San Gottardo is hidden in a crevice in the rock and nestled on a cliff overlooking the village of Mezzocorona. It is enchanting not only for its position, but also for the Legend of the Basilisk, a basilisk was a Castel Firmiam legendary reptile reputed to be a serpent king, who can cause death with a single glance. The legend is reinforced home of the Firmian Counts, warrior lords and patrons in the discovery years ago of dinosaur footprints right of the arts. The Firmian family played a leading role in the power relations between the Mediterranean and the Germanic world and exercised, until 1824, the right of Tyrolean jurisdiction over the surrounding territory. Palazzo Firmian is a noble eighteenth-century residence overlooking the central Piazza della Chiesa, today the prestigious seat of the Municipality of Mezzocorona. The residence has some of the best examples of the frescoes by the Austrian painter Paul Troger (1698-1762), authentic late Baroque masterpieces, where mythology and art come together to Castel Gottardo

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enhance the greatness of the Firmian. The residence was the seat of the jurisdiction of Mezzocorona since the Middle Ages. In 1985, the building was restored following the purchase by the Municipality, revealing the works of the splendid frescoes..

Mezzocorona, a green oasis closed to traffic that also offers attractions for hiking lovers. Monte di Mezzocorona is a great intertwining of paths and an oasis of peace and tranquility. You can only get there on foot or by cable car and this makes it the ideal destination for those looking for a place away from the chaos of the city and surrounded by unspoiled nature. The cable car leaves from the village (219 m asl) and takes you to the top of the mountain in just 3 minutes (891 m asl). Once at your destination, you can enjoy a splendid view of the

As Mezzocorona’s fertile territory and geographical position favored the quality wine production in the area. Today the town is known for the production of Teroldego Rotaliano DOC, the prince of the Trentino wines, distinquished for its intense ruby red color, the cent of wild blackberry, blueberry and raspberry and its strong and unmistakable taste. The pivotal church of Mezzocorona is the Church of Mary Assumed.The first documents relating to the Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Mezzocorona date back to 1199, in which it is mentioned as "Ecclesia de Meze", but it is known that the first building dates back to more ancient times. In 1862, during the demolition of the old Gothic church, traces of a much older structure were discovered. The new church, built at the end of the 19th century and remained almost unchanged to this day, was designed by the architect Leopoldo de Claricini and was consecrated in 1867. The front face closes with a spire that holds the statue of Santa Maria Assunta, while at the inside, next to the altar there is a statue dedicated to San Gottardo, the patron saint of Mezzocorona. Another gem of this village is certainly the Monte di

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Piana Rotaliana Königsberg, the Adige Valley and the surrounding mountains, or stroll along the paths and hikes in the woods and nature. On hot summer days the breeze brought by the Ora del Garda gives a little coolness to the small plateau.Written by the staff of Consorzio Turistico Piana Rotaliana Königsberg

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Our Castles:Castel Stenico Castel Stenico Castello di Stenico dates back to more than 2000 years, and was first built as a refuge for the Stoni - a proud Alpine population exterminated by the Romans – The town of Stenico where the castle is located derives its very name from that ancient people. It is built on a spur overlooking the roads of communication towards the Valli Giudicarie looking down on three critical locations or portals. To the right, it views the Ballino Pass that leads down to Riva and the Lake of Garda and Brescia. Ballino is also a village in the pass where Andreas Hofer spent 8 years as a shepherd. To the left, it looks to Limaro, the “grand canyon” of the Trentino that leads down to Toblino and onto the city of Trento. Below it and running by it is the road that leads to the Val Rendena through which Charlemagne passed with his armies.

he Tyrol was and still is replete with castles. They punctuate so many valleys reminding the inhabitants of valleys of their past. In particular, the castles were homes and centers for the Lords of the Tyrol, noblemen, Bishops. The Tyrol contained the all important guarded and protected corridor that led from the Alps to what is now the Italian

During the 800 years of the sovereignty of the Prince Bishops of Trento, it was a fortress seeing to the safety of its lands and people. As such it had also a strategic importance maintaining the safety for the traffic of Nordic principalities as they sought the Pope’s endorsement in the context of “Holy Roman Empire” which was neither holy nor Roman but served as a counterpoint to the Church of the East. Hence, the Castle’s history is inextricably linked with the past of the prince bishops of Trento, who owned the castle until the 18th century. When in the 18th century the country was occupied by Napoleon and its troops, the castle began to decay and decline. In 1975 the castle was finally handed over to the authorities of Trento. Since then it has been hosting exhibitions, competitions of modern art and photogracollections. archeological as well as phy A mighty wall surrounds the castle in the south, while in the north an outer courtyard secludes the building. Opposite to the outer courtyard, there is the Palazzo Romanico. While the so-called Torre della Fame, the tower of hunger, is the oldest part of the castle, the S. Martino chapel with its precious Romanic frescoes dates back to the 13th century. Definitely worth seeing is also a hall called Sala del Camino Nero. Also worth seeing inside is the important archaeological section of local history, an exhibition of furniture, frescoes, weapons and ancient tools from the collections of the Museo Castello del Buonconsiglio in Trento, to which Castel Stenico now belongs.

plain and onto Rome. This corridor was the passage way for all the Nordic potentates north of the Alps to safely reach the Pope in Rome to confirm and authenticate their roles and functions in their regions where they ruled. They were always situated on elevated locations, promontories to look out and beyond watching for friends and foes that ventured into their respective domains. In our day, while many castles are simply in ruins, so many are special places that serve as museums and as cultural centers where concerts and theatrical presentations are held. The Filo` will initiate a new series visiting and informing its readers about these special assets that provides us with views of our past and our history.

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The Ansitz Tütschenhof

hen studying the history, archeology, and art of the historical Tyrol, it is impossible to miss one of the most essential architectural wonders of this area, the “Ansitz.” Together with the term “Burg,” “Schloß,” “Turmhaus,” “Festung,” etc., this is often translated as “castle.” However, one of the main features of the Ansitz, which separates it from the other descriptors, is that this is a type of residence of the Rural Nobility only found in the Alpine area, but especially Bavaria, Tyrol, and South Tyrol. Unlike traditional castles, these residces were hardly fortified, and often originate from Roman or

course a combination of Hof + Tütschen. The latter term is still debated by linguists, although the two most plausible explanations are either the noun “Teutschen” (i.e., “belonging to the Germanic tribe” as in Deutsch) or the verb schternkockeletütschen, i.e., Exterior Fresco “Easter Egg tapping,” a common practice in religious traditions of the historical Tyrol to this day.

In any case, each Ansitz carried a historical name as well as a symbol (the Hofmark), often a combination of multiple signs and letters from the local Rhaetic alphabet of Bozen/San-Zen (in fact, this symbol was often used in combination with the Lord of the Manor’s signature, or as a replacement for it). This Hofmark is a term from the late Roman Empire /early Medieval law (the Baurecht or “Manorial Rights”) which allowed farmers who owned such an estate to be citizens of the Empire, and to inherit View of Mezzacorona property and financial benefits and pass them on through generations, in the same way as the European nobility Pre-Roman buildings, and renovated during the Middle did, at least until the end of WWII. Ages or the Renaissance as they had lost their military purpose. Following the Baurecht, our family has been living in the The Ansitz Tütschenhof in the historical center of Tütschenhof since time immemorial, and the house has Mezzocorona is one of such examples. What makes this been one of the town centers to provide the population Ansitz even more special is that this is one of the most with an oven, a press, and the production of multiple characteristic Residences which was still defined as a produce, wine, and multiple agricultural, farming, and “Hof ” (German / Old Norse for “shrine, temple”) a woodworking activities (one of the requirements, since Germanic term now indicating a court or rural estate, the Middle Ages, for the preservation of Manorial one of the most typical architectural features of the Rights). My father Egidio thus inherited the Tütschenhof Alpine area. In fact, this is one of the 5 oldest building from his father and together with my uncle he produced in the town of Mezzocorona / Deutschmetz, a town wine, cultivated fruits and vegetables, and a small part of which truly embodies the cultural and linguistic variety his fields with wheat and sedges. of the historical Tyrol. The name Tütschenhof is of

Ancient Roman stairs

Floor ceramics

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Wines of Tütschenhof

To this day our family has been following the steps of the past, and we still produce our own Tütschenh of wine, including the Traditional Teroldech / Teroldego, as well as many other varieties, including Ruländer, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Fragolin, and Rosé cultivated with a simple or double pergola supported by wooden poles. Of course, the estate underwent several transformations, including a major renovation in the XV century (which added two wings to the central structure, where the builtin tower is located). Before this last renovation, the estate consisted of central building (with Donjon, Hall, tower, and main rooms), stable, barn, cellars, and cultivated lands. Beside our Haflinger horses, in the stable there were cows that were milked twice a day, while in the southern courtyard there was the chicken coop and other domestic animals. Over the years some fields were rented out and some animals sold. With the last renovation of 2005, the Tütschenhof received a new, added purpose. Some of its rooms and halls were dedicated to a cultural, education, and therapeutic center, the “Nortades,” which hosts the Centro Ricerca Artistica Mezzocorona (CRAM) and the Südtiroler Volksuniversität / Università popolara dl Südtirol, which represents one of the dreams of my family, i.e., giving back to the community and fostering creativity, research, and healing. Of course, we cannot talk about creativity without talking about culture, arts and traditions. As it is typical throughout Tyrol, here legends, sagas, and fairy tales are common everywhere you go. Some of the most famous examples are of course the National Epic of the Kingdom of Fanes, King Laurin, the Krampus and the Schåppviach, as well as the Berggeist (Ghost/Spirit of the Mountain), a Tyrolean and Swiss mythological figure which inspired J.R.R. Tolkien’s character of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings. The Town of Mezzocorona is no exception, 9

Tütschenhof Hofmark Seal

with its “Legend of the Basilisk,” the “Hexafoil,” and the related figures of Count Ugo Firmian and St. Gotthard (itself connected to the legend of Sigurðr the Dragonslayer). Statues, stone carving, and paintings representing these symbols are visible on the walls of the Tütschenhof, as well as in the surrounding buildings, in particular the Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta. Another legend is called “L teśor del Gidio.” This story is of particular interest to our family, as it claims that my father (or, most likely, a great-grandfather whose name got confused with him) reportedly found a treasure inside the Tütschenhof, many years ago. I was always intrigued by the stories that locals would tell,about this legend. Some claimed that the treasure was left by the troops of Napoleon during their war against the Tyrolean uprising with Andreas Hofer, some others say the treasure was kept hidden in our house since the early Middle Ages or even before the fall of Rome (in this case, the legend tends to be told as “L Schåtz dl Mas” (i.e., “the Treasure of the Manor”), and other again say that “something was found which belonged to the Raetians ancestors.” While we certainly found coins, stone carvings, and other items dating back from Roman era (which is not surprising, given the age of the building itself), a treasure was never found. However, legends also help keeping the memory and the tradition alive, thus… we will never stop dreaming! Written by Rosa Giovannini, Mezzocorona A Singular and Remarkable Family The image of the three persons reflect a truly Tyrolean experience. Depicted is Rosa Giovannini of the Piana Rotoliana of the Trentino, writer of this article who married Lino Tomasi who originates from South Tyrol both of whom live in a Tyrolean dwelling/castle, Tütschenhof..joined by their son, Dr. David Lag Tomasi, a scholar and professor at the University of Vermont, and a very special friend and resource for the Filo`. With this enriched diversity in his family, he has been a consultant that helped the Filo’ navigate the geopolitics of our homeland and its specific South Tyrol culture

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The Confederacy & the Empire

here is a story that to most unknown and curious that binds the lands that belonged to Austria to those of the Confederate States of America. It is the story of the origin of the military uniforms of the two armies. Some peculiarities have attracted the attention of experts and lovers of Tyrolean and Veronese history. Scholars particularly fond of the history of the Confederation and of the Tyrolean and Venetian lands at the time of their belonging to the Austrian kingdom. It all starts from a chapter included in the volume "The lost civilization" by Niccolò Ferrari

Niccola Marschall

published by Gabrielli editori. Niccolo` Ferrari was a great Veronese enthusiast and scholar of the American Civil War and of the military departments of the state of Alabama.His research brought him to a passage from the travel diary of Nicola Marschall, artist and painter of Prussian origin.

War, moving from Private to Second Lieutenant. Nicola Marschall was born in Prussia in 1829 and emigrated to the United States, together with his family of tobacco merchants, in 1849. In 1851 he settled in Marion, Alabama. Between 1857 and 1859 he returned to Prussia for further studies and to refine his artistic techniques. At that time, the city of Verona was a very important city as a barrier point for possible invasions by Italy and Allies from the south into the Austrian Empire. It was in Verona where Marshall witnessed the parade of a squad of sharpshooters, presumably a department of Tyrolean Kaiserjäger (the famous hunters of the Emperor). Approximately 10,000 of these loyal Tyrolean soldiers distinguished themselves in all the battles of the Empire. Nicola Marshall wrote: "In 1857 I returned to Prussia and stayed two years, continuing my art studies”. He established his artistic bona fides so that he was the creator of the first flag of the Confederate States of America which flew on March 4, 1861 over the Montgomery White House in Alabama. In his career as a painter he painted many pictures. The most famous are those depicting presidents Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln; Otto von Bismarck and General Nathan Bedford Forrest. It was while he was passing through Verona, which then belonged to Austria, that he saw the

Marschall arrived in the United States at the age of 18 and served in the Confederate Army during the Civil Austrian soldiers in Verona

First Confedrate Flag that flew over thefirst flag of the Confederate States of America which flew on March 4, 1861 over the Montgomery White House in Alabama

uniform that years later provided the design for the Confederate uniform. “One day in Verona I heard the notes of martial music and saw a company of marksmen from the Austrian Army passing by. What splendid soldiers, what noble uniforms was my comment on seeing them. They wore a striking gray uniform with green edging. Green denoted their specialty as army sharpshooters and their rank was indicated by markings on the collar of their jackets, bars for lieutenants and captains, stars for senior officers. " (Taken from "The Laurel Ledger Newspaper, Laurel, MS-Dec 16, 1905 - Nicola 10

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Tiroler Kaiserjaeger 1859

Kaiserjaeger 1859

jackets, bars for lieutenants and captains, stars for senior officers " ( "The Laurel Ledger Newspaper, 1905 Nicola Marshall"). From this memorable encounter, Marshall was inspired by the models of the Austrian army uniforms seen in the parade in Verona and became the very author of the sketches of the Confederate army uniforms. The need for brevity prevents a comprehensive comparison of the two uniforms have in common. The color of the uniforms and the cut are very very similar if not almost the same. Until June 1861, no uniform was prescribed for the militiamen of the South and many departments still wore the blue uniforms of the federal state. The new uniforms were created on inspiration given by the sketches of Nicola Marshal. The frock coat uniform, later replaced by the cheaper and more comfortable shell jacket, is clearly inspired by the Austrian departments of the mid-19th century. Except the hair. the kepi, clearly French-inspired, the elegant two-button Confederate uniform and ranks on the sleeves and collars is very similar to that worn by Austrian officers and soldiers. After several trips to the United States in 1908 he retired and died in 1917 in Louisville Kentucky. Now he rests with his wife in the Cave Hill Cemetery. Noteworthy is the painting that portrays him with his wife and which is still on display at the first White House in Montgomery in Alabama. This short article seeks to make the reader understand what strong link there was between the Austrian land and the new Confederate

landseen as a land closest to

Vic Zanella of Maryland’sGrandfather Giuseppe and Father Querino & Grandmother Maria Teresa-both Kaiserjaeger

Austrian way of conceptualizing a Heimat, a homeland. The Southern United States were a rural land of farmers and plantations that later became primarily the Confederate states. As such, they were able to welcome Tyrolean immigrants who sought their fortune in the new world. Father Bolognani of the Courageous People from the Dolomites stated this difference as well. He indicated how the Italian emigrants gravitated to the cities, whereas the Tyrolean emigrants went to rural areas where they worked mining coal, silver and iron ore. These same Tyroleans in the Southern states blended into this society sacrificed themselves on the US battlefields with the Confederate gray-blue uniform. The Confederate state were hardly industrialized and modern land for those times. Their peasant and rural thinking was oriented more to community and sharing overcoming profit and the race to the modern prelevant in the Northern States. This is why in a short time those genuine individual but different worlds and values were swept away by the whirlwind of history destroying the old thought of community. Written by Massimiliano

A soldier of the Army of the Confederacy

Confederate Uniforms

Baroni, Ala,

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An Emigran t’s Patrimon y

patrimony is property inherited from one's father or male ancestor. In the physical sense, such a “property” could include farmlands, a dwelling, a business or money. The same such property can most definitely include culture, family, kinships e religiosity. The concept of an inheritance suggests and indicates a right, an intitlement, a obliging and indisputable inheritance protected by law and international customs and practices, In St Paul’s epistle to the Galations 4:7, we find… So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an HEIR. The emigrant has not only the patrimony of his fatherland, of his proper and authenic origins but receives for sure the gift of the patrimoy of his or her new fatherland which becomes his “heimat”. Hence… and therefore..I ...born in America, son of my father, citizen of the Empire, have the strongest of ties and truly a right and the priviledge to embrace and bind myself to the patrimony of my father and that as well of my own cherished American citizenship. For our emigrants, citizens of the Empire and the historic Tyrol, born or having left before the forced annexation to Italy, there is a complexity. These very historical emigrants emigrated and separated had the circumstance of not just leaving but of losing their homeland, their Tyrolean hiemat since the contrived annexation to Italy had eliminated it, made disappear their homeland that had endured for a 1000 years so that it was a veritable diaspora more virtual than actual. Recently I had been scolded and criticized for having referred to and specified Andreas Hofer, Eusebio Chini, and my friend Cardinal Archbishop Joseph Bernardin of Chicago as my heroes, my beloved and proud heritage, my very own precious heritage derived from my dad, Agostino…My response was a clear and deliberate New York expletive….Included in my response, I declared that 1000 years of Germanic sovereignty of the Tyrol, the Tyrol itself, its history, its Prince Bishops, the Empire, my dad and mom`s villages of Rango and Cavaione, the villages of my valley, its faithful and steadfast mountains, the Dolomites, my beloved dead in the cemeteries, the records and documents in the rectories and in Trento of my parents and ancestors present in Rango since the millenium, our religiosity, our culture, our dialet, our traditions, our cuisine were as much my 12

patrimony as they were his…mine as much as his!!! Ours…as much as theirs! Such features mentioned and many more as well are equivalent to my Tyrolean patrimony. Born in the USA and by virtue of my father, I was born a citizen acquiring and entitling me to an American patrimony. As so many of our readers, from our youth, our dear emigrant parents had taught us to love, embrace and respect the United States of America which became our mutual homeland. In our American schools, every morning prior to the instruction, along with our fellow students and Americans we pledged allegiance to the flag and for what it stood for. As a student, I learned the stories of our first emigrant colonists who created our new country in this New World, the herosim of those ordinary Americans so very much like Andreas Hofer`s citizen army who fought against Napoleon and the most powerful army of Europe …as we did as well to maintain our homeland, Patrick Henry, the Declaration of Independence, our experiment with democracy, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and the heroism of our greatest generation freeing Europe of both Nazism and Italian fascism during the course of the World War II. This duality of patrimonies is truly an American thing. In its historic tolerance and faithful to its historic identity of being a nation created by emigrants arriving from everywhere, we are encouraged to embrace and cherish our origins. While on the contrary, during Italian fascism, our South Tyrolean brothers and sisters were persecuted by a government that was forcing them to abbandon their historic Germanic culture or face deportation. Whereas all of us in America, sons and daughters of emigrants are granted the legitimate and authentic nomenclature that combines our origins with our American identity. Such a singular combination of identities is truly our very own American sociology. Such a specific and singular combination enriches our transformation. Hardly the case, in the history and functioning of Trentino history and governance.The annexation to Italy was not a choice of the people, the historic citizens of the Empire. There was no plebicite, no popular choice or expression. The population of the Province was forced to accept an imposed Italian identity so much so that our relatives of those times defined us in our dialect as the “taliani ciapadi col sciop”, the Italians caught with a gun. It was a conquest and it was the geopoltics of those times, a determination

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by imperialistic, anti-Catholic Protestant England, church Tyrolean) was a proud and exemplary American. He adverse France, the Italian Irredentists ministry and a entered the USA with an Austrian passport and his racist American President Wilson . American citizen ship certificate has Tirol as country of This was the history of those times. While there is no origin. He was and remains my model for my duality of possibility nor desire to reverse this history, there is a patrimonies. He taught himself to read and write legitimate protest and appeal. The historical 1000 years English, remain quite attentive to the affairs and politics of Germanic sovereignty, the 800 consecutive years of of the US, voted, read the papers every day and was the theocracy of the ruling Prince Bishops, and the sub- eager to learn ever more about his beloved new country. sequent years of the Empire is not the history of the During the World War II, during the fear of German Abyssinians. It is their history in the Trentino and ours in submarines visiting our shores, he was the diligent and faithful air raid warden vacating the streets of Greenwich the USA: a history of all of them and all of us. The great majority of us, Tyrolean Americans, whose Village and distinquishing whatsover casual light. He forbearers were born prior or left before the annexation taught me to follow and understand the affairs of our were not exposed to the process of Italianization, country. Irredentism, Nationalism and finally Fascism that Every two weeks together with my mom Adele, they sent occurred with those left behind in the Trentino-Alto remittances and care packages to our relatives in the Val Adige. They were reconstituted while we ourselves delle Giudicarie. Along with his Tirolesi paesani, he remained away, far, separated…still bound in mind and worked the perilous coal mines of Western Pennsylvania, memory with the Empire, to our Tyrolean identity and to the Chemical factory in Solvay, NY, dug and did the the Catholic Church. The changes there had an agenda bridging for the tunnels of the New York subways. He of intolerance as seen dramatically in the persecution of served as a longshoremen and was consistently selected the South Tyrolean during Fascism. This intolerance in the arcane shape up of the stevedore. He worked to manifests itself in our relations with the Province who maintain the houses of the rich and famous in only accepts us with the pre-requisite and co-requisite Greenwich Village where the Southern Italians called that we accept or adopt that which they became after the him the “Austrian”. He concluded his life work as the annexation. To be accepted, we would be bound to sacristan of singular emigrant church of Our Lady of abbandon our history, our story as well as our identity to Pompeii. The seal of approval of his American citizenbecome Italian or Trentini. Hence, our common history ship, the cherry on the top of the cake was his becoming prior to the annexation, our authenic and historical iden- a super fan of none other than the New York Yankees. tity are suppressed by them. Our identity, developed I cherish and thank him for having shown and taught me from our emigration experiences as well as our common my precious patrimonies. Hail to the our emigrant nonni history shared with them requires a recognition and and nonne, dads and moms who have enriched us with the gift of the patrimony of our ancestry! Thank them respect and a mindfulness of our diverse individuality. In my solidary role as the “janitor” of the Filo`, I am in all! contact with so many who read the the Filo` e in contact with the many who call me frequently, I am amazed to observe how our Tyrolean American community who not withstanding the several generations of separations from our original emigrants hold on tenaciously to their Tyrolean identity. Such an adherence to this identity could have been only instilled by none other then their noni and fathers and their nonne and mothers and willingly and determinely carry forward to this day our singular ancestry and history. It is truly a wonder, a phenomenon that even after over a hundred years from their arrivals to our shores, there remain as such witnesses situated over all the USA who continue to identify themselves as Tyroleans. Such a testimony reflects and confirms how our emigrants felt, thought and how they taught their children. My dad Agostino with his “mi sun Tiroles” (I am 13

Here is my proud heritage and patrimony, the Village of Rango of the Val delle Giudicarie where my Brunelli family, its oldest family, contadini and citizens of the Empire, present there since the millenium, the village declared by Italy as “One of Most Beautiful villages of Italy, whose piety produced 7 nuns and emigrants eager to embrace our American homeland, hard working workers and good citizens for the coal fields of Western Pennsylvania.Yes, indeed...Who I am is indeed who my family was.

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Veterans from Pinzolo

hese stories were born because my aunt loved family and saved everything including memorial cards. Bruno Collini’s card grabbed my attention with his youthful expression and his jaunty uniform. I had to know who he was and were we related. This search led me to many other family members who were veterans. These three men were from Pinzolo.

Benvenuto Bonapace Marion, born in Pinzolo, Austria in 1846, was my maternal great-grandfather. After studying his uniform and with expert advice, it is clear he was part of the Jäger troops of the Empire of Austria and from these troops the Kaiserjägers were formed in 1895. In addition to military combat operations, they were also involved in the expansion of military as well as civil defense. Benvenuto would have Benvenuto Bonapace Marion been from the crown land of Tyrol. Käiser meant hunter or huntsman; Jägers meant sharpshooters or runners. The lanyard indicates a rifleman. The rooster feather in the cap appears to have edelweiss inserted in front of it, an indication of a mountaineer. My guess is that Benvenuto was involved more in the civil defense aspect of the Jägers since we have never heard any stories of him being a soldier. He was a blacksmith by trade and died tragically by falling down a long cement staircase. Antonio Caola Biancart, born in Pinzolo, Austria in 1894, was my maternal granduncle, my Nona’s brother. Antonio was probably a Kaiserjäger conscripted to serve in the Austro-Hungarian Army as were any able-bodied men between the ages of 17-50. Due to the ravages of war, the population of Trento was reduced to 1/6 of pre-war numbers. Those who remained, mainly women, children and the elderly suffered considerable hardship. There were 70,000 Kaiserjäger and 11,000 died in the Great War. There was a field hospital in Val Genoa where the waterfalls are in Pinzolo. Women were Antonio Caola Biancart nurses while others car-

ried supplies. In recent years, as the Adamello glacier melted, they found many remnants of the war. Several years ago, Smithsonian magazine had an article on the extraordinary combat in the ice and snow of the alps. I remember my mom telling me stories about her mom and other young women who hiked into the mountains to deliver food and supplies to the soldiers. During this war several battles were fought in Bukovina which resulted in the Russian army being driven out in 1917. Unfortunately, Antonio never saw the end of the war and died at the age of 21 in Bukovina, Galicia. The United States joined forces with Britain, France and Russia against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So, my grandfather Ed Montgomery and my granduncle Antonio fought on opposing sides of this war. Bruno Clemente Collini was born in Pinzolo, Italy in 1920. Bruno was my mother’s second cousin. He was a Second Lieutenant and part of the Royal Army, 9th Alpine Regiment, also known as the Alpini Corps, a special mountain infantry. Like the Kaiserjäger these were mountain men; mountain soldiers who wore a feather in their cap which was an indication of rank and other insignias to distinguish them from the regular armies. His photo has such youth, such hope. Poor Bruno, his fate was in Mussolini’s hands. In April 1942 Hitler met Mussolini in Austria. Mussolini, blinded by his political ambitions, was eager to comply with Hitler’s request for more Italian troops. Mussolini ignored the glaring reality that Hitler wanted to use these men as fodder to draw fire away from German troops which were surrounded and needed a way out. These Alpini men were not sent to the mountains as they were equipped but rather to the flat land in a valley where they were easily killed or captured. Only 14 out of every 100 Italians made it home. The Bruno Clemente Colllini rest, called dispersi, ‘disappeared without a trace’. Theirs was a sad ending. Since Bruno died in Tambov, Russia I would assume he was captured and sent by train to the infamous prisoner of war camp in Tambov. On his memorial card it says, “Le anime dei Giusti sono in mano di Dio Essi godono pace” (The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God they enjoy peace). Written by Toni Kastelic,xxxxxxxxxxx, California

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Rifugi Editor’s note:Sprinkled throughout the Tyrol`s are the historic refugi offering rest, lodging and provisions to both the specialist and amateur day climbers. The Filo`will present a series of “visits” to these special places.

n March 1880, during the Rovereto convention, the Tridentini Alpinists Society (SAT) decided to build a refuge at the Bocca di Brenta (Brenta Dolomites). This is the first mountain refuge (2442 m) built by the association founded a few years earlier (1872). The small building (with only one room) was designed by Eng. Annibale Apollonio, built in just 50 days by the Rigotti company and inaugurated on 23 August 1881. The refuge costs 1260 florins and another 250 are spent on furnishings. Mountaineers appreciated the new building, but it soon turned out to be too small to accommodate the many mountaineers who flocked to it and so it was expanded, at a cost of 810 florins. Another important expansion took place in 1892, with the raising of a floor. A few years later, the Sektion Bremen of the Deutscher und Oesterreichischer Alpneverein (DuOeAV, the Austro-German Alpine Club) decided to build a large refuge at an altitude of 2487 m, just above the Tosa refuge of the SAT. The German club requested authorization from the municipality of Molveno. The SAT protested, stating that it had already bought that land from the municipality of San Lorenzo in Banale. All was in vain. The DuOeAV began construction work in 1910, diverting the water from the spring that serves the Tosa refuge and creates a path connection between Bocca di Brenta and Berliner

within its boundaries, ordered the stopping of the works. The question was submitted to the Judgment of Stenico, who decided in favor of SAT; the sentence was also confirmed by the Court of Rovereto. Finally, the Supreme Court of Justice of Vienna (29/04/1914) definitively decided as well in favor of the SAT, definitively entrusting it with the new refuge.

The refuge was then named after Tomaso Pedrotti, brother of Giovanni and Pietro Pedrotti (future presidents of the SAT). The structure underwent adjustments and improvements in 1929. In these years the management was entrusted to Arturo Castelli, mountaineer, partner of the SAT and promoter of the “Via delle bocchette” and winter tourism in Madonna di Campiglio, and to the cook Teresa Furlan. Two characters inextricably linked to the Tosa-Pedrotti refuge and to the history of Trentino mountaineering. In 1942 the Lieutenant of the Alpine Reggio planned and built a small church near the refuge (Chiesa del Redentore) Today the Pedrotti refuge is a modern structure, with many beds, while the Tosa refuge serves as a winter shelter. The refuges can be reached on foot from Molveno in about 4 hours, passing through the Altissimo and Casinei refuge and climbing the steep Val delle Seghe. Written byRiccardo Decarli (Biblioteca Hütte. The SAT went on the counter-attack and warned della Montagnathe German mountaineers, but no one took the protest SAT))Co-Author of into consideration. The refuge grew beautiful and large, Rifugi del Trentino in the meantime, however, the dispute continued: the municipality of San Lorenzo, believing that the land was 15

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They Played Cards...

Editor’s Intro…The playing of cards was a favorite pastime activity of our people. As a boy, I have a vivid memory and fascination observing my dad and our paesani playing cards. The games did not have American nomenclatures. They were so different from our Rummey, Poker or Old Maid. They were indeed different and almost mysterious. Instead, they had foreign references such as Briscola, Tresette and Scopa and I felt teased or challenged to want “in”and be part of what seemed to be such a passionate and entertaining activity.Hence, it seemed worthy of knowing more of how people played. So, I enlisted the help of one of our special Filo` friends: Luca Faoro of the Museo of San Michele, an on going partner and collaborator of the Filo’. For this and the next two issues of the Filo`, he will provide us with a tutorial of the card playing of our people and our emigrant forebearers. he game of cards was very popular in the past and still is. In the past, the game of cards was taken very seriously. Much more than today. It wasn't just a pastime. Money was also often played - even today, in bars, those who lose the game pay for a drink. And often discussions and quarrels arose between the players. For this reason, the game was prohibited at certain times, especially on holidays and during religious ceremonies.

Briscola is played with a deck of forty cards. There are four suits: cups, coins, sticks, swords. For each suit there are ten cards: 1 (or ace), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, jack, knight, king. The ace is the strongest card; then come the 3, the king, the knight, the jack and the other cards from 7 to 2. The ace is worth 11 points, the 3 is worth 10 points, the king 4, the knight 3, the knave 2. The ace and 3 are called "loads"; the knave, the knight and the king are called "points"; the other cards are "discarded" and are worth nothing. In Trentino there are widespread "Trentino" and "Venetian" cards, which are designed in a slightly different way than the cards of other regions.

The rules are simple. Two or four can play; usually, when playing in fours, it is played in pairs. One of the players shuffles the cards and deals three to himself and to each of his companions. Then he turns over a card, leaves it in the center of the table and places the deck sideways on it. The suit of this card is the trump suit, which is stronger than the other suits: for example, if the trump is spade, the two of spades is stronger than all other cups, coins and clubs.Usually the player to the right of the dealer begins and continues counterclockwise. Each player plays a card. It is not mandatory that the cards are of the same suit as the first. The player who dropped the trump wins the hand. For example, if the trump is spade and the cards drawn are 7 of diamonds, 3 of clubs, 4 of cups and 2 of swords, the two of spades wins, because it is the 2 of trumps. If two or more trumps are dropped, the player with the strongest trump wins.

On the other hand, if no one has thrown a trump, the player who has thrown the strongest card of the same suit as the first card played wins. For example, if the trump is still spade and the cards drawn are 7 of Coins, 4 of Cups, 3 of Clubs and 3 of Coins, the 3 of Coins wins, because it is stronger than the 7 of Coins. The player who won the hand takes the cards and places them in front of him. Then he draws a card from the deck, followed by the others. The player who won the hand also starts the new one and so on until the last hand.

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A deck of Italian cards consists of forty cards, divided into four suits: coins (Denari in Italian, and sometimes suns or sunbursts), swords (Spade), cups (Coppe) and clubs (sometimes batons, bats or Bastoni). The values on the cards range numerically from one through seven, plus three face cards in each suit: Knave (Fante in Italian), Knight (Cavallo in Italian), and King (Re in Italian). A Knave is a lone human figure standing. The Knight is a human figure riding a horse. The King is a human figure wearing a crown. (To determine the face value of any numeric card, simply count the number of suit icons on the card. The ace card of coins is usually a type of bird with a circle in the middle.Below is a table identifying card rank and point values. Unlisted cards have no point value, and are ranked in descending ordinal value, from seven to two. Note, however, the odd ranking of the three. Note: to play Briscola with an “American”deck, one removes the 8,9, and 10.

The last hand is usually the most important. In fact, players often hold aces and 3s until the end, because they haven't had a good chance to play them sooner. So, however, they can also "wrap". A player is "wrapped" when he has three "loads" in his hand and must necessarily play one, running the risk of losing or wasting it. The player or pair of players who scores at least 61 points wins the game. Playing Briscola with American cards, one does not have a knight, a knave but Briscola converts easily nonetheless with USA cards: ace, three, king, queen, jack, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2. In order to define which card wins a particular trick, we must first define a card ranking, given from highest to lowest: ace, three, king, queen, jack, 7, 6, 5, 4, 2. Also, the cards have a point value. The Ace is 11 points; the three 10 points; the King 4 points;Queen 3 points and the Jack, 2 points’

Players can exchange signs. With these signs a player lets his partner know which cards he has in his hand, or invites his partner to play a certain card. For example, the player who winks signals that he is holding an ace; the one who purses his lips signals that he has a 3; the one who raises a shoulder signals an infantryman and so on. Obviously, players have to make signs without getting noticed by their opponents. After the deck is shuffled, each player is dealt three cards. The next card is placed face up on the playing surface, and the remaining deck is placed face down, sometimes covering half of the up-turned card. This card is the Briscola, and represents the trump suit for the game. Before the game begins if a player has the deuce of trump he/she may retire the "briscola". This move may only be done at the beginning of the game or first hand. Before the first hand is played (in four player game), team players may show each other their cards. The deal, and game play itself, proceeds counter-clockwise. The player to the right of the dealer leads the first hand (or trick) by playing one card face up on the playing surface. Each player subsequently plays a card in turn, until all players have played one card. The winner of that hand is determined as follows: if any briscola (trump) has been played, the player who played the highest valued trump wins or if no briscole (trumps) have been played, the player who played the highest card of the lead suit wins Unlike other trump card games, players are not required to follow suit, that is, to play the same suit as the lead player. Once the winner of a trick is determined, that player collects the played cards, and places them face down in a pile. Each player maintains his/her own pile, though the four- and six-player versions may have one player collecting all tricks won by his partners. Then, each player draws a card from the remaining deck, starting with the player who won the trick, proceeding counter-clockwise. Note that the last card collected in the game should be the up-turned Briscola. The player who won the trick leads the next hand. During game play and only before the next to the last hand is played, a player who draws the card with the seven of trump can take the "briscola".[citation needed] This may be done only if the player has won a hand. Before the last hand, people in the same team can look at each other's cards. After all cards have been played, players calculate the total point value of cards in their own piles. For multi-player games, partners combine their points.Written by Luca Faoro, Museo degli Ui e Costumi della Gente Trentina

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The Many Tongues of the Tyrol

hinking about the wonderful variety and complexity of the dialects and languages spoken in the historical Tyrol, we cannot mis the wonderful opportunity to address one of the most interesting aspects of the area between the current provinces of Südtirol/Bozen and Trentino/Trento. While the northern part of this area is referred as “Südtiroler Unterland” and the southern as “Piana Rotaliana” the commonality between them is the fact that this is a border zone, and area “where everything comes together,” from a linguistic, cultural, ethnic, and historical standpoint. As it was well described by multiple historians, the core linguistic substratum of the area comprising modern day Switzerland, Vorarlberg, the Euregio Tirol- Südtirol-Trentino, the Friuli, all the way to the proximities of the Slavic linguistic areas (i.e., from Kärnten to Slovenia, and Istria-Dalmazia) was the Rhaeto-Romance area, with varieties of this language still spoken today, as well described by the “Questione Ladina.” The area we discuss today is where all these languages come together. While each dialect is usually identified with the name of the town where it is spoken (for instance Roverëider for Roveré della Luna/Eichholz, Låger for Laag/Laghetti, and Salorner for Salurn/Salorno) all these dialects are referred as “Nortades,” “Grenzdialekte,” “Mezpersòrt,” or simply “L nos lingač / L nos dialèt.” The commonalities

between them are the progressive loss of plural forms in “s” (generally replaced by “i” “j” “e” æ”) -common to most national romance languages with the exception of Italian and Romanian- or certain elements of palatalization common to all Ladin languages (including Nones and Solander), and in general a stronger influence of German/Bavarian in comparison to the “Dialetti Trentini.” The table below is of course, an extremely simplified view of the linguistic complexity of the historical Tyrol. For instance, under the label “Trentin” linguists generally identify the “main” dialect in the central part of the Trentino, focused in particular on the city of Trento (where both the dialect and the province got their name) and Rovereto (in this city, as well as in the Valsugana, there is an even stronger influence of Veneto dialects, Veronese in particular), which of course does not take into account the specific features of dialects such as primierot, fiamaz, etc. In the image below, an adapted map of the RhaetoRomance languages and relative dialects, according to the studies by Ascoli, Carisch, de Rü, Gartner, Liver, et al. The numbers indicate the main dialects of the three main languages Romansh, Ladin, and Friulan (according to the University of Udin in the Friûl) with the added “transition dialects,” more specifically:

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14 Pus’ciavin / Livignasch (Alpine Lombard) 15 Solander (Western L. Anaunico) 16 Nones (Eastern L. Anaunico) 17 Nortades (Unterlåndler / Rotalian) 18 Cembran 19 Ladino Atesino20 Ladino Cadorino

Of course, the map above does not include languages and dialects of the area which does not belong to the Rhaeto-Romance or Gallo-Romance family, for instance Südtirolerisch, Zimbar, and Mochen (all Germanic), Koroščina, and Primorščina (Slavic). More specifically, during the time of the Habsburg Empire, all Germanic languages and dialects were considered “ours” (i.e., belonging to the Germanic language and ethnicity, in the sense of Ethnos-Idiom, from PIE *swedh-no-), while the Italic (including Rhaeto-Romance) and Slavic languages were considered “foreign languages and ethnicities” (Walsche in the first case, Windische in the second), despite being native to the area, similarly to the way Greeks and Romans utilized, conversely, the term Barbaros /βάρβαρος or the Slavs the term němьcь for “foreigner, someone who does not speak our language.” Of course, since time immemorial this Alpine area has been a crossroad for many tribes and peoples (with the autochthonous Rhaetians being a pre-indoeuropean stock, possibly of Etruscan /Tyrsenian heritage). The main linguistic background has thus been a mix between Germanic and Italic languages since at least the times of the Kindgdom of Italy / Kingdom of the Lombards (568–774) to which both Austria and Neustria belonged.

the first case and the Este/Venetic in the second (as seen in the image below) with clear similarities with Tyrsenic / Etruscan examples, especially the neighboring Camunic and Lepontic.. Written by Dr. David Lag, Professor, University of Vermont.

The same can be said about the developments of alphabets in the area. In particular, we can think of the connection between the Tyrolean Raeti and the Adriatic Veneti, with the Rhaetic alphabet of Bozen/San Zen in 19

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Man Ahead of His Times!

n the past few years, we Americans have been confronted with the historic atrocities committed to the Indigenous People in both North and South America by our very own country and other European colonial powers. In this context, in this sad and despicable history, our very own brother and fellow Tyrolean, Eusebio Chini had a unique and opposite and singular role in this very same history. While a man of his times, he stood ahead of his times in his relation to the Indigenous people of the Southwest and Northern Mexico. To understand and appreciate his singular contribution, we need to understand this history and first summarize the Age of Discovery of Europe and its world view. The era is known as the Age of Exploration and sometimes called the Age of Discovery. It officially began in the early 15th century and lasted through the 17th century. The Age of Discovery refers to a period in European history in which several extensive overseas exploration journeys took place. Religion, scientific and cultural curiosity, economics, imperial dominance, and riches were all reasons behind this transformative age. At the same time, the Catholic Church engaged in a major effort to spread Christianity around the world.

The Church at that time was a co-equal temporal power in the realm of European principalities. Pope Alexander VI, a Borgia pope, Spanish born, identified with Spain, issued several papal bulls which evolved as the “Doctrine of Discovery”. It contained insidious elements: the concept of “terra nullius” and the “Regalian principle”. Terra nullius posited that the newly discovered lands were the lands of no one, “nobody’s land” and hence could be occupied and conquered. Hence, by definition and understanding the Indigenous People were nobodies as well. The Regalian principle stated that such conquests and occupations belonged to the king and the authority of the monarch of the discovers or conquerors. Hence, there developed the “right of discovery” that morphed into the “doctrine of Discovery”.

role in the development of the European colonization of America. As with the discredited notion of "terra nullius", the doctrine of "discovery" was used to legitimize the colonization of Indigenous peoples in different regions of the world. It was used to dehumanize, exploit and subjugate Indigenous peoples and dispossess them of their most basic rights by the application of anachronistic norms, like the Regalian Doctrine, under which private land belongs to the king. The Doctrine of Discovery became the international law that gave license to explorers to claim vacant land (terra nullius) in the name of their sovereign. The Church clumsily declared that vacant land was that which was not populated by Christians. The Papal Bull stated that any land not inhabited by Christians was available to be "discovered," claimed, and exploited by Christian rulers and declared that "the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself." This "Doctrine of Discovery" became the basis of all European claims in the Americas as well as the foundation for the United States’ western expansion Let’s summarize. The Doctrine of Discovery provided a framework for Christian explorers, in the name of their sovereign, to lay claim to territories uninhabited by Christians. If the lands were vacant, then they could be defined as “discovered” and sovereignty claimed. Within the framework of the Doctrine, Indigenous Peoples in the Americas were considered non-human. When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, it is estimated that the Americas were actually occupied by 100 million Indigenous Peoples - which is about one fifth of the human race at that time - who had been living their traditional lives on the land since time immemorial. But, because they were not Christians the land was deemed terra nullius.

Whether it was truly a “doctrine” as we understand doctrine in the context of the magisterium of the Church or an understanding, a clarification and distinction among the powers of Europe, it enabled the persecution of the Indigenous People and their lands and culture. Certainly it was articulated and promulgated by Papal Bulls and its main purpose was to explain its

Moreover, there was the belief that the Catholic Church was the only pathway to salvation, a belief that was radically changed by virtue of the documents of Second Vatican Council. The very same beliefs fueled the massacre of those followers of Islam during the Crusades. Those fifteenth century Christian principles have been denounced as the Second Vatican Council. 20

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the “shameful” root of all the discrimination and marginalization indigenous peoples faced today. Into this context and milieu, there arrives, Eusebio Chini, from the Val di Non, a Jesuit and an acknowledged superior mathematician desired by every prince in Europe for their universities. Desiring to be sent to China with his fellow Jesuit and cousin Martino Martini, the Founder of Chinese geography, he is sent instead to the primitive Southwest and Northern Mexico, “New Spain”, the domain of the King of Spain and truly a terra nullius affiliated if not afflicted with the Papal “doctrinal” guidelines regarding the territories of “non-Christians”. While fundamentally a missionary, he becomes a world wide acknowledged cartographer, astronomer, explorer and agronomist. These very words are chiseled at the base of his statue in Statuary Hall of the Capitol where he is recognized as the Father and Founder of Arizona. While these scientific accomplishments are singular and spectacular, his understanding, treatment, and accomplishments with and for the Indigenous People of those times and vast territories are even more remarkable and singular. Eusebio Chini was the first to bring the Gospel to this region traveling thousands of miles with his two horses in the vast territories of the South West. He was referred to as the “padre on horseback”. Quickly he became convinced of the need to improve the living conditions of the Indigenous people. He taught cattle breeding, agricultural methods and iron work and promoted the economic development of the Pima people in the state of Sonora in northern Mexico. “On the social level, he promoted the dignity of the Indigenous people, and he opposed the compulsory labor in the silver mines—carried out under almost impossible conditions—that the Spanish monarchy imposed on the ‘Indians,’. This also caused great controversy among his co-missionaries, many of whom acted according to the laws imposed by Spain on their territory. As part of his work, Chini was an accomplished builder, agriculturist, and cattleman. He introduced horses, cattle and other herd animals, and the cultivation of Old World fruits and wheat into Arizona. Under his instruction the native people quickly learned new agricultural practices which stabilized their food supply. By his words in official reports to his superiors and by his actions in his work Chini expressed his heartfelt conviction that missionary efforts begins with respect for the native people and the physical betterment of their 21

lives. Padre Chini was also a frontier diplomat who promoted peace among the warring tribes he encountered, and between the native people and the Spanish military. He demanded that the Spanish military and settlers respect the native people as their fellow humans. Before his arrival to the Pimeria, Kino obtained a decree from King Carlos II that prohibited the native people from being enslaved to work in the Spanish mines and haciendas. He defended the native people from the claims of powerful interests who coveted their lands and labor and who relentlessly attempted to undermine his missionary efforts right up until his final days on earth. In recent time, the shadows and memories of the past rose to endorse indirectly but assertively Chini’s historic advocacy for the Indigenous People. It was the occasion of Pope Francis’ visit to the USA . He had pledged to canonize in DC Junipero Sera, the Spanish Franciscan, whose apostolate and service was primarily in California. Our Native Americans protested strongly this action since their community and their elders remembered how poorly they were treated by Spanish Franciscans who loyal to the King of Spain and Discovery doctrine that enslaved them to work in the silver mines and haciendas. In contrast, when Eusebio Chini was declared “venerable”, a pre-step to beatification and canonization, there were only triumphant cheers and applause for our fellow Tyrolean, truly our brother. The Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix, welcomed the news that Padre Chini’s cause was moving forward. “The history of the Catholic Church in Arizona is synonymous with the growth and history of the State of Arizona, and Padre Chini is one of the foundational figures in that great history. As a faithful member of the Society of Jesus and a missionary priest, Eusebio Chini was a tireless advocate for the native peoples of the Southwest. He devoted tremendous energy to meeting their spiritual and temporal needs, founding 21 missions and numerous native-run rancheros, and willingly sharing in the poverty and hardships of those he served. He remains a wonderful example of the mission of the Church lived in solidarity with the poor and marginalized. His unique combination of missionary zeal, scientific knowledge and practical wisdom is a beautiful illustration of the fruitful union of faith and reason.”

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Gene ology Corn er # 14

OBILITY. Just saying this word can often conjure up mental images of grandeur, wealth and gentility from a distant past. Perhaps this is why so many of my Trentino genealogy clients get excited when they discover they have noble ancestors. However, you might be surprised when I tell you that, if you trace your Trentino ancestry back far enough, you would actually be hardpressed to NOT to find at least one ancestor who was some kind of nobility. But not all of our noble ancestors were of equal status. There were different kinds of noble titles, each carrying a different degree of weight, status and privilege. In this article, I will give you a brief overview these varieties. ANCIENT NOBILITY. A handful of families in Trentino claim they come from ‘ancient nobility’. Essentially, ‘ancient’ means their noble status is believed to have existed before the medieval era, and possibly before the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Charlemagne (800 AD). Some of these families go so far as to claim their nobility dates backs to the Roman Empire, or even to the days of ancient Troy. While some families are definitely ‘ancient’ nobility, many of these more ‘extreme’ claims are probably more family lore than historical fact. RURAL NOBILITY. In the early 1500s, throughout many parts of Europe, there was a series of rebellions among the ‘peasant’ classes against the aristocracy. In Trentino, this culminated in the year 1525, with the socalled ‘Guerra Rustica’ (Rustic War), in which the contadini (subsistence farmers), armed with pitchforks, sickles, and whatever other tools they had, rebelled against the established government. Ultimately, the contadini lost, and the status quo was persevered. But not all contadini were rebels; many remained faithful to the Prince-Bishop of Trento, who was then Cardinal Bernardo Cles. In 1527, Cardinal Cles granted titles of ‘rural nobility’ to those who had demonstrated their fidelity to the principality by participating in the fight against the ‘rebels’ during the war. In 1529, a list was published, organized by village, of families in Valli di Non and Sole who had been granted rural nobility. Preserved in the Trento archives, this list has also been published in various books over the years. While the title ‘rural noble’ came with no real power or economic privilege, it did give the family a certain degree of social status. Rural nobles are not always referred to as ‘noble’ in parish records.

ECCLESIASTICAL NOBILITY. The term ‘ecclesiastical’ refers to something connected with the Catholic Church. For 800 years, Trentino was a ‘principality’ within the Holy Roman Empire. Although the Emperor was the overall ruler, the principality of Trento itself was governed by a ‘Prince-Bishop’. The Prince-Bishop was both a senior Catholic priest and a form of royalty, who typically came from a high-ranking noble family. A Prince-Bishop could grant nobility to specific individuals in recognition of their service to the principality. Such a title, awarded via a diploma, is higher in status than ‘rural nobility’. Surviving ecclesiastical diplomas are housed at the Archivio di Stato di Trento, but the details of many of these titles (including dates, names, and often the name of a recipient’s father), are printed in many books on Trentino families. Those who had been granted ecclesiastical nobility will nearly always be referred to as ‘noble’ in parish records. IMPERIAL NOBILTY. The highest form of nobility is ‘imperial’ nobility. In this case, the term ‘imperial’ refers to the Holy Roman Empire, which existed from 800 AD until the Napoleonic invasions (ca. 1800). These titles were usually granted by the Emperor, but they were also occasionally granted by the Empress or another high-ranking official. These titles would frequently grant the use of a ‘stemma’ (coat-of-arms), or an embellishment on a pre-existing stemma. Sometimes the recipient was awarded a ‘predicate’. This predicate, preceded by the preposition ‘de’ (in Italian) or ‘von’ (in German), would be written after the surname to distinguish the family as coming from that specific noble line. Some imperial titles would include investitures, giving a man the right to collect taxes within a specific district, and to retain a portion of those taxes for himself. In parish records, imperial nobles will nearly always be addressed by flowery honourifics like ‘illustris’ or ‘perillustris’. Imperial diplomas are stored at the State Archives in Innsbruck, and details are available in many Trentino history books. There is much more I could say, but I’ve run out of room! If you’d like to learn more, I invite you to read my article ‘The Nobility of Trentino’ on my website. LYNN SERAFINN is an author and genealogist specializing in Trentino, where her father was born. Her website is TrentinoGenealogy.com. Come join her Trentino Genealogy group on Facebook.

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Castelcampo

he environment of our people was filled with constant friends: their mountains, valleys, church steeples, ancient villages and their castles. There was a tendency to personalize them and treat them as reminiscences of their past. Their songs focused on them with a sense of affection and intimacy. Even their sounds as well as their silence strengthed the bond they had with these inanimate things giving them a language and an atmosphere all its own. In the movie,the Glen Miller Story, he struggled to find the “sound” for his band and his era. After a great struggle of orchestration, he found it in the Moonlight Serenade. The sound of our people’s songs was never a solo Neopolitan O sole Mio. It was choral with a combination of voices and sounds that truly became their music whether sung in the Tyrol or the environment of their new emigrant homeland.Castelcamp is a typical affectionate hymn extolling the constant presence of their beloved Castel Campo, situated like a jewel in the very middle of the Val delle Giudicarie along side the torrent Duina. It has a long history and served many functions for the people of the valley.

Castelcampo

Da na banda a la pianura Fa da guardia Castel Campo Con le torri ancor robuste Con i merli ancor `ntreghi Con la ciesa`n do te preghi Per i mali della zent

In a place in the plain Castelcamp is the guard With its towers still strong With its battlements still whole With its church where one prays For the ills of the people

Pezi neri neri coi osei che fa canzon Entra l`acqua che brontola E la canta `l ritornel Castel Camp del me cor

Black black pines that sing songs Enters the brook that murmurs And sings the refrain Castelcamp is in my heart

There are no witches in this castle Nor the ghosts of dead kings There is the fragrance of a story Told by the poor people And it brings the wind with the fraEl le porta el vent col profumo de le rose grance of roses & it sings in the ear El le canta en recialot Come en vecio ritornel Like the anceient refrain Castel Campo del me cor Castel Campo in my heart Vecia guardia de la piana The old guardian of the plain Pien de paze e pien del sol Full of peace and full of sun Mi staro` sempre con ti No gh`e`strie en quel castel Ne fastasmi di i re morti Gh`e` `l profumo de na storia Fata dalla pora zent

Castelcampo Choir The Choir Castelcampo derives its name from the Castle by that name situated in the very middle of “plain” surrounded by tall mountains in the Val delle Giudicarie. The founder of the choir and so many of the songs was Padre Mario Levri, a Franciscan friar from the Friary situated in the village of Campo. Padre Levri in 1963 began composing as well as organizing the choir.He was a notable and distinquished contributor to the choir movement.The choir is now directed by Daniele Giongo with the assistance of the teacher Paolo Orlandi. The choir over the years has participated both in national and internazional festivals in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, England, Bulgaria, Spain, Croatia and Poland. They have made three albums of their repertoire. The lyrics in our dialect was composed by Luciana Sicheri. I have identified myself with the choir since 5 of my Brunelli cousins have sung in the choir: Fulvio, Giorgio, Gino, Ezio and Gianfranco as well their sister’s (Milena) husband and father-in-law: Massimo and Marco Buratti. 23

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Casolèt- Little,Great Cheese

curdled them quickly to obtain small cheeses for immediate consumption. From 10 or 20 liters of milk he obtained one or two Casolèt, which once salted were brought downstream and aged for at least 20-30 days, to feed the family in the winter months.

The term Casolèt derives from the Latin “caseulus” and indicates a cheese with a small size, which could vary between 1 and 2 kg in weight. But why is this cheese born so small? The reason is historical, linked precisely to the use of the verticality of the territory. In autumn, when the cows returned from high-altitude pastures, it was mandatory to stop for a few weeks in the farms in the middle of the mountains, to graze the last grass before the advent of winter. The cows were now on the way to the dry season and there was little milk available. Therefore the farmer, who raised one or perhaps two cows, milked those few liters of milk in a bucket and

As often happens in artisanal productions, there was no precise standard either in the processing techniques or in the size of the cheese. For example, the milk was sometimes transformed whole, that is, without removing the cream, sometimes partially skimmed, because even the butter was an important food resource for the mountain people. Sometimes the milk was that of a single milk, sometimes several successive milkings, depending on the quantity of milk available and the time that the farmer could devote to the transformation. The size of the cheese was also very variable: sometimes the wheels were one kilogram or perhaps less, sometimes two, more rarely three. This is because the milk that was available every day within the families was processed. Casolèt was therefore a predominantly "domestic" or "family" cheese, which was made at home, but its production also took place in the malga during the summer months and in the "turnari" dairies, which were widespread in Val di Sole. It was an easy and cheap way of managing milk, suitable for small-scale dairy production, with numerous farmers scattered

he Val di Sole is a large valley that extends in the western part of Trentino, between the Tonale Pass and the neighboring Val di Non. It is crossed by the Noce stream, and has two side valleys: the Val di Rabbi and the Val di Pejo . It is probably the most "alpine" valley in Trentino, with a rather narrow valley floor, very steep slopes and peaks that far exceed 3,000 meters of altitude.Here man had to adapt to verticality right from the start, exploiting the land on the sunny coasts in conditions of sometimes extreme slopes. Thus, above the villages of the valley floor, you can still see the wide meadows on the slopes, often terraced, sometimes impervious, dotted with small farms in wood and stone. And it is in these farms that the best known cheese of the valley is born, the famous Casolèt.

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throughout each hamlet. The shift-based model consisted of putting together the milk of several families and transforming it collectively, in order to then divide the products "in turn" to the extent of the milk supplied. In fact, each farmer had a booklet where every day the milk delivered and the credit or debit of milk towards the dairy were noted. Casolèt was deeply rooted in local culture, so much so that the inhabitants of some towns in these valleys such as Celentino, where the "caseulus" is produced, were called "casoletti". However, this cheese is not a historical relic of the past but represents a tradition still very much alive today in the Valli di Sole, Rabbi and Pejo. Casolèt is produced both in cooperative dairies, both in the dairies of small farms and on the malghe of the area. There is even a shift dairy, that of Pejo, which is the last active shift dairy of the more than 300 that populated the Trentino valleys at the end of the 19th century. Casolèt produced according to the ancient tradition, with raw cow's milk, has also obtained the recognition of a Slow Food Presidium, to protect the link with the territory and with the history that characterizes it

But what does this Casolèt taste like? It is a soft, almost creamy, sweet and slightly acidic cheese, which gives aromas and aromas of fresh milk, cream, butter and hints of hay and yeast. In the malga version, one often smells the scent of pasture and cow, and that note of “vòut”, of the aging cellar, which helps to enrich it and make it unique. It is a cheese that can be consumed on its own but has a thousand uses also in traditional cuisine, from cabbage salads to dumplings, from fondues with polenta to barley soups. Francesco Guber originates from the Val di Ledro. He is an Agronomist, an Agricultural Consultant and Author. He has and will continue to not only explain the historic craft of cheese production by our people but also the Alprine culture and history that has depended on our cheeses to survive. He provides us below with some recipes of the Val di Sole using Casolèt

Gnocchi with Casolèt

Ingredients 4 cups of cold polenta, 5.29 ounces of casolet, 2 cups of flour. Flavoring:3 ounces of smoked ricotta& 3 ounces of butter

Canerderli with Casolèt

Ingredients 1 3/4 cups of stale bread, 3/4 cups of milk,3 eggs, 6 tbps of butter,1 tbsp of parsley, salt, nutmeg, 1 cup of buckwheat flour, 1 minced onion, 6 oz of Casolèt, 2 slices of bacon

Place some cooked cold polenta into a blender, spread on bread board mixing in white flour. Cut Casolèt into small pieces and form in the shape of small balls. Insert the cheese pieced into the small balls. Round the gnocchi and place in salted boiling water. When the gnocchi surface to the top of the water place in a tureen with smoked ricotta and melted butter. Cut the bread into small pieces, mix in warm milk and the eggs, parley, salt and nutmeg. Mince the onion and saute` in butter and mix with the bread mixture. Let it rest for ½ hour.Add buckwheat flour to firm up the canerderli balls. In the middle of each, place a piece of Casolèt. Place in salted boiling water for 15 minutes. Serve with Trentino grana (or some alternative), butter sauteed with sage and sauteed speck (alternative..bacon).

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Panada

gain and again, our people as poor paesants had to be resourceful using whatsover they had within their limited means. Bread baked in the oven encased in the very wall of their kitchen was always available whether freshly baked or stale and hard. Still soft, it was the companion to cheese, the classic paesant fare referred as “pan e formai”, bread and cheese. The contadin brought this favorite combination in tending their fields, into the forests seeking wood, and into the pastures shepherding their cattle. When hard, it was grated for bread crumbs that found way into a torta secca or canerderli or la panada. La panada is a “bread soup”. It involves few ingredients and little craft: stale bread whole or in pieces, water, oil, salt, and grated grana (cheese). Variations include a boullion cube or some butter. Panada could be served at table for a supper that might also include some form of salami and cheese. There was a constant struggle to eat to reduce hunger as they tried to fill their stomachs. I discussed panada with my cousin Milena who lives in Comano of the Val delle Giudicarie. From her pontisel (balcony), she has an incredible view of Val D`Ambiez of the Brenta Dolomites and across the valley to my house and our beloved ancestral village of Rango. She is quite knowledgeable of our traditions so that she explained that in the past pregnant women as well as post-partum moms were often fed panada. Panada is hardly a nutrional asset with its reliance on carbohydrates but it was the standard folk wisdom about eating and surviving.

Ingredients and Procedure

11 ounces or 1 3/4 cups of stale bread

Cut the stale bead into chunks.You could also chop or cut it at all anticipating separating it in the bowl. Add the olive oil either with the boiling water or before serving. Add some extra grated cheese

2 quarts of water Add salt and pepper Grated Parmesan or grans Tablespoon of olive oil Options: a boullion cube and/or butter

Ingredients

At the end of the boil, add the olive oil

Cut the stale bread roughly

Then add the grated cheese to the pot

Place the bread into the boiling water

Panada can be reheated and eaten again

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The Cretti Family

organized the voluminous stack of documents collected by my father, James Cretti, an old church bulletin dropped to my feet. It commemorated the 75th Anniversary of Holy Cross Church in Brandy Camp, Pennsylvania. Outlined in detail was the connection between our church in Brandy Camp to Santa Croce in Bleggio, Italy. We traveled to Bleggio in 2008 with our friends the Donati’s; so, I was surprised to recognize a photograph of the same church. I grew up in Brockport, Pennsylvania where inevitably when the winter arrived, I would contract a cold. Grandmother Adelia would say, “Centi’anni!” in her dialect anytime I sneezed. I would ask the same question, “Grandma, what does this mean?” She could not wait to repeat the translation—Live a hundred years! “She worked in a hotel in Riva del Garda, a tourist hub. Perhaps, she heard this greeting from other Italian travelers. Also, she shared her strong devotion to the Blessed Mother even teaching me how to say The Hail Mary in her native language. It didn’t take long to learn that Grandma was the least Antonio Giulio Cretti complicated yet most intense perMy Grandfather son I would encounter in life. The children at school could not quite grasp why I lived with my grandmother. They thought my living arrangement was strange when they were the odd ones without a wise nonna in house. What a rich childhood I had soaking up everything she shared. Consequently, when she sneezed I practiced on her. It almost worked since she was slightly short of her 100-year goal. Adelia and Antonio Guilio Cretti’s adventure to America began on December 26, 1912. Grandma was born in Riva and Grandpa grew up in Arco. The couple met in the hotel owned by grandmother’s sister’s family, the Torboli’s. With heavy hearts, they departed Riva del Garda for Brockwayville, Pennsylvania hoping for a new opportunity. They left the lake region because a war was brewing with poverty and conflict prevailing. Coincidentally, my husband and I lived a mere eight miles apart growing up, but we never met until he walked into the bank in which I worked. The bank is located in Brockwayville (now Brockway), the same little town where Adelia and Giulio arrived in 1912. It was a town of new beginnings for us all. Six months earlier, the Titanic had sunk. What courage to board another Red Star Line ship, The Lapland, after such a terrible catastrophe. My aunt shared that what fueled the

idea for immigrating was advice received from my grandfather’s German officer friend. Because the border between Austria and Italy moved from conflict to conflict, grandfather had an Austrian passport. When his father died suddenly, he left his post and returned to his family as head of the household. His friend later said to him, “Giulio, if you are a man of adventure and you seek a new life, now is the time to leave this country. Danger looms on the horizon.” The rest is history as they boarded The Lapland headed to New York City. Next stop was Ellis Island. Our Tyroleans wanted a way to hold their homeland close to their heart. They were devout Catholics who established sister churches. In Bleggio in 2008—exactly one hundred years after the Brandy Camp Church was built—we and our good friends found a plaque outside Santa Croce with the same familiar names from Brandy Camp. These were the names found on the grave markers at the small cemetery in Brandy Camp too. In a sense, they brought their church with them across the Atlantic. Our lives revolved around Holy Cross Church. We participated in festivals, bingo, and spaghetti dinners. When my father wasn’t working at the glass plant, he was at the church working. During the 1960s, the original church burned to the ground; but, the strong Trentini re-built the church. My father was one of them. As I listened to his funeral homily, the priest pointed to the beautiful crucifix hanging above the altar. He reminded us it was constructed by my dad who was a skilled woodworker. I smiled because I Adelia Cretti recalled this project which he saw My Grandmother as a labor of love for Christ. I was reminded of the Sacred Cross that the men of Bleggio carried to the top of Mount Martino. In 2013, we returned with our friends to witness the centuries-old cross placed within the gilded cage at Santa Croce. Devotion lives a lifetime and follows us across a large ocean. When I visit my departed Tyroleans at the cemetery, I never leave without saying two Hail Mary’s—one in English and the other in their native lanaguage. The souls now resting in peace had roots in The Tyrol. They brought not only their language, traditions, and love of God but their hopes and dreams…to which we are all proudly connected. Written by Shelly Cretti Luchini, DuBois, Pennsylvania

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Nos Dialet...Our Dialect #27

hile our emigrant forbearers saw the Tyrol as one and while they fortunately and historically were spared the Irredentist Italianization process and propaganda after the annexation, I have discovered all too often both ordinary and studied citizens of the Trentino find that the nomenclature Welchtirol is a deliberate and definitive negative denigration of the Trentino…a proof of the irreconciable division between north and south. This negative perception and ideation can certainly be referenced to both the Tyrol when it was an adversary of Italy in the Great War and the sad history of conflict and persecution of the population of the Sudtirol during the era of Italian fascism. Hence, it is not only a lack of understandimg of the nomenclature but most probably a residue of that past. I have experienced that the Province as well as Trentini nel Mondo object to the Filo’ focus on our Tyrolean history and possibly our very identity as former citizens of the Tyrol detached and separated by our emigration. Nonetheless, having covered all the valleys of the Trentino and city of Trento, I proceeded to focus on the valleys and cities of Sudtirol reflecting and in conformity of the historic unity despite nomenclatures by politcs and ideologies. Dr. David Tomasi of the University of Vermont explains in his article in this Filo’ that Welschtirol is a valid and traditional linguistic distinction and not a discrimination as possibly my New York accent is quite divergent with the accent and intonation of quite a few of our citizens of our very own Southern states. Or when yours truly finds himself in the Trentino speaking Italian or our dialet, they say..Si sente… One hears my New Yorkese and Yankee intonation…divergent from theirs no matter how hard I try.The Filo`s expressed mission is to reflect and detail who we, the USA Tyrolean American community were as regards the experience and identity of our forbearers as citizens of the Empire and not who and what the currrent Trentino evolved and became. Our cherished American heritage quite suitabily blends and combines with our Tyrolean patrimony. LISTEN TO THE DIALECT: Do consider going to the web site of the Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina (The Museum of the Ways and Customs of the Trentino People) to hear film clips of people in the Province speaking the dialect…Here is their website http://www.museosanmichele.it/alfabeto-delle-cose/

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Our Legends:The Croderes

They were neither sinners nor saints, the stone creatures. And yet, they held the fate of a cherished human son. Two golden caskets-flanking their queen would remind all on Mamarolles that nature’s balance is the ultimate ruler.

The Croères had crowned their queen when she was but 10 years old- a beauty bearing the royal blue diadem. She was Queen Tanna, ruler of the kingdom spanning snowy meadows, alpine forests, and the jagged peaks of the Cornon de Fropa. The Queen of the Crodères ruled over, and cared for it all, for, unlike the Crodères, she possessed a human heart.

the humans. Thereupon the old man died among the assembly. Years passed and Tanna found herself alone with her young son. She taught him the ways of the mountain, but he became restless to know his father. Once he was of age, he set out in search of his absent father, to Aquileia. The count rejected his son and ordered his guards to send him away. After some time, Salvanel, in the service of another duke, became embattled with the house of his own father. Salvanel was struck by a sword and badly injured. Having been restored to health by Marcora, his new bride, the couple sought refuge in the mountains of his youth. And it was here that fate would have destiny fulfilled. Tanna was without power, as her blue diadem no longer sat upon her head, and she could not help her son to scale the precarious cliffs. She could only turn to the Crodères and ask for their help. The Crodères were unmoved. Savanel was lost, falling in a crevasse of a glacier, his bride died soon after. Queen Tanna’s destiny was fulfilled, and her blue diadem returned to crown her fair head. She did not forsake the shepherds, though. She used her last moments to save them, cautioning them that avalanches would rumble and rocks would slide, for she would no longer be protecting them with her powers.

Appearing human-like on the exterior, The Crodères, had neither compassion nor care for the needs of humans. They would neither intentionally harm a man, nor help one, and it was said that their hearts were made of stone. They lived near the Ice Palace high on the unforgiving peaks of the Marmarolles, but their queen had taken residence with the humans in the valley below. She had not heeded the Crodères’ warning to refrain from interfering with the avalanches and mountain slides. Queen Tanna had used her powers to stop the snow from cascading down upon the cow herders, and woodcutters, such was her tenderness towards those On The Day of Stillness in Marmarolles, Tanna sits around her. between the two golden coffins, mourning her love and It happened one day that Queen Tanna fell in love. She lost happiness. She must know grief one day out of had rejected Storm Wind three separate times, and every year. It was because of her last act of love that instead agreed to marry a human-young Count Aquileia. conflicted with her role as Queen of the Crodères that The Crodères reminded Tanna of her responsibility as Tanna must pay the price. For one day each year Tanna’s queen of the mountains. They implored her to renounce heart will not be stone; it will return to a human heart her human suitor. The Crodères called forth the oldest and she will suffer.Retold, adapted and written by Maria Crodères of all. This was a man who was rumored to Theresa Garber. Katonah, NY have a human heart, one of anger and hatred, who had segregated himself from all. The ancient one, because he did not possess a stone heart, could summon great wrath. He was capable of setting a curse upon their queen. But when the old one gazed upon Tanna’s soft blue eyes, the man could not curse her. His eyes belied his own pain and he spoke of memories of rosy cheeks and blue eyes and sky lit hair. Unable to utter the curse, the old man declared that the queen should fulfill her destiny by taking off her crown and going to live with 30

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The POW’s Odyssey #1

here has been a keen interest and curisoity among our readers regarding the citizens of the Empire and/or the Tyrol during and at the conclusion of World War 1, “the Great War”.90,000 Tyrolean were conscripted by the Austrian Hungarian Empire to fight against England, France, Russia and then by the Kingdom of Italy who then annexed the Tyrol without a plebiscite. Editor’s Note: Filo’ will be presenting a series of excerpts from the book of Un Popolo, due patrie (On People, Two Fatherlands)….written by Alberto Folgheraiter, a very special friend of our Tyrolean American community and the Filo`. There is a necessary understanding regarding the language of the times of these events. While our people lived for 1000 years under Germanic sovereignty: 800 years under the Prince Bishops and then the Austrian Hungarian Empire, what was not then and then became Italy which was “unifying itself ” becoming a nation in 1863. Hence, while what became Italy had been none other than a set of principalities or regions, the Tyrol had an existence and identity of the aforementioned sovereignty. Concurrent with the formation of the Italian nation, there arose the ideology of Irredentism. It was not a formal organization but rather an opinion movement, advocated by several different groups, claiming that Italy had to reach its "natural borders" or unify territories inhabited by “Italians”, a nomenclature gratuitously imposed by Italy.. Irredentism referred to the Tyrol as “unredeemed” and its people as the Irridenti, the unredeemed allegedly waiting to be included despite the lack of a plebicite and the forced annexation. The Excerpt....

September we attacked in the Bels area; but the Russians managed to close us in a kind of horseshoe. On the 7th the Russians attacked; they were at least twice our size and we retreated. I made an escape of at least a kilometer and ended up... in their mouths. I was taken prisoner in the village of Rovaruska". Sebastiano Leonardi "Marchèt", from Preore, recounted "his" war in some notebooks of "memoirs" found by his relatives after his death, at the age of eighty, in 1965. Sent to Galicia, like many of his fellow villagers, he was taken prisoner by the Russians: "I went still ahead a thirty steps I found a field of potatoes. I jumped, made a hole to put my head in and waited. Here and there you could hear the wounded calling for help. Further down you could hear the cries of hooray! Near me I heard the Russians passing by! I did not make the slightest noise, I remained unnoticed. Half an hour later I raised my head! The Russians were already ahead and were entering a wood. Two or three squadrons of Cossack cavalry were also attacking. At that moment the Russian medical staff passed by, asked me if I was wounded, and receiving a negative reply, they told me where I had to go. I was a prisoner...". In the battles for the conquest of Przemyśl and Lviv (autumn-winter of 1914-1915) the Russians captured thousands more soldiers wearing the uniform of the Kaiser-Jäger. It was written of about fifteen thousand soldiers from Trentino who ended up in the hands of the Russians; in light of new studies, the figure seems exaggerated. It is true, however, that in the carnage that followed the Austro-Hungarian defeats of September 10 and 11, 1914 (at Kraznik and Leopolis) Austria-Hungary lost about four hundred thousand soldiers (three hundred thousand dead and wounded, one hundred thousand prisoners), more than one fifth of the one million eight hundred thousand men called to arms. Given the tragic end of their comrades, many peasants in uniform began to desert, to give themselves up as prisoners of the Cossacks. It was a gamble, the escape from a sure and imminent end to an unknown, even if a truce was given for certain in a short time. The wounded were treated, the good men were dispersed in the immense territory of the Tsarist empire. The peasant-soldiers were sent to the

Bernardo Serafini, from Coltura di Ragoli, taken prisoner by the Russians in the first days of the war (August 1914), left a long nursery rhyme about the habits and customs of the Siberian population. Silvio Zucchelli, from Riva del Garda, also recalled in a diary his story as a soldier and prisoner: "On August 16, 1914, we arrived in Galicia, near Lviv, in a flat area: we arrived by train at night and were already on the front line. We were in the potato fields and the Russians were entrenched in the hills. They sent us to attack the next day: we attacked Nota Bene: This excerpt continues on the next page with cannons and rifles and we managed to take the Russian trenches. I remember that the bottom of the and additional excerpts in subsequent installments will follow trenches was covered with sunflower seed rinds that the Russians were constantly eating. On the 5th of camps of the kulaks to replace the Russians called to war. 31

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For some of these "peasants-prisoners" the war ended with a marriage, so much so that on the Piné plateau there are records of some Russian women who, after the war, followed their men to Trentino in the twenties. The Kaiserjäger who were considered deserters were put on trial and everything they owned at home was confiscated. One example among many: on 29 May 1917, the Imperial Royal Court of Innsbruck, as the court of first instance, pronounced a sentence against 74 Trentino men accused of "high treason". The sentence, in absentia, ordered the "confiscation of the defendants' property in Austria, both movable and immovable" and this "as a guarantee of the State's claim for compensation for the damage caused directly or indirectly by the criminal action, as well as a guarantee of expiation for the violation of the law". What had they done, what had happened?"On the basis of the findings of the Court of the Military Presidium of Trento (Irredenti Section), numerous Austrian military personnel of Italian language, prisoners in Russia, are suspected of having made agreements with the enemy for their transportation to Italy. Much evidence shows that these people, from the various warehouses of prisoners in which they were hospitalized in Russia, were concentrated in Kirsanov (in south-west Russia) to be transported from there to Italy. (A. Tommasini, 1926) Since the late autumn of 1914, in an attempt to attract Italy to the forces of the Entente (Russia, France and England), the Tsar, Nicholas II, had pledged to the king, Victor Emmanuel III, to release the Italian-speaking Austrian prisoners. The offer was politely rejected under the pretext that, in that war, Italy was (still) neutral. However, as soon as the "secret pact" of London (April 26, 1915) was signed, by which Italy committed itself to open hostilities against Austria, the question of the "Italian" prisoners came back to the forefront. After lengthy negotiations between the two governments in Rome and Petrograd, a delegation of 21 Italian officers left Turin for Russia on July 16, 1916. Among them were Guido Larcher, Lorenzo Parisi and Filiberto Poli from Trento. The delegation had to identify and send to Italy the prisoners of Trentino and Julian-Dalmatian origin. Since they were scattered in 45 governorates of the Russian Empire, as vast as Europe, it was realized that it would be a challenge to recover all the "irredenti".The Italian-speaking prisoners identified and contacted, were concentrated in Kir-sanov, a village in south-western Russia founded in the seventeenth century and became a "city" in 1779 under the reign of Catherine II (17291796).The story of the "kirsanover" was recalled in 1933 32

by the Turin newspaper, "La Stampa" as a review of a volume written by Gaetano Bazzani who had participated in the search for Trentino prisoners. Cesare Guardini wrote: "The first person to deal with the possibility of bringing the Irredenti to a single location and then send them to Italy was Virginio Gayda who, in 1915, was on a mission in Pietro-grado. He also wrote some articles on the subject, which appeared in "La Stampa" in the spring of 1916, and worked so fervently that soon the Kirsànov camp was created, to which the irredent prisoners flocked from all over Russia. The work of rounding up the prisoners in the camps was anything but easy and was hindered in every way by Austrian agents who warned the Irredents not to trust the Italians. In spite of this, the Kirsànov camp was rapidly populated. In the small, quiet Russian town, the Irredeemers became aware of their true nationality. Most of them were peasants born and raised in small villages from which, perhaps, they had never left except for military service, people who had never known Italy except as the Austrian authorities had painted it". ("La Stampa", October 25, 1933) It was explained to the "Italian-speaking Austrian" prisoners gathered in Kirsanov that the Tsar had given them to King Victor Emmanuel III to be freed. For this reason, means of transport were being sought for their transfer to Italy. At first, the journey west would have been through the Balkans (Romania, Bulgaria and Greece), but the entry of Bulgaria into the war on the side of Austria-Hungary had wrecked the project. On September 6, 1915, in fact, a military agreement had been signed with the Central Empires. In the event of a final victory, Bulgaria would obtain the territory of Macedonia, a port on the Adriatic and part of the former Ottoman Empire. The declaration of war on Serbia was announced on October 14, 1915; the following day Great Britain and Montenegro and, on October 16, France and Serbia in turn declared war on Bulgaria. For the "irredent" Trentino and Julian-Dalmatians an alternative itinerary was worked out. They would have been embarked in the port of Archangel, on the White Sea, transferred to Scotland and from there, across the Channel, in France from where they would then reach Turin and Milan. For four thousand two hundred "Italian" prisoners in Kirsanov the journey home - via Glasgow - lasted about a month. son" of Cesare Battisti and Damiano Chiesa (July 12), the Italian Supreme Command had moved all the "irredent" volunteers from the front line to the Royal Army. TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE FILO`.

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The Miseria of Our People

round 1875-1900, the time of the “great emigration”, in the Italian Tyrol more than 20% of the children died prior to they were one year old. Tuberculosis and pellagra afflicted the valleys and the towns. This might very well be the picture that explains why thousands of Trentini left their lands to emigrate to other European countries and in America…in the USA more than anywhere else. We deal with that “misery” which has always been considered the reason of every migratory wave. What was this “misery”? It is best to explain it by the analysis of the commentators of that era, the commentators in the specialized journals, the medical journals or the scientific journals that were present in a very poor area but was strictly connected and tied to Middle Europe, part of that Empire of Austria and Hungary to which the peasant class was sincerely and emotionally attached. The first information that springs to our eyes, in the various publications, was that of the infant mortality rate. In the varied districts of the Italian Tyrol, the rate fluctuated in 1880 and 1890 between 18% and 24.5%. One child in every five died prior to his first year. What were the causes? More than 20% of the new born would die from an illness that the doctors defined as “congenital weakness”. But what were we dealing with? Here is a diagnosis of one such doctor. “The skin is withered, the stare is semi-alert, the brow is wrinkled, as if there had occurred the difficulties of life; they do not have even the breath to cry.” The coloring was yellow and the children of several months were not able to reggersi remaining seated since they had not the strength. It was a death tied not only to hunger but to a severe malnutrition. These young ones were the children of mothers who were themselves undernourished and who had to work exceedingly hard in the fields and in their homes, all the way up to the birth itself. They resumed this difficult regime of work shortly after their delivery, while still not full recovered. Those newborn, therefore, who were still breast feeding, were fed with a breast milk of little caloric content so that in the mountainous areas, the breast feeding lasted just several weeks and we learned that the premature weaning was often the cause of their deaths. There was yet another endangering illness: tuberculosis, diffused primarily in the lower valleys. In the major centers: Trento, Rovereto and Riva del Garda, in the last decades of the nineteenth century there were the

greatest incidents of the disease up to 10% of the population. But conditions were getting worse. The doctors, in fact, since tuberculosis was considered a “shameful” disease, often avoided the reporting, referring to the causes with euphemisms. Consumption was killing young people between 18 and 35 primarily. Yet another illness that was victimizing the valleys of the Trentino in the period of the great emigration: Pellagra. This illness about whose causes were not known was according to a study by a doctor from Rovereto. “It had three stages of development. At first, the patient saw his skin flake and dry on certain parts of the body exposed to the sun, elbows and knees. As a result, this weakened the patient and made it difficult to work. In the last phase, pellagra led to muscle atrophy, pulmonary tuberculosis, and in many cases even madness and suicide.” Only later did doctors and researchers discover that pellagra is caused by a vitamin deficiency. In the 1980’s, those afflicted with pellagra were 60,000 in Lombardy, 40,000 in the Veneto while there were no exact statistics in the Trentino. A study was attempted that found that 5% of the deceased in Rovereto were due to pellagra and that 20% of the mental illness were due to the illness. A disturbing finding was found in Terragnolo in the Municipio near Rovereto. In 1896 there were 650 people afflicted with pellagra, 27% of the population Probizer: These individuals while working spend more than what they have and do not repair sufficiently the wear and tear of their work. They are contadini (farmers) who pay with their premature deaths this time imbalance and with the exercise of one of the most sacred and holy functions, their work, they dig fatally an early grave. Meanwhile the life expectancy of a German or French child was 43-45 year while a Scandinavian child was 48- 50 years. It was evident that such a situation was due to a complexity of conditions. These were not the only sicknesses that afflicted the Italian Tyrol. Many children were dying of scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, consumption. Widespread among all ages was scrofolosi, tuberculosis of the lymph nodes and riOne lived poorly in the Trentino in second part of the 1800’s. In every one hundred children, there died 23 ckets that was referred to as the dominant disease.. prior to their first year and 43 would die before their twentieth birthday. The median life expectancy was between 36 and 37 years of age.

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Meanwhile the life expectancy of a German or French child was 43-45 year while a Scandinavian child was 4850 years. It was evident that such a situation was due to a complexity of conditions. Sanitary practices were not well known and there was an absence of medical practices and inst ruments. But the principal reason was nor the lack of such practices since in 1890 in the Trentino there was one physician for every 2770 inhabitants and 8 hospitals that had infirmaries in various valleys. In 1889 such infirmaries numbered 703, 408 midwives and in 1882 there was established the Associazionation of Trentino Medical Practice. But it was a medical science at its very beginning and the cures to which the majority of Trentini, the farmers, resorted to were those of a typical nature tied to the use of herbs, to the practices of tiraossi (bone pullers-primitive chiropractic), and cavadenti (tooth pullers performed by blacksmiths) and those who treated sickness with magical-religious practices. These were signals that indicated the transition from the “ancient world” to modernity. There were yet another significant cause for the diffusion of the sicknesses that devastated the population. These causes were connected with the the type of habitation in which lived the Trentino paesant class but also the poorer urban classes: environments poorly heated, in a land that offered long and rigid winters, small rooms that were poorly ventilated. The houses were juxtaposed that did not allow the sun to enter; houses wherein was situated their stables, rooms in which they lived many hours every day, especially in the winter… gathered frequently for the real Filo`. The ally ways were replete with water that ran and carried with them garbage and wastes. The mature of the cow used to fertilze the fields were accumulated proximate to the homes. But above all the Trentino people, the unfortuante, the small farmers principally, would poorly nourish themselves in the latter part of the 1800’s. From the information gathered in the part of the 19th century, we can assert that in 80’ and the 90’s, the amount of food was greatly reduced. The heart of their meals was polenta, few vegetables, milk and cheese. Meat was almost totally absent as well as bread while the consumption of potatoes becase ever more widespread in those years. Polenta, which today is the very symbol of Trentino folklore, could have been considered a condemnation.Many times…wrote an observer…especially among the poor, and during the hot months when the work increased and the need to restore what is lost by the body increases, it is not infrequent the case of farmers forced by the economic conditions to eat polenta, the base of their food, 34

combine their leavy vegetables, turnips with the remnant of sour milk. Since even in the mountains, where it was common to rear cattle, milk, butter and the cheese needed to be sold to overcome the scarsity of food for their families. Here then is a brief overview of the “miseria” in the Trentino of the 1800’s. Insufficient nourishment hence was widespread sickness. Coupled with this, there was a way of life based on extraordinary physical labor. The farmer, who had insufficient land, was forced to work many hours a day to bring home the bare minimum to live. It equally engaged women, children and the elderly to work as hard. It was the only way to survive, a thing that needed to be done in times of grave economic and social crisis. The miseria that led to the emigration sprung from the impossibility to nourish oneself properly and the necessity to work ever more to put on the table ever less and from the poverty of their houses and villages in which they lived. One lived badly in the Italian Tyrol in those times of crisis. Very bad! But there was yet another circumstance. From the world of Central Europe, Great Britain and especially the United States, there arrived news of a totally different way of life; news of great consumption ma also of liberties and freedoms unthinkable in the Trentino. In the Italian Tyrol, the farmer, the very majority of its population, stood on the lowest level of the social scale. He was overshadowed by the few but powerful rich, the clergy and the nobility. These were the social classes that farmer grouped into word and concept of “siori”.the rich. They improvised a song as they faced the unknown and emigration. Ai siori del Tirol/ noi ghe daren la zapa/ la zapa e anca el badìl./ I siori a menar i boi, le siore a menar el plof (aratro)/ e i contadini en Merica/ a béver el vin nof. To the rich of the Tirol, we will give them the hoe, the hoe and the shovel, the rich women will lead the oxen, and the rich women will pull the plow…while the farmers will to America to drink a new wine. How then had they arrived at this point? It was because in the second part of the 1800’s, they found themselves on the threshold of hunger. But how they arrive to this comprehensive miseria. Truly, it was because in the second part of the 1800’s, the Italian Tyrol was on the threshold of hunger. Written byRenzo Grosselli for the Filo` in 2012, noted journalist, author of many books regarding the migration of our emigrants An Appeal...We are underutilizing our website. I have wanted to be able to situate the beautiful Alpine songs present in each issue on the website. With no funds beyond printing and distribution, might there be among our readers someone with skills to volunteer to upload the songs making our website our very own virtual library????

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A Door Closes..A Window Opens

he header could simply be Providence at work. Readers will recall the announcement in the Filo` of an initiative to create a Portuguese and Spanish version for our Tyrolean communities in Brazil and Argentina. Well, for months last fall and this winter, I worked diligently and hopefully with a Trentino Association: Unione delle Famiglie Trentino all`Estero…to produce this new resource.The collaboration was intense and we did indeed produce a Portuguese version while also working on a Spanish version. The Unione is an association dependent on the governance of the Trentino. For the first edition, they chose the issue I had done on city of Trento in which I wrote the story of Simonino, little Simon who was murdered and authorities falsely blamed the Jewish community. Well, when this new edition sought funding, there was a co-requisite that I change not only the narrative but the history as well. I refused… Then, too…the Filo` with its explicit advocacy for our Tyrolean American history has a counter and a divergent history hardly acceptable to those in charge in today’s Trentino. Lo and behold…a window opened. Anna Julia, a Venetian emigrant in Brazil showed her friend, a Zanella from the Val dei Laghi an issue of the Filo` with a family story about the Zanella family. She wrote to me with the contact information on page 3 of the Filo`.The

friend was a long lost relative of Vic Zanella of Maryland who had searched for three missing Zanella aunts unsuccessfully. Glory be…the family connected. The window referred to was that the Filo` written in English and situated on its website is easily translated with a right click into Portuguese in Brazil and in Spanish in Argentina with the no required permission nor funding. Let us explain a procedure known to computer users. Using myself as an example, in my preparing the Filo’ issues of the Sudtirol. I often had to access data, articles, and stories written in German. Similarly, I had to do the same for my engaging in pages and pages written in Italian. Well, it is as easy as simply right clicking on the text and since I am a USA user, the text is translated into English. I had mentioned the new Il Nuovo Trentino, created digitally by Alberto Folgheraiter and all in Italian including the 6 articles I wrote for it. Well, ditto!!! All our readers can go the Nuovo Trentino web address, right click and read away whatsover article. This means that our fellow Tyroleans in South America, Australia and Europe can read and view all 27 issues...a total of 972 pages (36 pages x 27 issues. An international resource! Hence, notwithstand our good will and intentions, we need not translate or print paper copies. We need plead with Providence. God bless Google internationally! God writes straight with crooked lines…and opens windows.

Our Contributors are . . .

Photo Credits...

Alberto Folgheraiter,Writer, Author, Trento Riccardo DeCarli Museo della Montagna, TrentoConsorzio Turistico Piana Rotaliana Königsberg Maria Teresa Garber, Educator, Katonah, NY Renzo Grosselli, Author, Journalist, Trento Francesco Guber, Agrononist, Author, Val di Ledro Luca Faoro, Museo della Genta Trentina Daniele Giongo, Director, Coro Castelcamp Rosa Giovannini, Mezzocorona, Piana Rotaliana Toni Kastelic, La Mesa, California Shelley Cretti Luchini, Brockway, Pennsylvania Petra Nardelli, Consorzio Turistico Piana Rotaliana Königsberg Rosa Roncador, Consorzio Turistico Piana Rotaliana Königsberg Lynn Serafinn, Geneologist, London, England David Tomasi, Professor, University of Vermont

Front Cover:Consorzio Turistico Piana Rotaliana Königsberg.Pg 4-5 Consorzio Turistico Piana Rotaliana Königsberg. Wikipedia;p Pg 6-7 Wikipedia. Pg 8-9 Dr. David Tomasi. Pg. 10-11 Massimo Baroni, Wikipedia, Vic Zanella ; Pg. 14 Toni Kastelic; Pg. 15 Riccardo DeCarli; pg. Luca Faoro; Pg. 18-19 Dr. David Tomasi; Pg. 24-25 Francesco Gubert, Wikipedia; Pg. 27 Shelly Cretti Luchini; Pg. 30 Maria Teresa Garber; Back Cover: Consorzio Turistico Piana Rotaliana Königsberg; Vic Zanella, Wikipedia

Our Gratitude...We sincerely wish to thank and applaud Vincent Fiore of Auriga whose generosity again makes the Filo` possible for our readers throughout the USA. As descendants of Emigrants, no gift is greater than to enlighten our identity. Thank you & God bless you!

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