i-Italy Magazine - Fall 2017

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All Things Italian in the U.S. Year 4 — Issue 2-3 — Fall 2017 — $5.00

Discussing Columbus

Italian Leaders in the US

Op-eds and debates pages 26-33

Interviewing Gabe Battista page 20

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Follow us on the web and on social networks If you are in NYC watch us every Sunday at 1:00 pm on NYC Life (Channel 25 - HD 525)

Magazzino Michelangelo Pistoletto, Stracci italiani, 2007

When Italian Art Is Your Life

WATCH THE VIDEO

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ww Style

ww Bookshelf

Piero Bassetti and How Milan Overtook Domenico Starnone’s Fred Plotkin on What Rome as Italy’s Ties. Anna Lawton Being an Italico Means Fashion Capital and Her Amy’s Story

ww Cuisine

Pizzamania Conquers the States: How Many Stories Top a Pizza?

ww Travel

Under the Spell of Sicilian Baroque.

An Island of Beauty

ww Italy in the City Where To Go and What To Do Italian from Coast to Coast

ww contents

fr ee !

All Things Italian in the U.S. Year 4 — Issue 2-3 — Fall 2017 — $5.00

Discussing Columbus

Italian Leaders in the US

Op-eds and debates pages 26-33

Interviewing Gabe Battista page 20

05 Editorial

www.i-Italy.org Follow us on the web and on social networks If you are in NYC watch us every Sunday at 1:00 pm on NYC Life (Channel 25 - HD 525)

Magazzino

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Michelangelo Pistoletto, Stracci italiani, 2007

When Italian Art Is Your Life

WATCH THE VIDEO

08 ww Focus

ww Style

ww Bookshelf

ww Cuisine

Piero Bassetti and How Milan overtook Domenico Starnone’s Pizzamania conquers the Fred Plotkin on what Rome as Italy’s Ties; Anna Lawton States: How many stories being an Italico means Fashion Capital and her Amy’s Story Top a pizza?

ww Travel

Under the spell of Sicilian Baroque.

An Island of beauty

ww Italy in the City Where To Go and What To Do Italian from Coast to Coast

i-Italy

www.i-italy.org A magazine about everything Italian in the US

year 4 issue 2-3 Fall 2017

—

Editor in Chief Letizia Airos letizia.airos@i-Italy.org Project Manager Ottorino Cappelli ottorino.cappelli@i-Italy.org Staff & Contributors Tommaso Cartia, Natasha Lardera, — editorial coordination Michele Scicolone and Charles Scicolone — food & wine editors Camilla Sentinelli — fashion editor Rosanna Di Michele — chef Judith Harris, Maria Rita Latto, Virginia di Falco — Italy correspondents Stefano Albertini, Dino Borri, Enzo Capua, Al F. Roof, Fred Gardaphe, Jerry Krase, Anna Lawton, Gennaro Matino, Lucia Pasqualini, Fred Plotkin, Stanislao Pugliese, Amy Riolo, Francine Segan — columnists & contributors Matteo Banfo, Ennio Serafini, Mattia Minasi — TV & multimedia team Alex Catti, Samantha Janazzo, Joelle Grosso, Kayla Pantano — events team Darrell Fusaro — cartoonist Will Schutt, Alex Catti — translations Robert Oppedisano — editorial supervision Alberto Sepe — web & mobile Lilith Mazzocchi — layout Andrée Brick — design

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U.S. Office 140 Cabrini Blvd, Suite 108 New York, NY, 10033 Tel. (917) 521-2035 editors@i-Italy.org

Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu: When Art Is Your Life

by Letizia Airos

12

A Century Committed to Family, Italy, and Art

with Margaret Ricciardi and Laura Erikson

The second series of our video project on “Grandparents and Grandchildren in Italian America” starts with Margaret Ricciardi and Laura Erikson

16

Italy Beyond Italy: The Italic Way with Fred Plotkin and Piero Bassetti

A conversation on Pero Bassetti’s latest book Let’s Wake Up, Italics! and on what an “Italico” is

20

The Rocky Road to Italian American Success

by Ottorino Cappelli

Interviewing Gabliel A. Battista, co-Chair of NIAF, for our series “Italian Leadership n America”

24

Bridging Businesses in Italy and the U.S.

by Al F. Roof

25

Unity, Diversity and Dialogue

26

Hands off Columbus, “He Is Our Thing”

by Gennaro Matino

by Riccardo Chioni

29

Why This Year I Decided to Join the Parade in Manhattan

by Ierry Krase

30

Let’s Lead America Beyond Columbus Day

by Claudio Fogu

32

Columbus ‘the Man’ and ‘the Day’

Collectively authored by Luisa Del Giudice, Claudio Fogu, Laura E. Ruberto, Joseph Sciorra, and Geoffrey Symcox

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Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 3

34 36

Paola Prestini, A Vision Into Art

by Tommaso Cartia

Energy Education: The End of Coal, the Rise of Natural Gas

58

Must Reads, Must Listens

59

A unique collection of the most important works of Dacia Maraini

by Luca Longo

style

39

How Milan Overtook Rome as Italy’s Fashion Capital

cuisine

60

How Many Stories Top a Pizza?

61

Pizza Academy: Father & Daughter Teaching Pizza

by Stefano Dominella

A doyen of the fashion world leads us through a multipart trip to the heart of Made in Italy

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with Roberto and Giorgia Caporuscio

62

Mauro Porcini: Designing in a Globalized World

by Maria Teresa Cometto

bookshelf

Eating Pizza, Losing Weight, Becoming a Celebrity with Pasquale Cozzolino

64

Fashion Trends: It’s a PolkaDots-Kind-of-Fall!

by Camilla Santinelli

a special section by Tommaso Cartia

The Legend of “Di Fara Pizza.” A Classic Italian Story with Domenico “Dom” DeMarco

66

Delicious and Healthful

67

The King of Cured Meats

by Amy Riolo

by Dino Borri

49

Is Marriage the Ultimate Bourgeois Trap? with Anna Lawton and Domenico Starnone

51

Dante In Love

52

16 Stories of Women

54

Amy’s Story of Friendship, Love, and Social Turmoil

by Fred Gardaphe

by Fred Gardaphe

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by Rosanna Di Michele

w A favorite dish, paired with the right wine

69

Pesto alla Trapanese

69

Etna Bianco, from Sicly

by Anna Lawton

55

A Journey Through History and Across Continents

by Daniela Enriquez

57

‘Summertime, and the Livin’ is Easy...’

by Enzo Capua

How To Prepare: Rice with Culatello and Parmigiano

by Michele Scicolone

by Charles Scicolone

travel

70

Under the Spell of Baroque Sicily

by Goffredo Palmerini

75

Four Baroque Corners in Palermo

by Dominique Fernandez

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Italy in the city washington

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by Amy Riolo

w events

Italian Calendar

83 War & Art: USA in Italy w dining out 84

Our picks this season DC’s Dining scene in its Golden Age

by Francesca Maltauro

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The Capital Italian

A journey through DC’s Italian roots while enjoying its’ contemporary Italian-centric culture

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boston

Acqua Al 2: A Taste of Tuscany

The North End. “A State of Mind Surrounded By Waters”

by Augusto Ferraiuolo

How Boston’s “Italian ward” gradually changed from a slum to the desirable area it is today

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Italian Calendar

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Harvey Sachs on Arturo Toscanini

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How We Fell in Love with Abruzzo and Why You Should, Too!

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100 Our picks this season Italian eating in the North End: From the Old World to modern Boston

by Samantha Janazzo

by Francesca Maltauro

New yorK

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101

Modigliani Unmasked

Barbara Lynch: The Guru of Italian Cuisine in Boston

by Tommaso Cartia

by Riccardo Chioni

88

The Blue Bus Project

89

A Mobile Care Clinic

102 Campioning Classic Italian Cinema in The Bay

Parole, Parole, Parole...

Inteview with Amelia Antonucci, founder of Cinema Italia San Francisco

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by Natasha Lardera

by Tommaso Cartia

by Stefano Albertini

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Italian Calendar

San Francisco

by Tommaso Cartia

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104 Italian Calendar

92 Nanni Moretti, indefatigable

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93

w dining out

torchbearer of Italian cinema

Italian contemporary art in NYC’s cultural world and the art market

106 Our picks this season Italian bites in a Beat Generation vibe

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Our picks this season Simply Italian: panini, dolci, gelati, and espresso

by Francesca Maltauro

95

Baccari at the Italian American Museum: Tale Padre, Tale Figlio

by Francesca Maltauro

107

Tommaso’s: A SF landmark

by T. C.

Zibetto: Espresso as Art

by Tommaso Cartia

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Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 5

w dining out

Los Angeles

108 Promoting Italian Cinema in the “Mecca of Cinema”

112

Talking with Valeria Rumori, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in LA

Italian Calendar

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Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco at the LA Opera, directed by James Conlon

The Angelenos’ Italian Way of Living

by Joelle Grosso

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110

Our picks this season

Dining in Venice, LA

by Samantha Janazzo

w The Italy I Love

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Loving Italy: It’s Easy as Pizza Pie

by Judith Harris

Where to find us New York

Consulate General of Italy (690 Park Ave) Italian Cultural Institute (689 Park Ave) Italian Trade Commission (33 E 67th St) Italian Government Tourist Board (686 Park Ave) Scuola d’Italia (12 E 96th St) Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò, NYU (24 W 12th St) J.D. Calandra Italian American Institute, CUNY (25 W 43rd St) Italian Italian Academy, Columbia University (161 Amsterdam Ave) Center for Italian Studies, Stony Brook University (100 Nicolls Rd, Stony Brook) Belmont Library and E. Fermi Cultural Center (610 E 186th St, Bronx) Italian Cultural Center (One Generoso Pope Pl, Tuckahoe) Italian Cultural Foundation, Casa Belvedere (79 Howard Ave, Staten Island) Inserra Chair, Montclair State University (1 Normal Ave Montclair, NJ) Club Tiro a Segno (77 MacDougal

St) CIMA - Center for Italian Modern Art (421 Broome St) Rizzoli Bookstore (1133 Broadway) Alessi (130 Greene St) Poltrona Frau (141 Wooster St) Cappellini (152 Wooster St) Casa del Bianco (866 Lexington Ave) Cassina (51 Wooster St) Guzzini (60 Madison Ave) Scavolini (429 W Broadway) Boffi Soho (31 1/2 Greene St) Galleria Ca’ D’Oro (529 W 20th St) Ierimonti Gallery (24 W 57th St) Eataly New York (Flatiron: 200 5th Ave; Downtown: 4, WTC 101 Liberty St) Di Palo (200 Grand St) Agata & Valentina (1505 1st Ave; 64 University Pl.) A.L.C. Italian Grocery (8613 3rd Ave, Brooklyn) Mike’s Deli (2344 Arthur Ave, Bronx) Giovanni Rana Pastificio e Cucina (75 9th Ave) Al Vicoletto (9 E 17th St) Don Antonio

By Starita (309 W 50th St) Fabbrica (44 N 6th St, Brooklyn) Il Gattopardo (13-15 W 54th St) Kestè (271 Bleecker St) L’Arte del Gelato (Chelsea Market, 75 9th Ave)

Le Cirque (151 E 58th St) The Leopard at des Artistes (1 W 67th St) Mozzarella e Vino (33 W 54th St) Ribalta (48 E 12th St) Piccola Cucina Osteria Siciliana (196 Spring St) Piccolo Cafe (313 Amsterdam Ave; 274 W 40th St; 238 Madison Ave) Pizzetteria Brunetti (626 Hudson St) San Matteo (1739 2nd Ave) Tarallucci e Vino (163 1st Ave; 475 Columbus Ave; 15 E 18th St) Zio (17 W 19th St) Zibetto (163 1st Ave; 475 Columbus Ave; 15 E 18th St)

Washington, D.C.

Embassy of Italy (3000 Whitehaven St NW) Italian Cultural Institute (63000 Whitehaven St NW) National Italian American Foundation (61860 19th St NW) Italian Cultural Society (4827 Rugby Ave, Bethesda) New Academia Publishing (4401-A Connecticut Ave, NW) Department of Italian, Georgetown University (37th & O St NW)

Boston

Consulate General of Italy (600 Atlantic Ave) EATALY Boston (800 Boylston St) I AM Books (189 North St) Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts (641 Hampshire St, Cambridge)

San Francisco

Consulate General of Italy (2590 Webster St) Italian Cultural Institute (601 Van Ness Ave F) Museo Italo Americano (Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Landmark Building C, 2 Marina Blvd)

Los Angeles

Consulate General of Italy (690 Park Avenue) Italian Cultural Institute (1023 Hilgard Ave) Department of Italian at UCLA (212 Royce Hall) IAMLA-Italian American Museum of Los Angeles (125 Paseo de la Plaza, Ste 406)

Follow Us on Facebook www.facebook.com/iitaly

6 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

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ww editorial by Letizia airos

An “Italica” Under an Umbrella on Columbus Day

T

his year’s Columbus Day, is one we won’t soon forget. Not only for the polemics surrounding the Italian explorer but for the unrelenting downpour that lent a particular mood to the parade down Fifth Avenue.

Rather than presenting you with the contents of this issue of our magazine, I’d like to tell you about that day.

I was there under an umbrella, with the glistening rain on the pavement, amid the people watching the parade’s increasingly wet participants go by. Something Italo Calvino once wrote came to mind, that “walking implies that with every step some aspect of the world changes, and that something in us changes too” (“The Thousand Gardens” in Collection of Sand). Yes, as we walk through it, the world changes and we change with it.

Surrounded by people under the increasingly hammering rain, I thought back on the various parades that I had seen on Fifth Avenue.

Costantino Brumidi, The Landing of Colmbus (1877) frieze in the Rotunda of the US Capitol

I’ve been in the United States for twenty years. I try to pursue my job as a communicator and cultural mediator with honesty.

There’s a lot to do in this line of work, a lot to mediate in order for it to be communicated. In particular, history—especially as seen from here in the United States. There’s History, and there are many histories. Older, less old. There are different countries.

Different peoples. Different sensibilities. Different attitudes toward the distant past. Different cultures. Old. Young. And there’s a future to be built step by step. In my line of work it’s important to tell a story and to “take a step back” from the events of a story.

Sometimes I succeed. Other times I don’t. But I think the story of the statue of Columbus has been a bit exploited. For various reasons. You have to have the courage to see the other side of a story. Indeed, to see it by taking a step back. To try to understand every point of view, interrogate every line of reasoning, with humility, without falling back on comfortable and occasionally populist positions. To have the courage to say or listen to something uncomfortable, something you might not like.

In the case of the “Columbus controversy,” it’s most important to look people in the eye—those in the parade and those outside protesting it. Whether they are Italians, Italian Americans, Native Americans, or “simply” Americans of all races and colors.

Only then can we understand that the figure of Columbus provides us with many means of reflecting on the other, on our identity, whatever that may be, without demolishing history or being scared that someone is demolishing it. I recommend practicing

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this exercise before taking any position. This is a big country. Yet its attitude toward its history is very different from Europe’s. It can be contradictory. On one hand, it seeks it out desperately. On the other, it can easily erase it. Do you remember the building that housed the historic Italian bookshop Rizzoli in Manhattan, which was torn down two years ago because it was considered obsolete? It was so beautiful. It would be difficult to imagine something like that happening in Italy. Neither would you think of tearing down Caligula’s or Nero’s statues because these were cruel and violent emperors.

We must take time to reflect. It would benefit everyone. It might also help Italians and Italian Americans constructively dust off the recent and less recent past.

In this issue you’ll find various points of view on the question of Columbus, some in favor and others less so, but all—in our opinion—make valid points. We believe it’s necessary to talk about this issue beyond the day of the parade. What’s missing from our community is debate.

We don’t need a single voice that speaks for everyone. We need a plurality of voices and opinions. We need dialogue and diversity.

Yet, we can’t blow our tops over the first quibble.

That is exactly what we try to do in this magazine, on the Internet, and in our weekly television program on NYC Life. It’s an “Italico” world that mulls matters over—and we bring it into your homes, workplaces and schools, whether you’re having fun, on your commute, or relaxing on the weekend. We’ve been doing it for years. We do it in English so that we can address everyone, not only the handful of Italians living in the US (a little over 250,000 people, according to Italian Embassy statistics). And we try to do it by telling stories that embrace the “Italico”—and not simply “Italian”—story, in a heterogeneous and across-the-board fashion. We do it by trying to mediate various viewpoints in order to better understand one another. But what does “Italico” mean?

For an answer, let me turn your attention to American writer and journalist Fred Plotkin’s interview with Pietro Bassetti, an intellectual and Italian entrepreneur who coined this term— “Italico”—we’re particularly fond of (see below, page 16). We like it because we believe it brings us all under one umbrella—Italians and those who love Italy and the Italian lifestyle, whatever their nationality. Those who paraded down Fifth Avenue on Columbus Day, those who stood against it, and those who remained indifferent to it. We think the word “Italico” groups us with our readers, viewers and web-users. And it does so while respecting our differences in a perfectly “Glocal” space. ww Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 7

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ww From a Family Art Space to an Italian Art Warehouse

Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu: When Art Is Your Life Art collectors Giorgio Spanu and Nancy Olnick call Cold Spring home.

Surrounded by unspoiled nature their incredible residence welcomes numerous works of postwar Italian art with a focus on the influential Arte Povera movement of the 1960s.

We went to visit them to talk about their love for art and their latest endeavor: the opening of Magazzino, a sort of museum/home for Italian contemporary art, and much more.

8 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

by Letizia Airos

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The road that takes to upstate New York, running along the Hudson River to the house of Nancy Onlinck and Giorgio Spanu in Cold Spring, is simply fascinating. Especially on its last stretch, where a few pieces of Arte Povera peek out through the vegetation as if a part of the landscape. Their colors, materials and shapes blend in perfectly. They seem to have been created just for that spot.

Nancy and Giorgio are two world-famous contemporary art patrons. He’s Italian; she’s American; and they’ve dedicated their lives to contemporary Italian art. “Giorgio and I were born and raised on two very distant and different islands: Sardinia and Manhattan,” Nancy explains. “Having always been an Italophile and loving everything Italian, I believed I was destined to meet and fall in love with this magnificent Renaissance man. From the outset, we both felt that we had similar interests and a curiosity to expand our horizons in tandem.”

The first time I heard about Nancy and Giorgio, it was thanks to a dear friend we shared, the

late Massimo Vignelli, one of the greatest designers of all time. He and his wife Lella Vignelli helped conceive the splendid home where this conversation took place, ending up—as always seems to happen with Italians—sitting around a long table set with lovely goodies from their garden.

Over lunch, L’Italia Straccia by Michelangelo Pistoletto “sits,” as if it were another guest, right in front of us. That piece of art, I later discover, is what has inspired Nancy and Giorgio’s latest and most anticipated project: Magazzino.

Building a Special Home

Giorgio Spanu explains how he and Nancy, and their work, ended up in Cold Spring. “Nancy www.i-Italy.org

Art collectors Giorgio Spanu and Nancy Olnick take us for a tour of their house. Below, with their team at Magazzino. already had two children, Robert and Eve, so when I came along, I noticed that these city kids were in need of some countryside. They needed to see some nature. So, together, we decided to look at different routes to a place no farther than an hour ride outside of New York City. We took the Taconic State Parkway to the Cold Spring exit. And there we constructed this country house.”

But this was no ordinary country house, though; the architect was the great Alberto Campo Baeza and their chief consultant was the legendary Massimo Vignelli. “It was our good fortune to be introduced to Massimo and Lella, two people who would become our close friends and mentors,” says Nancy. “Massimo instantly agreed to design our Murano exhibition and graphics and he designed a scholarly catalogue that accompanied the show as it traveled to several museums in the U.S. and Europe.”

Giorgio Spanu talks about their house in a room illuminated by a lonely window that opens up to the greenery outside, a dialogue between interior and exterior. Or, as it were, between past and future. Indeed the house holds masterpieces of contemporary art from the second part of the 20th century, artwork spanning the 1960s to the present. Giorgio offers to take me and the i-ItalyTV crew on a little tour.

“I would like to start with this piece called 1492—the year America was discovered—made

by Maria Lai, a very important artist for us. This book we have is called America, and it’s one she dedicated to this country. These are some ceramics by a great Italian ceramist named Guido Gambone. Here’s a very important piece by Mario Merz, representative of the Arte Povera avant-garde, entitled Che Fare? (What is to be Done?) It’s an emblematic statement, the question that Lenin asked in front of the new Soviet politburo. It’s also a statement Merz addressed to the Arte Povera movement. Here is an image painted by Ettore Oliviero Pistoletto, the father of the artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, signed in 1933, the year Michelangelo was born. Michelangelo transfers the image of himself as a baby on this beautiful silk cloth and adds this mirror where you find his face. You see [your own] portrait through Michelangelo’s.”

Giorgio and Nancy’s career as art collectors started with Murano glass, then went into pop art, and, in the 1990s, they discovered their true passion for the radical Italian artists of Arte Povera. That’s what distinguishes them from other contemporary art collectors. The couple, who initially bought art to decorate their house, soon realized they had collected more than 400 pieces. At that point they were in desperately in need of a new location to showcase their unique collection. www.i-Italy.org

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 9

Visitors at the opening of Magazzino Italian Art

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Enter Magazzino Italian Art

“At a certain point this house became too small for the works, so we decided to buy this old factory in 2013 and we’ve been working on it ever since,” Giorgio tells us. Thus for the first time ever in the history of the United States, we now have a space, Magazzino, dedicated exclusively to Italian art from the second part of the 20th century. Its focus is on Arte Povera. How come?

“It all began when a dear friend of mine, a gallery owner, suggested we visit the Rivoli Castle, just outside Turin, where an Arte Povera exhibition was on display. It was there that, for the first time, we saw the work of Giulio Paolini, Luciano Fabro, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Anselmo, and Calzolari. We fell deeply in love with this group. We began to study them, and we also came to know this mythical figure, Margherita Stein.”

Margherita Stein. The opening of Magazzino is dedicated to her, and the first exhibition is entitled Margherita: Rebel with a Cause. “We always viewed Margherita as a woman who rebelled against the art establishment, and against everything that represented classicism. She decided to take her husband’s name, Christian Stein, and to name the gallery after him. He was a very respected judge in Turin. By using his name, she thought the gallery would gain more respect, especially because she was both a woman and a new presence in the art world.

The Christian Stein gallery became a leading promoter of the Arte Povera group.”

Once inside Magazzino we are greeted by Michelangelo Pistoletto’s L’Italia Straccia (Italy of Rags). What does it represent? “We asked Michelangelo to create a type of emblem for us,” Giorgio explains. “Something that represented Italy, Italian art, and something that would inspire the young artists that came to work here for the Olnick Spanu art program. And he made this beautiful flag that has become the emblem of the house. Like he says, ‘Poor Italy, always in rags.’ I think it will also become the emblem at the entrance of the Magazzino, and it will represent the history of Italian art from the second half the 20th century.”

I ask about the projects included in Magazzino. “We are preparing something beautiful and important with MAXXI, the contemporary art museum in Rome. They decided to do a joint retrospective for 2019 with Magazzino Italian Art. It’s the first real North American show of Maria Lai’s work and it will be held after our initial exhibition, which is dedicated to Margherita Stein.”

Fostering Art Education

But that’s not all. Giorgio Spanu is also the President of the Board of Directors of NYU’s 10 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, with which Magazzino will be involved in constant cultural conversations. Establishing ties with both Italian and American universities and art schools to encourage student exchanges is at the core of Nancy and Giorgio’s mission. They want to promote the work, in all shapes and forms, of young contemporary Italian artists.

After its spectacular debut back in June, Magazzino is now open to the public by appointment only and free of charge. Magazzino is also the perfect location for special events and the coveted residences for young artists.

“Instead of simply showcasing art, we want to welcome it and share it with you all,” Vittorio Calabrese, the young Italian director of Magazzino, said recently. Mr. Calabrese is part of an extraordinary team of young professionals who have teamed up with the Spanus in making their dream come true.

“One of our goals is to use this space as a cen-

ww For the first time ever in the history of the United States, we have a space, Magazzino, exclusively dedicated to Italian art from the second part of the 20th century. ter for arts education—that’s why Magazzino has a library that welcomes 5,000 publications on Italian Art. We want it to become a point of reference for both Italian and American artists,” Spanu concludes outlining their dream and wishing us a safe trip back to the City. ww www.i-Italy.org

Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu on i-ItalyTV To watch, scan the QR code with your smartphone

ww What is Magazzino

An Italian art warehouse, an artist’s residence, and a center for art education Established in 2017 by Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu and directed by Vittorio Calabrese, Magazzino Italian Art is a private art space in Cold Spring, NY, dedicated to widening public appreciation and education of postwar and contemporary Italian art in the United States.

Magazzino, meaning warehouse in Italian, hosts works from the Olnick Spanu Collection, most of which have never been exhibited in the United States. Through the permanent collection, as well as rotating temporary exhibitions, community events, and collaboration with neighboring institutions, “Magazzino Italian Art will also continue to sponsor both contemporary Italian artists and international artists whose work is strongly tied to the Italian culture and artistic heritage through off-site events and collaborations with external art venues. www.i-Italy.org

”Spanish architect Miguel Quismondo created Magazzino Italian Art from a former computer manufacturing building in Cold Spring, New York. The new building doubles the square

footage of the former space. The state-of-the-art facility features more than 18,000 square feet of exhibition space as well as a library with more than 5,000 publications onItalian art.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 11

Margaret Ricciardi and her niece Laura Erikson show their giant “family album”

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ww tHE Second Season OF the I-ITALY TV SERIES “Grandparents and Grandchildren in Italian America.”

A Century Committed to Family, Italy, and Art

ww Meet Margaret Ricciardi and her Color Palette

Born 103 years ago in Brooklyn to immigrants from Calitri (Avellino), artist Margaret Ricciardi agreed to be featured as the grandma in the first episode of our new TV series “Grandparents and Grandchildren in Italian America.”

Here she talks to her granddaughter Laura Erikson, touching upon everything from the original family business—a shoe repair shop in the St. George Staten Island Ferry terminal—to Margaret’s life with Frank Ricciardi, her passion for Italy, and her devotion to art. with Margaret Ricciardi and Laura Erikson

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The view from her window is so wide that it reaches the “symbolic” Verrazzano Bridge; we are in Margaret Ricciardi’s home in the Ward Hill section of Staten Island, in what she calls her “dream house.” How many dreams have these walls seen come true? We will find out little by little during our conversation, but

12 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

we guess right away by looking at her posture, her eyes, her sweet confidence, and at the elegant femininity of the décor, where each detail, both traditional and contemporary, has been taken care of by her. It’s in this 1950s ranch immersed in a green landscape that Ricciardi keeps working on abstract, expressionist oil paintings depicting both landscapes and people. The house is full of emotions and holds the memories of this

Margaret Ricciardi has had a number of solo exhibits, including at the Snug Harbor Cultural Arts Center and CUNY’s College of Staten Island.

In recognition of her Italian heritage, and in memory of her husband Frank, she established the Margaret and Frank Ricciardi Scholarship, enabling Italian majors at the College of Staten Island the same opportunity of study abroad that she received. Additionally, since 2011, she has provided an annual award to a graduating studio art major.

In 2006 she was honored with the Award for Cultural and Artistic Accomplishments, at the third annual Festa dei Campani nel Mondo, by La Federazione delle Associazioni della Campania, USA. Her painting, Twin Towers, was accepted for exhibition by the Museo dell’ Emigrante in Naples.

In Spring, 2017, Margaret Ricciardi received an honorary doctorate from the College of Staten Island for her longstanding commitment to her craft.

Maggie’s palette (above) was created over her entire painting career of 30 years. Weighing more than 25 pounds, it is a work of art in itself.

For more information visit www.ricciardigallery.com woman, wife, mother, grandmother, and artist.

Laura accompanies her grandmother through her memories for the videao we have put together.

Born Into an Italian Family Laura Erikson: Grandma, you were born in 1914 in Brooklyn to Giuseppe and Philomena (Maffucci) Della Badia. What was life like at www.i-Italy.org

Margaret wearing a costume from Calitri. Right: With husband Frank on the day of their wedding

ww Your grandpa wanted to learn English, but he didn’t want it like most of the Italians. They kind of half learned, and the words are half Italian and half English. He wanted to sound like an American who was born here. that time in Brooklyn in an Italian community?

Margaret Ricciardi: We lived on Central Avenue in Bushwick. My mother and father had rented an apartment upstairs over this German bakery. We could smell all the goodies that were being baked, and once a week, my mother would take her little bag with the cash and go down and buy some of the buns that were left over from the day before. This way, she would get more of them, almost double.

Laura: Tell me how your parents came here.

Margaret: Well, my uncle—my mother’s brother—came first. When anyone came from Calitri, they would easily find a family from that town that would rent them a room. He met the man who would become my father and found he was a very good, kind, and thoughtful person. In those days it was about matchmaking, so my uncle would write to his sister and say, “there’s this terrific man here, and I showed him your picture, and he really liked what he saw.” My father started writing to my mother, and she would answer the letters.

That went on for a little while. Then my father asked her to come to America because he thought they would get along very well. He had fallen in love with her. He wanted to marry her. My mother wrote back. She gave it a lot of thought, and she kept refusing the boys in Calitri who were asking to see her. She didn’t like staying in the town. She told my father she would come on the condition that he would send her a round trip ticket.

Laura: So it went that great-grandma came and married Giuseppe. And was she happy?

Margaret: She was very happy. She had three www.i-Italy.org

daughters, and I was the one she used to call the troublemaker because I was always planning what we should do and where we should go. Anyway, we grew up. The Calitrani [people from Calitri] used to have a picnic once a year, and they would come from all over, New Rochelle, Brooklyn, wherever. We used to meet a lot of the boys there. My older sister met her husband there, but he wasn’t from Calitri, so that was a little disappointing to my parents. I too used to see my husband there. He had come when he was 16. He was born in Calitri.

Falling in Love Laura: Tell me about your first date with grandpa.

Margaret: I was known among the Calitrani because I always walked with my head held up high. The guys wouldn’t come near me, but when Frank asked me to dance at the picnic, and then he asked me if he could have a date, I said OK. We had a date to go to Radio City in New York, and that was terrific because you didn’t get to the city too often. It was too expensive. We dated for two years. Then we got married on July 11th, 1937, and we settled on

Staten Island.

Laura: Was grandpa already in the shoe business?

Margaret: Yes, he had bought the first shop when it was on Stuyvesant Place on Staten Island. He became quite well known with the orthopedic doctors because he took a course in orthopedic alterations, and he knew how to fill out, to the letter, whatever prescription they came in with. He knew what to do.

Laura: My mother told me grandpa was very proud of the fact that he didn’t have much of an Italian accent.

Margaret: Yes, his cousin was a school teacher. He would go to her after school and say, “I want to learn English, but I don’t want it like most of the Italians. They kind of half learned, and the words are half Italian and half English. I want to sound like an American who was born here.”

Laura: Did he really want to be an American citizen? Was it because there was a stigma attached to being an Italian American?

Margaret:He didn’t feel that stigma because Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 13

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he didn’t act that way. The problem with some of the Italians who came here was that they never changed. They never accepted any of the customs that you usually accept when you’re in another country. He was quite educated. He had two uncles who were priests, and they used to teach him and gave him an education far beyond the high school diploma that he would have gotten if he had stayed in Italy.

Visiting Calitri Laura: What did Calitri look like when you went there?

Margaret: The mountains and the view impressed me. My mother-in-law had a balcony.

That’s what I wanted to have. You walked out on the balcony, and you could see forever. You could almost see the next town! It was a great view, and I remember turning to Frank and saying, “when we build the house, I am going to build it with a view.” I never thought we would get that dream and have the water besides. It was beautiful. I remember we also went to Sorrento, and we stayed there for about four days.

It was terrific, the people were so warm and hospitable. I really recommend taking a trip to Italy for everyone. You will fall in love with it, and I am sure you did when you went.

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ww I want it all. I keep moving and keep the brain active. That’s why I keep registering for classes every term… I always tell to people, ‘Life is short. Eat dessert first!’ That’s my motto—but always in moderation.

The Art Student Laura: You were determined, for a long time, to further your own education. I remember when I graduated from high school, you were also getting your high school equivalency. After grandpa passed away in 1983, you quit the shoe store and fully committed yourself to art classes at the College of Staten Island. You received your bachelor’s degree in 1986 and continued

taking classes for the next 31 years. But where else did you study?

Margaret: I went to Italy to the Lorenzo de’ Medici School in Florence. I went one semester.

Then, after a year and a half, I went another semester. The first time I went, I took painting, but they also had sculpture at the Lorenzo school. The second time I went, I concentrated more on my oil painting than on sculpture.

Laura: You started with painting in your art career. How long did you paint before you said ”I want to try sculpture?”

Margaret: Oh, I think I did painting for probably two years. I don’t quite recall. One day, a teacher came into the painting class and suggested I try sculpture. Gradually, I went from stone to more complicated pieces with wood.

Then I started to buy my own material and ordered some marble and Italian alabaster.

Margaret’s Secret Laura: You know, my sister says the reason you have been here for 103 years is because you don’t want to miss anything.

Margaret: That’s right! I want it all. I keep www.i-Italy.org

Margaret showing her home, memories, and paintings to the i-ItayTV crew during the filming.

moving and keep the brain active. That’s why I keep registering for classes every term. If you sit still and say, “Oh, this hurts and that hurts.

I’m too tired to get out of bed…” I say, “Get the butt out of bed, and get moving! It will go away.”

Margaret stops talking and looks straight into the eyes of each and every woman who’s in the room. Apparently oblivious to the video camera she says: “You’ve got to have the Italian genes, and you have to stay healthy. Don’t let yourself get overweight because then you start having problems. Make sure you always eat vegetables with your food. I eat and love sweets. I always tell to people ‘life is short. Eat dessert first!’ That’s my motto—but always in moderation. I’ll take one cookie out. Then I close the box and put it back in the freezer. If it’s not there, you won’t be tempted to take a second or third one.”

We move away from the set of our video conversation, remove the mics and walk through the house with her. Margaret shows us the traditional costume from her home town and explains she’d like to donate it to a museum. We walk together on the long terrace. She offers us some chocolate. Then she lets us visit her studio, located in a large basement. She still works there today, surrounded by dozens of paintings featuring the different landscapes of her life and told through the colors of her ww love for art and for Italy. www.i-Italy.org

ww The second season of our video project will air this fall

Grandparents & Grandchildren in Italian America This project explores the relationship between different generations of Italians in America and is narrated firsthand by the protagonists.

Grandparents and grandchildren tell their stories in a conversation that touches on central issues concerning Italian identity.

The first sason featured conversations between: Matilda Raffa Cuomo and Amanda Cole Joseph Tusiani and Paola Tusiani Aileen Riotto Sirey and Emma Bankier Rosaria Liuzzo and Mara Sparacino John P. Calvelli and John D Calvelli The second season will feature: Margaret Ricciardi with Laura Erikson Dino Clemente with Saverio, Donato and Francesca Capolupo Louis R. Aidala with Nicholas and Julianna Bambina Joseph M. Mattone with Michael Mattone jr. and Lena Volpe Fred Gardaphe with Michelangelo and Anthony Lomuto

Watch this episode

on i-ItalyTV

Grandparents & Grandchildren in Italian America is co-produced by i-ItalyTV and ANFE and is sponsored by the Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale, Direzione generale per gli italiani all’estero e le politiche migratorie.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 15

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ww TWO SPECIAL “ITALICI” JOINED US AT LA CASA DI I-ITALY TO MEET EACH OTHER AND HAVE A CHAT

Italy Beyond Italy: The Italic Way

Watch this interview on your smarphone We sat down at our home with an old friend of i-Italy, industrialist Piero Bassetti, during his recent tour in New York to promote his latest book , Let’s Wake Up, Italics! Interviewing Piero Bassetti was another old friend of ours, writer and critic Fred Plotkin, who was famously defined by the New York Times’s Frank Bruni as “the most Italian of all New Yorkers.”

16 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

with Fred Plotkin and Piero Bassetti

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This conversation was aired on our weekly TV show i-ItalyNY on NYC Life Ch. 25, and you can watch it on demand on i-Italy.org.

Letizia Airos: I’m here with two people who have i-Italy in common. For two different but connected reasons. One is Piero Bassetti, the renowned Italian entrepreneur and public intellectual—the one who coined the term “Italico.” How many years ago was it?

had just started i-Italy and you approached us to tell us more about our project, which you thought —and we agreed—had much in common with your idea of “Italici”.

Our other guest is Fred Plotkin, an American citizen …

Fred Plotkin: … a New Yorker!

Letizia Airos: Yes indeed! A New Yorker with no Italian roots but, in my opinion, the epitome of a true Italico. Ever since I first met him, I thought there is no one who knows more about Italy. That’s why I decided to put you two together in conversation while I tiptoe away. I’ve hoped for this for a very long time and I’m excited to hear what you have to say.

Pero Bassetti: Maybe ten years ago, even though it took some time before introducing it.

We identified the difference between “Italicità” and “Italianità” right away, but the adoption of the distinction took a while.

What’s an Italic?

Letizia Airos: Yes, about ten years ago. We

FP: Mr Bassetti, first of all, I would like to define www.i-Italy.org

Piero Bassetti with Fred Plotkin at the i-Italy headquarters in Manhattan some words so that we are very clear about the meaning of everything. What makes an Italian?

PB: An Italian is an Italic who lives on the peninsula, and is a citizen of the Italian state, which is a territory that has been defined as such for little more than 150 years. For example, Dante was an Italic; he was not an Italian because during his lifetime, the “Italian” dimension only existed through linguistics and culture, but not politically.

FP: So then, let’s define an Italic.

PB: An Italic is a person who has chosen to adopt “the Italian way of life,” as an expression of one of the greatest civilizations in the world.

Just how a civilization can become a subject of history, is a topic open to debate after the crisis of the nation states.

FP: When I read Let’s Wake Up, Italics! something immediately came to mind. Tell me if you don’t agree with me. To be an Anglo-Saxon, a Hispanic, or an Italic, one must know the language of the country that this culture comes from.

PB: Yes, but the language of the culture is not really the language of the country. The Florentines spoke Italian before Italy existed as a political organization. But before the country was unified in the mid 1800s a Neapolitan, a Florentine, and a Venetian didn’t belong to the same culture or speak the same language. So much so that even today the unity of Italian culture is mainly a political phenomenon, because the differences between Northern Italy and Southern Italy are still visible—even outside of the country.

Some say that if the language dies, the culture dies. That’s not true because the Italian culture is made of more than just the official language. It was strongly made up of dialects. This is a delicate subject. And I think it’s the challenge for our friends at i-Italy too. Because to abandon the old argument of Italian nostalgia, in the parade on Fifth Avenue, it’s no small thing. There’s no doubt that today Italian Americans have a problem defending their nature. The Italian expats, the young people, don’t have the same problem.

If anything, they have nostalgia for the Italian way of life, which they want to spread over the world.

Soccer as an identity marker FP: Can soccer, as it is played in Italy, be considered an Italic game?

PB: Yes. For example, anyone who knows the www.i-Italy.org

ww If you wish to protect Italy you must grasp its internal diversity. A uniform italianità does not exist.

United States understands that poker is the game of Americans, and not just in Westerns. If one goes to Russia, one realizes why chess is the game of the Russians. The game of the Italians is soccer. Kicking a ball between one’s legs to get to the goal is a typical Italian skill, in which an individual juggles the different obstacles found in his way. The cultures that have adopted soccer play it in their own way, but the fundamental idea behind the game remains an Italic one.

FP: I won’t define myself as an Italic yet because I still have to think about it. But I feel I am an Italian through osmosis because I open myself to everything that Italy has to teach me and I create my own Italy that I love. But I also feel the right, being Italian through osmosis, to criticize every once in awhile, not simply to be a critic, but out of love. For me, Italy is a phenomenon that I wish to protect.

This is the difficult point about Italicità, or Italicity. It is not an easy one because in the tradition of nation-states, you are an Italian as long as you are within Italy’s border, and with others, you can only trade or make war. No hybridization is possible. But the true Italic is a bastard: he must be, because bastardy is better than purity. This idea that purity is worth less than bastardy goes against the grain, and it isn’t easy to put it as the foundation of a political discourse. This is the purpose of my book and of my battle: let’s wake the Italics up to their values based on integrating the values of others.

PB: If you wish to protect Italy you must grasp its internal diversity. A uniform italianità does not exist. We shouldn’t sell just risotto and pizza to the world—it’s the richness and diversity of the Italian cuisine that we must sell instead.

FP: I completely agree. When I teach the history of Italian cuisine, this is bastardization, because of its use of ingredients from around the world. Truth is, the Italians knew how to make the best use of these products!

Bastardy is better than purity

ww Piero Bassetti’s manifesto

Understanding Our Glocal Future in the World This book is a rallying call. An appeal to anyone who is willing to listen.

Over the last two decades of cultural and political engagement, Piero Bassetti has been able to closely observe the impact of globalizationdriven change from both the economic and social standpoints; he concludes that there are millions of people around the world whom we should get used to calling “Italics.” This Italic identity outside of Italy began with emigration, but it has since developed into something more.

Bassetti and his research team estimate that there are approximately 250 million people who could be called Italics. They have different citizenships; they live in countries and societies that are far apart, both culturally and geographically. They speak different languages. But they feel the same. They embrace Italicity—a shared way of feeling, a way of relating to the world, of giving meaning to the world. This should be turned into an opportunity for Italics to play a new leading role in global history and economy.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 17

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ww We need ways of cultural education that emphasize hybridization. The true Italic is a bastard: you must be, because bastardy is better than purity. This idea goes against the grain, and it isn’t easy to put it as the foundation of a political discourse. This is the purpose of my book and of my battle.

The Italic anthropology PB: All of this is described in the book. This story began when I was going back to Italy after school at Cornell. We were on the steamship Vulcania.

Our group was three Italian Americans and me.

We became friends, and one shyly asked me, “How do you say pizza in Italian?” I grasped that pizza for him was, in fact, an American product.

So the problem isn’t that the only pizza is Italian pizza. The idea that the problem is spreading what was made in Italy is false. The real problem is spreading what was made in the Italian way.

That’s why I’m working with producers who don’t want to just sell “Made in Italy;” they want to protect the products of Italian origin, and the Italian way of doing things. It’s useless to attack Nespresso or Starbucks because there’s no reason to think that coffee needs to be consumed in the United States as it is in Italy. We’re coffee people, and we don’t have only one type of coffee.

This is what my book strives to do: to make people understand that the awakening of Italics comes from more than just Italianness. Italicità, or Italicity, is instead a matter of anthropology.

There’s no use denying it. We’re Mediterranean by origin, and we have a different anthropology than the Swedes. It’s difficult to say this about Americans because Americans are already born as hybrids. Today an American certainly is a type, but a New Yorker is different type. In the same way a Milanese in Italy is different from a Southern Italian. These differences are the true wealth of a country. And the point truly is that today the Italic anthropology, which actually has 18 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

pre-Italian origins, is perceived as a gift to the world. Opera, for example, is a gift given to world culture. But you can’t assert that, say, Wagner’s opera is better or worse than the Italian…

FP: Sure. Also because Wagner loved Italy. He conceived the tetralogy in Liguria, he died Venice, he composed the first act of Parsifal in Sicily, the second act in Ravello, and the third in Venice. He traveled Italy taking inspiration from the country, just as I do.

Defining Italicity FP: Is the Italian mindset itself something that can be called Italicity? That is, something that can be learned, absorbed, and used to make beautiful things.

PB: Yes, certainly. I’m personally convinced that it’s not true that all anthropology comes from genes. It also comes from learning. I’m convinced that in a world of such great mobility, this hybridization isn’t genetic, but rather operative, and already being seen. Just look at fashion produced in New York. By now it’s organically soaked with contributions from Italian fashion, and French, of course. That’s why I say that the awakening of the Italics comes from contact with the whole world. With the “Glocal” concept the central idea is that everyone locally is part of the global society, but the global permeates all local environments in different ways. This means that the problem of Italicità, of Italicity, is not a problem regarding Italy’s relationship with different countries like

France and the United States. We need ways of cultural education that emphasize hybridization.

You don’t grow just by talking, but you do grow by becoming equal through a common experience.

All these problems need to be studied deeply.

FP: I’m just afraid that in some cases, identity may become diluted rather than enriched, like a product that is not well-understood. Let’s use olive oil as one of many examples. If you don’t understand what makes a certain oil good or special, and how that oil is used as opposed to another oil, it ends up being seen just as olive oil. It loses the characteristics that I learned in Italy, which unfortunately the Italians are losing.

PB: Well, there are huge differences between an oil from Lake Garda and one from Sicily, but the difference is less than that between Spanish oil and Sicilian oil. Here, you can see that the national framework is an old one, one that does not serve our analytic purposes. If you say that communication between 7 billion people is, in a certain sense, entropic in that it reduces differences, this is true. But the challenge is being able to extract the best qualities from inside an organic global system. We shouldn’t be afraid to increase communication. We should be afraid of also not doing anything in order to extract the best from each culture.

FP: ...and to study and learn more from them.

And to love being Italian, Italic, or… Italian by osmosis. We could go on for hours, but we have ww to stop here. Thank you! www.i-Italy.org

Italy in the Fall

by Darrell Fusaro

Everything wonderful about Italy in the fall is felt at once when you see a girl on a Vespa.

* Cartoonist, humor activist and great friend of i-Italy, Darrell lives in Los Angeles with his wife Lori and their furry four-legged friends, Mr. French, Gabby, Francis and Enzo. He is the author of What If Godzilla Just Wanted a Hug? and co-host of “The Funniest Thing! with Darrell & Ed� podcast. www.i-Italy.org

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ww washington, dc: italian leadership in america series / 3

The Rocky Road to Italian American Success We’re interviewing Gabriel Battista, former executive chairman of Talk America, named by Ernst & Young as the Greater Washington Area Communications Entrepreneur of the Year in 2004. “Gabe,”as his friends call him, is the co-chair of NIAF and a prominent Italian American leader in the nation’s capital.

by Ottorino Cappelli

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This interview was aired on our weekly TV show i-ItalyNY on NYC Life - Ch. 25, and you can watch it on demand on i-Italy.org and on our YouTube channel. The text here has been edited for publication

Let’s start with your parents. They were both born in Italy?

Well, my paternal grandfather Pietro came to the United States for the first time after the First World War; he worked and sent money to Italy and traveled back and forth. His family stayed in Italy at first. My dad was born in the Molise region, in a small little town just outside of Isernia. It’s called Macchia d’Isernia, I think it literally means “a spot of Isernia”.

He came here in 1927. My mother’s family instead is from Giulianova, in the nearby region of Abruzzo. She was born in America, but just six months after her parents immigrated, so she always said she was from Giulianova.

Both your families settled in Philadelphia.

They lived in Italian neighborhoods, I presume. How was life in Italian Philadelphia back then? And what about the relationships with other immigrant groups?

Well, in my father’s neighborhood they were all Molisani. My mom’s family lived nearby in a 4-square block Italian neighborhood, which is where I grew up. Mom and dad met at a church social, in this Italian national parish of Our Lady of the Angels. It was unique in the United States, certainly in Philadelphia. This is the story: originally there was a very large Irish parish close to where my parents lived, called Our Mother’s Sorrows. They weren’t happy with the arrival of other Catholics like Italians, Poles, and Ukrainians, and they actually wanted them to go away. They said, “You will

ww A NIAF/i-Italy co-production

Italian Leadership in America

The project features a series of in-depth conversations with prominent leaders of Italian extraction in Washington, DC. It shows how much the Italian-American community has achieved, in so many different halls of power, in the nations’ capital. It also highlights that even the most accomplished Italian Americans are willing to share their Italian stories and acknowledge that their heritage is at the core of who they are. The first series include interviews with: Justice Samuel Alito, Patricia de Stacy Harrison, Anita Bevacqua McBride, Gabriel A. Battista, Anthony S. Fauci, Lugi Diotaiuti, Peter Cardullo.

Gabriel A. Battista on i-ItalyTV 20 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

www.i-Italy.org

Gabe Battista’s family. Left page: Gabe as a child holding a telephone handle—a prophetic picture for someone who was to become a leader in the telecommunication market.

ww My mother was a very strong woman. When I would ask her whether I should do something, her answer was invariably the same—“use your own judgment.” have to say Mass in this little room, and really what you should do is build your own church!”

So in 1911 these immigrants built a church and it was called a national parish. The Catholic Church was ok with this, so the groups could be separated. So my parish was Italian, and in order for me to go to the grammar school they built, I had to be of Italian descent.

This national parish system stayed in place for decades—I believe when I was a boy there were 35 or 40 of them in Philadelphia, not just Italian, but also Ukrainian, Polish. Then in 1976 the Archdiocese decided this system was discriminatory because each of these enclaves had their own school, and even though their neighborhoods were changing, they didn’t change-as long as they had a school they stayed there.

When they eliminated the national parishes, people fled to the suburbs. And my grammar school closed.

At one point you had to mingle with other ethnic groups. How was that experience?

Were there episodes when you felt discrimination because of being Italian?

I grew up in a world of Italians. And they were not “just” Italians, but almost all of them came from Abruzzo. In fact my grandparents settled there because other relatives were there. And I must tell you, my parents had never taught me about prejudices, I didn’t think prejudice existed. But later in life, people would look at me and say you’re an Italian, and to me that was a foreign thing.

Give us an example.

Well, I will give you the prime example that was really shocking to me. I had the opportunity to www.i-Italy.org

work to pay for my own tuition. I worked in high school and I worked when I went to college at an industrial bakery for Acme Markets, a big supermarket chain in Philadelphia. I had very good grades from Villanova University as an engineer and I went to work for General Electric when I was 22 years old. There were no other Italian Americans in the group I worked in. One day a guy came up to me and said, “How come you went to Villanova?” And I replied, “I wanted to be an engineer, that’s why.” “But of all the Italians I know,” he said, “the only ones that go to college are the children of the Mafia. Was your father in the Mafia?” “No! My father was not in the mafia…” “Well, you’re an exception…” I thought about it after, and I remember I told my mother. “Don’t let it bother you, “ she said, “just show them that you’re better than that.” I know it’s a lot less now, not as much as my parents or my grandparents had to put up with. It was really difficult for them.

How was it for them?

My parents and grandparents really had problems. My mom had to quit school because of this. It’s a true story. She went to the Irish Catholic grammar school—there wasn’t the Italian American Catholic school at that time. One day my mother came home and complained that the nuns kept calling her “Dago,” and so my grandfather took her out of that school. She went to public school for the last two years before she went to work. So, it’s always been there. Today it’s not as bad as it used to be because there are lots of people who have proven to the world that Italian Americans are very valuable members of society and they have added a lot of value to it—that’s why my children feel none of that today.

You went to Italy several times in your life.

Do you recall the first time? Your emotions?

I was maybe 29 years old working for General Electric and they asked me to head a joint project with FIAT. So, I went to live in Turin for nine months. My parents insisted that I visit the family while I was in Italy. Now, I have to tell you—as a boy growing up, I wanted to be an American; but when I went to Italy and I visited the families, I fell in love. I remember the first time I went to Giulianova on a train from Turin. I kept asking myself, “How are they going to know it’s me?

I’ve never seen these people.” But when the train came into the station my mother’s first cousin and his son came running to me, grabbed me and brought me home! When I asked, “How did you know who I was?” they showed me a book with photographs of me as a child, when I made my First Holy Communion, when I got confirmed, when I graduated from high school--not just me, but my brother, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all in a big book! My folks used to send photographs and they would save them. I wanted to be in Italy! It was family, it was loyalty, it was… you just felt embraced and after I came back from Turin, I wanted to know more about my Italian background, more about who I was, where I came from. I became very proud of my background.

This is why you got involved in the ItalianAmerican community and NIAF? Exactly! After I sold my last company, my desire to be closer to my roots got stronger. I became actively involved with NIAF and I was a member of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, where I met the former chairman of NIAF, Joe Del Raso, who introduced me to the American University of Rome...

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ww Meet Gabriel A. Battista

A Life of Success and Telecommunications Gabriel Battista’s experience in telecommunications spans more than four decades.

He has served on the board of six publicly traded companies and served as president, chairman, and CEO of Talk America for six years, transforming the company into a profitable telecommunications provider. In 2006, he led the effort to consider new strategic options for the company which resulted in the sale of Talk America to Cavalier Telephone, LLC. His career began with General Electric as a senior manager. He later served as president of Sprint’s Eastern Group. In 1991, he joined Cable & Wireless, Inc. as president and became the CEO of North America. Battista is credited with leading the company’s development of a global Internet infrastructure. In 1996, he joined Network Solutions, Inc. as the company’s CEO and was responsible for business development and strategic planning as well as for the acquisition of the capital resources necessary to meet the company’s long term objectives. He led the company’s initial public offering on the NASDAQ in 1997.

ww My parents and grandparents really had problems wth prejudices and discrimination. My mom had to quit school because of this. But my children feel none of that today.

students, and not just study abroad students. For me it’s a way to lead people—not just Americans, because last year we had graduates from 17 different counties—to recognize the culture and the value of Rome and Italy, and its contribution to Western civilization. So my participation is driven by my love for Italian culture. And even though everything is taught in English, the students live physically immersed in Italian culture.

Now you are the chair of the University’s board, which includes other members of the NIAF Board of Directors. What is the American University of Rome and why is it so dear to you?

Well, there is an Italian connection. My parents encouraged me to try everything, and said, don’t worry about failing, if it doesn’t work try something else. I was a strong early devotee of the internet, and left as the CEO of Cable & Wireless to join Network Solutions—a small company, but one that was on the forefront of the internet. They recruited me when the company had 50 people, and we were going to build a big company. It was a tremendous success, but again it was pushing the envelope, asking, what else can it be? That’s what helped drive my success. I ended up being CEO of

I became chairman five years ago. The American University of Rome is a fully accredited university with credits that are valid for transfer in the US. The school was founded in 1969 and we are moving it forward. We have established four master’s degrees. We are working to enroll more four-year 22 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

We cannot avoid mentioning your career, though it may not have a direct connection to your Italian ancestry. How did you develop this passion for science and engineering? You had an intuition about the power of the Internet even before it became what it is today.

three companies and then at age 59 gave up all of that to get back to my Italian roots, and add value to the Italian American culture. I told myself, I am done, I made enough for me and my family, I can live the way I want now. what I wanted to do was directed to Italian American things.

As the co-chair of NIAF, what is in your view the “right thing” the Foundation should be doing today?

NIAF is a great organization. Its original focus was the recognition of the valuable things Italian Americans had done in this country. Today, there are millions of stories, all of us may tell you stories about our parents and our grandparents and so on. But there are so many young Italian Americans who don’t relate to the culture. We don’t want them to become Italians—they are Americans—but they do need to have a feeling for Italian culture and embrace it. Italian culture is marvelous and when anybody understands it, they fall in love with it. So I think the most important thing for NIAF today is to figure out how to reach people who are a generation or two generations younger than me, so they can feel the value of their ancestral culture, understand it, be proud of it, be part of it. I think that’s important if we want to keep NIAF going for the long term. ww www.i-Italy.org

www.i-Italy.org

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Vincenzo Boccia with Pat Harrison, Gabe Battista and Marcella Panucci. Below, counterclockwise: Alessandro Profumo, Pasqualino Monti, and Antonello Montante with one of his famous Montante bikes

ww PEOPLE. TOWARDS THE 42nd niaf gala in washington, dc

The Italian Presence at NIAF: Bridging Businesses in Italy and the US Important figures from Italy will take part in this year’s NIAF Gala, including the President of Confindustria Vincenzo Boccia, the CEO of Finmeccanica Alessandro Profumo, and from Sicily, the region being honored this year, a major delegation of industrialists and managers such as the President of Unioncamere Antonello Montante and Pasqualino Monti, the President of Palermo’s Port Authority.

by Al F. Roof

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A particularly impressive delegation will represent Italy at the 42nd NIAF Gala held this year in Washington DC. Kicking things off is the President of Confindustria Vincenzo Boccia, who will be participating for the first time in this grand event where three thousand of the most distinguished Italian-American leaders in economics, management, and politics gather in Washington.

Accompanying te president will be Confindustria’s Director General Marcella Panucci.

Mr. Boccia had previously met with the Foundation’s co-Chairs, Gabriel A. Battista and Patricia de Stacy Harrison, at a conference on USItaly relations organized by the Italian Embassy in Washington. On that occasion, they developed plans for an auspicious collaboration between the two organizations.

Honored with the Gruppo Esponenti Italiani Award by its founder Lucio Caputo, and the Mario Cuomo Award by Matilda Raffa Cuomo (widow of the late New York governor and mother of the current governor, Andrew), the President of Confindustria will address those convened at the gala and personally present the major award of the evening to Finmeccanica CEO Alessandro Profumo.

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The entire event is dedicated to Sicily, chosen this year as the region of honor. Leading the major group of Sicilian entrepreneurs invited to participate in an exhibit of local products will be Unioncamere President Antonello Montante, who guides the important Confindustria sector of business networks. Montante, who heads up a sophisticated industrial group, is famous in America for the iconic “Made In Italy” bicycles that bear his name.

Not for nothing, Montante bicycles were included in an exhibit organized a few years ago by the Italian Embassy in Washington on the occasion of the European Union Embassies Open Day. Montante bicycles are considered works of art for their beauty and engineering, comparable, in terms of quality and reputation, to Ferrari. Among those who admire the two-wheel gem are the Italian Republic’s President Emeritus Giorgio Napolitano and Andrea Camilleri, the Sicilian author of

the Detective Montalbano series. One of the bikes will be exhibited at the Gala.

Also attending the kermess will be the new president of Palermo’s Port Authority Pasqualino Monti, the previous recipient of a NIAF award for international relations for his stewardship of the Port of Civitavecchia, where he created a transport hub for shipping to America the Chryslers produced in Italy—specifically Melfi—therefore building a robust business bridge between Italy and the US. One of this year’s honorees at the NIAF Gala is a real princess: Princess Béatrice of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, sister of Carlo, heir to the headship of the House. Besides bearing Sicily in her family’s title, the Princess of Bourbon loves her ancestral island and is its foremost cultural advocate. She will be recognized for her work to preserve her land’s ww past and present. www.i-Italy.org

Pope Francis during his visit to the University of Santo Tomas in Manila on January 18, 2015

ww OP-ED. WHY, According to Pope Francis, “Globalization is polyhedral”

A Unity Based on Diversity and Dialogue For Pope Francis, peace is achieved by dialogue. He doesn’t abide by a globalized age in which, like a “sphere,” every point is equidistant, there are no differences, and everything is uniform.

by Gennaro Matino

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Words are bridges.

Crossroads for different parties to communicate life and share gifts, experiences, and stories. Words are gazes, gestures, letters, and sounds.

They are anger, love, pain, kindness, pity, passion. The word is the man who passes his life onto his fellow man and from his fellow man receives life. A necessary trade, obligatory for those who want to feel true, for those who want to remain human.

For Pope Francis, peace is achieved by dialogue (“diversity makes unity”). He doesn’t abide by a globalized age in which, like a “sphere,” every point is equidistant, there are no differences, and everything is uniform. Instead the unity that counts is, according to Bergoglio, “a unity of differences.” “Globalization is polyhedral,” he says. “There is unity. But each person, race, and culture retains its identity, and grows through the ongoing dialogue between all sides of the polyhedron.”

World globalization cannot globalize the truth.

One is tempted to say, “Thank goodness!” If by globalized truth we mean a flat standardization of ideas, cultures, faiths, then we’re pleased no such thing has occurred yet. Of course no one expected globalization to muzzle dialogue. The fact is, everyone has dug in to defend their position, fearing that their identity will be lost in a universe where the distances have been collapsed and pluralism increasingly runs the risk of degenerating into cultural, ethical and religious relativism, which no one really wants. It’s in our nature to seek out a transcendental truth that gives life meaning or a common truth that legitimizes the rules of civilization. And yet conflicts among people stem from how we define that truth we all seek.

For nonbelievers, the only truth is that there is no such thing as absolute truth. The search for www.i-Italy.org

ww The unity that counts is, according to Bergoglio, “a unity of differences.” “Globalization is polyhedral,” he says. “There is unity. But each person, race, and culture retains its identity, and grows through the ongoing dialogue between all sides of the polyhedron.” truth, never completely achieved, is conditioned by the seeker’s will to be him or herself, as far as is possible, and express his or her own essence within a specific cultural historic context. Believers, on the other hand, have no such doubts: the truth is God. For Christians, Truth revealed itself

through Jesus Christ, who said unequivocally, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

Nevertheless, Christians also view plurality, variety, difference of opinion—in other words, otherness—as an asset. And yet today, despite the fact that difference of opinion in and of itself doesn’t amount to exclusion, the challenging dialogue between believers and nonbelievers is painfully chronic. When the Church addresses the world, it is well aware that faith cannot be imposed. But respecting the ideas of others can in no way mean selling out your own truth. The dialogue with the laic world cannot be based on a kind of forfeiture to others that disregards the absolute-objective pillars forming the foundation of the Christian faith. So where and how can we find the space for such a dialogue? The only place is in man, not a universal abstraction of man, but a man in the world, in all his creaturely dignity.

Only by plumbing the depths of human nature can we arrive at a truth for all people. Only then is it possible to establish a dignified and friendly dialogue, capable of respecting the positions of others without giving up our convictions. For believers, once again there are no doubts.

The only possible truth is the truth articulated

by Jesus when, with the power of plain speech capable of reaching people in every historical period, he said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Not even the most intransigent and hardline rationalist could find that maxim partisan. Just think of Kant, who relegated religion to the confines of pure reason. Kant said, “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” There is no relativism that, in the face of a child in need of help, an abandoned elderly person, an oppressed woman, a hungry people, the horror of war, or social sin, believers and nonbelievers cannot recognize, no matter the grand systems and words meant to divide them, as long as they have the courage to look one another in the eye.

There is one truth: people should always be treated as an end and never as a means. In this light, charity and mercy form the main path to dialogue. Love thy neighbor as thyself and you will find the one truth that unites men of different ww cultures and faiths.

Gennaro Matino teaches Theology and History of Christianity in Naples. He collaborates extensively with both traditional and new media.

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ww THE “COLUMBUS CONTROVERSY” COAST TO COAST / NEW YORK

Hands off Columbus, “He Is Our Thing.”

Joseph Guagliardo, national president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian-American Organizations, recounts how the “Columbus Controversy” started in New York and explains why it touches all Italian Americans, “both the blue-collars and the bluebloods,” as he says. He emphasizes that his family came to the U.S. in 1906 and had nothing to do with American slavery or what Columbus did 550 years ago—on which, he notes, scholars still disagree. “We came looking for a better life. We learned about Columbus in school here, and it became our thing.”

by Riccardo Chioni

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It’s difficult to understand how, overnight, Christopher Columbus became the villain of the country. In the beginning of August, the villain was the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, then being removed from a street in Charlottesville, and the ensuing demonstrations where a woman was killed in a clash between white supremacists and college students. Then, all of a sudden, the statue of Christopher Columbus in Manhattan comes under fire. How did that happen?

Well, what happened was, he became an instrument. He became a politician’s tool. So all of a sudden, as you say, on August 21st, Melissa Mark-Viverito, the Speaker of the New York City Council, comes out and calls a press conference to call on the Mayor to consider taking down the statue of Columbus. Other than that, there

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is no relationship between Robert E. Lee, slavery, the South, and Columbus. She, the Speaker, created this entire spectacle. She picked that statue, she picked that venue, she picked that fight. I received phone calls from labor leaders and politicians while I was in Nebraska watching the eclipse with my family. I called a friend, Councilman Joe Borrelli, and told him we need to take this argument to the steps of City Hall. He pursued it right to City Hall, quickly and swiftly.

We brought out a reputable crowd of people who were able to talk about what this meant.

It seems the Council’s Speaker has a following; there have been incidents. Columbus became the object of vandalism all over the country.

It happened after she started it. And the Mayor, in an effort maybe to protect her, said he would create a committee and would come out in ninety days with a list of questionable monuments. The vandalism and the hatred weren’t planned, but the Speaker apparently needs attention, because she is term-limited and as of next January will no longer be a councilmember, so she may be looking for relevance beyond January. There was speculation that she was going to try to run for Governor of Puerto Rico, and now there’s speculation that she may run for Congress. So she may be trying to use shock to be able to get her core group to follow her. Now as soon as you challenge her, she actually claims that she’s the victim. So you can’t win. She’ll do anything to get the spotlight.

To your knowledge, has any Italian-American organization spoken with the Mayor or the Speaker regarding Columbus?

No. That’s the biggest problem. There’s no communication with the mayor’s office or with the Speaker’s office; to be able to say, “Come on, let’s sit down, let’s have a conversation, let’s understand what the situation is.” The Mayor wants to say he’s half Italian, because that’s convenient during an election.

He likes saying this.

Even the speaker says she’s half Sicilian, and she’s www.i-Italy.org

Clockwise: Joseph Guagliardo addressing the press

outside City Hall in August; Mayor de Blasio and i-Italy’s tri-colored Fiat500 at the Columbus Day parade Photo: Riccardo Chioni

ww We’re not looking at demonstrations and we don’t want to hurt anybody. We are in a process of celebrating. This is our season. We celebrate Columbus’s voyage, as well as our own personal family voyages.

never attended an Italian parade. I’ve never seen her supporting anything Italian. So, I don’t really know what the purpose of that is. But, you would think that either one of them would have a better relationship with the Italian community—but the reality is, there is no relationship. Except for an event that he holds once a year and we attend because we’ve always attended in the past. But, no, there’s no communication. They really don’t want you to come up with an amicable solution to the problem. And, the problem isn’t necessarily Columbus Circle, the problem is that the speaker has created this problem.

So, the only Italian-American politician in favor of leaving the statue where it is, is the governor?

Yes, absolutely. The only politician, that I know of, who goes across county lines, is the Governor.

The mayor refuses to have an opinion and all the speaker says is that they “want to be responsive to the needs of the city,” but they’re totally ignoring the fact that Italian Americans are speaking up. They’re claiming to be listening to a Native American constituency, but nobody knew who www.i-Italy.org

they were at least until September 21st, when a letter came out—one month to the day later— calling for the mayor to remove the statue.

You represent a number of civil service and police fraternal associations. We’re talking of thousands of people. Do you think you can involve these people? Ask them to demonstrate?

I represent two groups. I represent the National Council of Columbia Associations, but as of last January, I’m also the president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian-American Organizations. Two very different groups. I always say they are—and I mean this in a respectful way—the merging of the blue-collars and the bluebloods. On the one hand, the Conference of Presidents is an organization made up of very successful organizations, private industries with lodges and memberships, very unique in their own way; on the other hand, I represent civil servants, including police officers, sanitation workers, firefighters, corrections officers in an array of civil service organizations. To be able to represent both of these umbrella groups is a privilege and quite frankly, very challenging.

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Manhattan, Columbus Day Parade Photo: Riccardo Chioni

focus But we’re not looking at demonstrations and we don’t want to hurt anybody. We are in a process of celebrating. This is our season. We celebrate Columbus’s voyage, as well as our own personal family voyages. Because we are a culture and we have a history of coming to America during different periods of time. I think that what has caught on to both of the memberships that I represent is to not be negative about this. First of all, this isn’t really our fight. This is a fight of hate, when they’re condemning a person. A person who did something five hundred and fifty years ago. Scholars still disagree on him. If we start arguing with these haters, we’re going to lower ourselves to a level of gutter fighting. You have politicians who are saying “Columbus enslaved, killed, mass-murdered…,” I don’t know what Columbus did five hundred fifty years ago.

I’m sorry for what Columbus did, if he did that five hundred fifty years ago. The reality is that my family didn’t come here until 1906 and had absolutely nothing to do with what Columbus did or with American slavery. We never owned slaves. In fact, when people say, “We owe the Indians” or “We owe black Amercians an apology,” I’m still waiting for the Moors to apologize to Sicilians, or for the English, or for the Piemontese King Vittorio Emanuele and for every country that invaded Sicily. There are no apologies because in those days you conquered, you pillaged, you raped, and you moved back to your country. So, if Christopher Columbus was involved in that by finding a trade route, then he was involved. But that has nothing to do with what we did. We came looking for a better life.

Do you think the petitions they’re writing to President Trum, both here and in Italy, will help in some way?

Right now, I don’t think that Columbus Day on the national level is in jeopardy yet. I think that as we watch little venues do away with Columbus Day, this may continue and start to spread out and it may be a threat on the federal level. We have to understand that Los Angeles didn’t lose the day because the Native American community was strong, but because the Italian American organizations splintered with different agendas. We haven’t experienced that in New York. New York is ground zero for the world to recognize Columbus. We should not be giving it up. Not because of the name, but why are we giving it up. L.A. lost because once they splintered, there was nothing left and so the other side was able to win and get rid of Columbus Day. On August 21st when the speaker stood in front of that statue and called for it to be taken 28 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

ww In those days you conquered, pillaged, raped, and you moved back to your country. So, if Christopher Columbus was involved in that by finding a trade route, then he was involved.

But that has nothing to do with what we did. We came looking for a better life. down, we were prepared. After Councilman Joe Borrelli and I sparked that fire, all the organizations lined up, and they came and supported what we did. Our goal was twofold: one, save the day. That is essential. Two, save the monuments. Whether it’s a street name, or whether it’s a building or whether it’s a statue. Now we need to be able to show politicians that today, next year, and the year after that, if you come out against the Italians, if you come out against our monuments, we’re going to come together and we’re going to make it difficult for you. We don’t want to have this fight anymore. We want

to end it this year, and the only way to do so is by showing the numbers and showing support. So, we don’t jumble any other issues with this. Christopher Columbus is the person who Italian Americans wrapped themselves around and made part of our families. Italian Americans came here and we found Christopher Columbus here. I don’t even think it was an issue in Italy. We learned about Columbus in school here, and it became our ”thing.” We honor our people. And, I’m hoping that before the election in November the mayor can find it in his heart, his common sense, and his political smarts to sit down with the Italian-American community and come to an understanding to preserve and to protect Christopher Columbus in the city of New York, now, and forever going forward.

You must have done something great for Italy, because you received the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

I was honored, I can’t tell you. Nothing has given me more of an honor and I dedicate it to my grandparents. I have dual citizenship and I was sworn in by the former governor of New York and the former Consul General of Italy as new president of the National Council in order to be a cultural bridge between the U.S. and Italy. We have organizations in America that need to be able to reconnect with Italy. Not only for what they can do for us, but for what we can ww do for them. www.i-Italy.org

Founder and Chairman of Barnes & Noble Leonard Riggio was the Grand Marshall of this year’s Columbus Day Parade

ww making columbus day a special day

Why This Year I Decided to Join the Parade in Manhattan This year for me, the parade usually lead by one or another superprominent rich and/or famous Italian or Italian American, is different— and the Founder and Chairman of Barnes & Noble, Inc. Leonard Riggio, made it so.

by Jerry Krase*

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I have never marched in any Columbus Day Parade, nor have I ever watched one as a sidewalk spectator. It may seem odd, but I did march, once, in a Brooklyn St. Patrick’s Day parade. In that case, even though I hate parades, and crowds, and furthermore am not even halfIrish, I did so because I was personally invited by an Irish-American group—The Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick. They knew I wrote about Brooklyn’s ethnic groups and asked If I would help them plan their anniversary celebration. The Irish have a high regard for writers. I am a member of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America and, even though I am not Polish, I am invited to: “Join the Kosciuszko Foundation as we march in the 80th annual Pulaski Day Pa-

rade on Sunday, October 1. We’ll meet at 12:00 p.m. on 5th Avenue at East 37th Street. Dress in white and red and bring Polish flags. Then, meet us at the KF House for traditional Polish bigos and pierogies.” For Poles, intellectuals are central to their sense of nationhood.

Drop in just in case?

The New York City’s Columbus Day parade committee issues its more open invitation thusly: “The Columbus Day Parade is a fun filled parade that gets bigger and better every year. Participants from all over the world march in our parade with pride. The parade has become a global event with millions of viewers and over a half million spectators on the streets. We invite you to join us and experience this memorable day” (my emphasis). To even half-Italian Americans, an invitation to “drop in in case you’re in the neighborhood,” is no invitation at all. But this year for me, the parade usually lead by one or another super-prominent rich and/or famous Italian or Italian American, is different and the Founder and Chairman of Barnes & Noble, Inc. Leonard Riggio, made it so.

First of all, he and I are proud alums of Brooklyn Technical High School (he 1958 and me 1960). More importantly, as Grand Marshall of this year’s hotly contested Columbian celebration he became a literary Centurion by leading

one hundred Italian-American published authors at the head of the parade. Considering this a personal invite, I decided to join them.

Thank You for the Chance!

A few weeks ago I visited Sicily, the homeland of my mother’s parents Giralamo Cangialosi and Maria Antonetta Trentascosta. My mother once told me my grandfather lived in a palace in Marineo—a hill town near Palermo with a Norman castle. Later she admitted he was the stable boy. Starting on Elizabeth Street in Manhattan, my grandparents began their struggle to make a better life for their family and despite anti-Italian bias they succeeded. They were ben educati, but not “well educated.” Higher education was a dream for their children’s children. They would be astonished by how much their grandchildren and greatgrandchildren have accomplished.

I am sure that my fellow Technite, Leonard Riggio, didn’t know it, but he made a special space in this year’s parade for a half-Sicilian American author. He gave me and dozens of other writers a chance to honor our ancestors with our written words while joining with hundreds more who do so in a myriad of other ways. ww Grazie tante. * Jerry Krase is Emeritus and Murray Koppelman Professor at Brooklyn College, CUNY.

ww EMOJITALIA: A Little Italian-American App Hits the Headlines

How To Save Columbus Day With One Click Sometimes, Italian Americans are perceived to be, well, overly traditional, even conservative. So the news that the Columbus Citizens Foundation has recently introduced an app might be refreshing.

It’s conceived as a fun addition to your keyboard that gives you 50 different emoji stickers of Italian-American gestures and icons you can add to your text messages, Facebook posts, or tweets.

You can also have fun browsing through the emoticons’ dictionary—even if some items have curious Italian labels unfortunately filled with mispellings (e.g., “Aqua” rather than “Acqua” for Water) and grammar glitches (the “Beware!” www.i-Italy.org

emoticon is labeled “Stai attenti,” rather than the correct “Stai attento” or “State attenti” ;-) You can get all of this for $0.99, and while it may not seem a great deal, if you are “a lover of all things Italian and Italian American” you’ll be donating a buck to the cause. But what cause? Well, have a look at the top of your keyboard, where now sits a string of new buttons that lead you to learn the basics of Italian-American history, a few facts about Columbus Day (not about Columbus himself), and a petition to send to your elected officials urging them to “Maintain the Federal Holiday of Columbus Day.” Just enter your zipcode.

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The “Watts Towers” built by Italian immigrant and self-taught artist Sabato Rodia in Los Angeles

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ww THE “COLUMBUS CONTROVERSY” COAST TO COAST / LOS ANGELES

Let’s Lead America Beyond Columbus Day

The Italian American community should celebrate the values of interracial solidarity, cultural exchange, and visionary humanism, which many mistakenly attached to the figure and legacy of Christopher Columbus.

by Claudio Fogu*

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On Wednesday August 30, 2017, the City Council of Los Angeles voted on a motion for the replacement of Columbus Day with a new paid holiday called Indigenous Peoples Day. The motion was introduced by Native American Councilman Mitch O’Farrell in 2015 in recognition of the fact that Los Angeles has become the city with the largest indigenous-heritage population in the Americas. Initially, the motion did not ask for the replacement of Columbus Day, but only for the institution of a new holiday, and was supported in 30 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

that form even by Italian American associations including Comites LA.

An awkward compromise

The City Council responded that it could not institute a new paid holiday without replacing another, and Columbus Day was the obvious candidate.

This set up a process of consultation with all affected communities that has lasted two years and has produced an awkward compromise solution: while the LA City Council has replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day, it has also decreed October 12 as “Italian Heritage Day” (though not a paid holiday). This is important because it gives us a stark image of the current situation: while leaders of the Italian American community such as Councilman Joe Buscaino had demonstrated openness to renounce an exclusive claim to Columbus’ legacy by proposing to rename Columbus Day “Diversity Day” and dedicate it more explicitly to all immigrants, the LA City Council opted instead for tying the figure of Columbus and of the “discovery” day (October 12) exclusively to the Italian American community.

As an American citizen sympathetic to the need of supporting every initiative aimed at lifting the century-long suppression of indigenous peoples’ history of genocide and suffering in this country and continent, I supported the motion calling for the replacement of Columbus Day by Indigenous Peoples Day—though I also understood and appreciated the spirit of Buscaino’s counter-proposal.

But as an Italian-born naturalized American I was deeply troubled by the LA City Council’s choice to decree the association between Italian heritage and the infamous date of Columbus’ supposed “discovery,” which the very same City Council obviously considered no longer worthy of celebration in its decision to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day. The silver lining in this situation is that the LA City Council has now thrown the ball in the court of Italian American leaders and communities to interrogate themselves on whether they want to tie themselves exclusively to the historical figure and legacy of Columbus, or begin working with other groups towards a more inclusive celebration of “all immigrants’ contributions,” as suggested by Buscaino’s counter motion. www.i-Italy.org

Grand Canyon National Park Photo via Flickr (CC-BY)

Historical retribution?

Some say that the LA City Council’s decision was a rightful gesture of “historical retribution.” I have some problems with the concept of “historical retribution,” but not because of its supposed “presentism.” If Benedetto Croce could rightly affirm that “all history is contemporary history,” this is even more so for memory, and every memorialization was at some point in the past an act of presentism. My problem is with the idea that the replacement of Columbus Day by Indigenous Peoples Day can in itself right centuries of repression suffered by indigenous Americans on multiple levels. Much will depend on whether or not “Indigenous Peoples Day” will be geared towards breaking the deafening silence in American culture about the history of mistreatment, cultural genocide, and betrayal perpetrated by white colonizers against all Native American nations in this country. From this point of view, I agree with those who say that the abolition and replacement of Thanksgiving by Indigenous Peoples Day would have been an even more appropriate act of restorative symbolic justice. But the question for Italian Americans has little to do with historical retribution—unless pushed for in solidarity with indigenous people. The question of Columbus Day for Italian Americans involves the modalities and values that this community wants to celebrate as “Italian.”

A new Italian Heritage Day

This is why in the weeks before the LA City Council vote I promoted, along with several other scholars, a petition for the recognition of October 10 as “Sabato Rodia Italian Heritage Day” [see the box below] and we are now work-

ing on collecting signatures for two letters. The first one will be addressed to leaders of the Italian American community and will ask them to facilitate an open discussion within their communities “to explore more appropriate ways, and new figures, through which to acknowledge and celebrate the legacy of sacrifice and generosity, that Italian Americans have given to this nation.”

The second one will be addressed to members of

the Italian American Congressional Delegation and will ask them to initiate a bill for the abolition (and/or replacement) of Columbus Day as a federal holiday. Our reasons for wishing Italian Americans to lead into new practices of memory for the whole nation—rather than being boxed into denial and resentment—are too complex and multilayered to explore here. But suffice to say that although it might appear that our initiatives represent a timely response to the current political situation, our call for the Italian American community to dissociate itself from Christopher Columbus ‘the Man’ and ‘the Day’ has nothing to do with the current debate on commemorative monuments. We stand on the shoulders of new and incontrovertible evidence regarding the historical record of Columbus’ cruel rule as first conquistador and Governor of the West Indies, as well as the work of both Italian American and Indigenous American associations who have been calling for the abolition of Columbus Day for decades, and have been successful in several Latin American countries and many US cities and States (only 23 States still recognize Columbus Day as Federal Holiday).

Our goal is for the Italian American community to celebrate as Italian heritage the values of inter-racial solidarity, cultural exchange, and visionary humanism, which many mistakenly attached to the figure and legacy of Columbus (i.e.

“Columbian exchange”), and to celebrate them as the common heritage of all immigrant comww munities. * Claudio Fogu is Associate Professor of Italian Studies, Vice-Chair of French and Italian, University of California, Santa Barbara.

ww Meet Sabato “Sam” Rodia

An Italian immigrant, a tilesetter, and an artist Born in Serino in the Avellino province, Rodia immigrated to America in the mid-1890s, settling first in Pennsylvania, then in California. He worked in mines, rock quarries, logging and railroad camps, and as a tile setter. Although not an artist by traing, in 1921 he purchased a small triangular lot in Watts, California, and started a three decades-long assemblage art project which he called “Nuestro Pueblo” (Our Town) and is now widely known as the Watts Towers, both a Los Angeles and a National landmark.

Laboring alone using simple tools Rodia erected a series of spires made of steel girders, wire mesh, and concrete, and decorated them with fragments of broken bottles, ceramic tiles, seashells, figurines, mirrors that he gathered from the streets. The tallest of these 17 interconnected www.i-Italy.org

sculptural structures was nearly 100-feet high.

Rodia completed his towers in 1954, and shortly afterwards moved to Martinez, California, where he lived, until his death in 1965, never having returned to his monument.

Meanwhile he was being discovered by the art world. He was honored with standing ovations at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and University of California, Berkeley in 1961. The Watts Towers were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and designated a National Historic Landmark and a California Historical Landmark in 1990.

For more see Luisa Del Giudice (ed.), Sabato Rodia’s Towers in Watts. Art, Migrations, Development, New York, Fordham University Press, 2014.

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ww AN ITALIAN/AMERICAN DEBATE

Columbus ‘the Man’ and ‘the Day’ In mid September a group of scholars and public intellectuals created a blog in support of their call for “a new politics of memory inspired by the very values Italians mistakenly attached to the figure of Columbus.”

Although we are not necessarily endorsing their positions, we believe the text merits attention and invite our readers to engage with its authors at nocolumbusday.wordpress.com

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Over four million Italian men, women, and children immigrated to the United States during the period of mass migration. The experiences, labor, and culture of these immigrants and their descendants has frequently been disparaged or simply ignored in larger historical narratives and by consumer culture. We believe these peoples’ histories and their evolving culture might be better remembered, understood and commemorated through means other than Columbus Day. We speak as scholars of Italian and Italian American culture and history who have attempted collectively and carefully to examine this question from several different perspectives.

We invite you to consider our reasons for seeking to replace Columbus ‘the man’ as a figure of self-identification for Italian Americans, and to abolish Columbus Day as a federal holiday, but also to engage with us by leaving your comments on our blog nocolumbusday.wordpress.com.

Columbus ‘the Man’

The historical jury on the first Viceroy and Governor of the West Indies, Admiral Cristoforo Colombo, is no longer out. Thanks to the work of several historians over the past two decades—and including the publication of thirteen volumes of 32 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

documents and contemporaneous writings — Columbus can be credited with having been the first white European, not to “discover” a land that was known for centuries and inhabited by civilizations, but rather, to initiate specific and legacy-filled practices leading to enormous and centuries-long sufferings for indigenous people of the Americas: a) He claimed possession of a land and named it Hispaniola on behalf of a distant and absent King, establishing a precedent that would be followed by all European colonizers thereafter; b) He took native peoples captive and shipped them to Europe into slavery; c) He instituted the encomienda system of forced-labor that brought thousands of Spaniards to the New World to brutally exploit Native Americans, which was then exported by other conquistadores throughout Latin America, and is considered by most historians to be one of the principal causes for the brutalization of the indigenous populations of the Americas, and for their dying in ever greater numbers under the ravaging consequences of contact with the Europeans.

Like any man in any age, Columbus surely had positive aspects to his moral compass. Some of his writings reveal moments of great sympathy for the individuals, those “savages,” he ruled over.

For sure, he was an exceptional sailor, and he may have been a pleasant companion, generous with his friends, and possessed any number of apparently good qualities. But none of these personality

traits or talents can be made to count as “historical legacy.” They provided real-life elements for his hagiography and the mythmaking activity that surrounded his figure for centuries, but they cannot be made to stand next to the record of his actions as Governor of the West Indies and their short- and long-term consequences.

To all those who claim that Columbus was just a “man of his times and should not be judged by the standards of today,” the answer we give is straight forward: Bartolomè de Las Casas and Michel de Montaigne were also men of Columbus’ times, and both were horrified by the treatment of Native Americans by Columbus and his followers.

And to those who say that it was not Columbus, but the Spanish who were the “ferocious conquistadores,” one need only offer Columbus’ least famous words upon setting eyes on the inhabitants of Hispaniola: “with fifty men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished;” or refer to the new evidence, uncovered in 2006, of the trial for “cruelty” that the Spanish Crown instituted against Columbus, and which led to his deposition as Governor of the West Indies.

Last but not least, to those who defend Columbus, the man, and Columbus Day, the holiday, on the basis of their “cultural reference” to the so called “Columbian Exchange” of things, people, and cultures, between the New and the Old Worlds, we respond that this cultural exchange has very little—if anything—to do with the historical figure of Viceroy Columbus, and that the www.i-Italy.org

Ancient representations of the landing of Columbus and his crew

very name “Columbian” attached to this exchange is evidence of the myth-making activity that has been ongoing for centuries, in order to mask the colonialist roots of the tale of Columbus’ “discovery of the Americas.”

Columbus ‘the Day’

Congress has never decreed Columbus Day as an official day for Italian Americans, and it was not even made a federal holiday until 1968. Nevertheless, over time and through much politicking, an association between Italian Americans and Columbus has been passed off as “real” and the holiday has long come to be celebrated as a day honoring Italian Americans alone. For example, just recently, while replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day as a city holiday, the City of Los Angeles also decreed October 12 “Italian Heritage Day.” The “discovery” date of October 12, and the figure of Columbus, were unofficially commemorated for the first time in 1792, before Italians ever emigrated en masse to the United States of America, and, therefore, initially, the date had nothing to do with them, because Italy was not even a nation. This celebration initiated the process of making Columbus a symbol of the European “spirit of adventure,” of Europeans’ claims to the “discovery” of the “New World,” and their right to “civilize” it. By the 1860s however, around the time Italy became a nation, a sizable, and mainly laboring class of Italians began settling in North www.i-Italy.org

America. Starting in 1866, in New York, these Italian immigrants and their families began to accept this colonial narrative by associating the commemoration of Columbus’ Discovery of America with the celebration of the contribution of Italian Americans to this nation. This acceptance occurred in great part because of the success of prominenti, self-defined community leaders, many who in various ways enhanced their own economic status by taking advantage of this laboring class of Italians, and who “often acted as ethnic brokers between Italians and the dominant society.” Prominenti, especially in cities and towns in the North East, encouraged the celebration of Columbus, soliciting funds for the statues and monuments of Columbus and other notable Italians (e.g., Dante Alighieri, Giuseppe Verdi) with appeals to the working poor.

The connection between Columbus Day and white European identity was key to Italians in the United States, precisely because their status as “whites” was challenged by both the failures of mainland Italians as imperialist colonizers of Africa (Adwa 1896), and by the unprecedented influx of poor and under-educated Italians from the South, which marked all Italian immigrants as racially different (i.e. inferior) from NorthernWhite-Aryan Europeans. Italian American community leaders reacted by seeking to appropriate the “heroic” legacy of Columbus for the community itself. By 1907, Colorado was the first state to declare Columbus Day a state holiday, and, over the next three decades, forty states would institute Columbus Day celebrations. Finally, three decades later, in 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the first federal observance of Columbus Day, to honor, as he proclaimed three years later, “the courage and the faith and the vision of the Genoese navigator,” which: “glorify and enrich the drama of the early movement of European people to America. Columbus and his fellow voyagers were the harbingers of later mighty movements of people from Spain, from Columbus’s native Italy and from every country in Europe. And out of the fusion of all these national strains was created the America to which the Old World contributed so magnificently.”

Roosevelt’s statement rhetorically connected three different moments: Columbus’ sixteenthcentury voyages, the contributions of late nineteenth-century Italian (and other European) immigrants, and the creation of the United States from the traditions of Europe. Roosevelt’s confirmation of a specific national day to recognize Columbus came about in great part due to the pressure mounted by groups such as the Knights of Columbus, as well as individuals such as the newspaper editor and businessman, Generoso Pope. In hindsight, such pressure is entirely comprehensible, as a way to gain recognition for

all Italians as fully “white,” and to validate their contributions to this nation. At the same time, Roosevelt’s decision may have had as much to do with a feeling of retributive justice towards Italian immigrants, as with calculations on how to further the assimilation of Italians, and perhaps distract them from their growing identification with Fascist Italy. These relationships—which were foundational to the creation of the holiday—point precisely to the problematic origin of Columbus Day, because as they suggest some of the ways that Italian Americans were in some sense sold a bill of goods. In time, however, the disturbing connections between whitewashed colonial history, and the racist treatment of Italian immigrants as not fully white (or racially ambiguous), were buried under the increasing identification of Columbus Day with the contributions of “all immigrants” to American history, which is the motivation by which Columbus Day was finally established as legal federal holiday in 1968.

Over the past four decades, however, the number of states choosing to observe Columbus Day as a paid holiday has diminished to just twenty-three. By the same token, Columbus Day is no longer identified as a celebration of all immigrants, but of Italian Americans only, and regularly defended only by some leaders of this community. Most significantly, we can also trace a quiet but growing disregard for the holiday among many Italian Americans, even as other Italian Americans remain the only recognizable group to support it.

Today, in 2017, the social and economic position of Italian Americans is markedly changed.

Do Italian Americans still suffer from the sting of white-on-white racism, as they did in the past?

Do they still need a federally-mandated holiday in order to celebrate their contributions to the success of America? But, most importantly, as a community, do Italian Americans wish to remain attached to a holiday and a historical figure so clearly linked to genocide, colonialism, and white-washed memory?

We are concerned that many within the Italian American community have failed to see the subtle racism of this reasoning. Just because earlier generations of Italians’ racial identity was questioned, it does not make contemporary Italian Americans innocent of the privilege inscribed at the heart of Columbus Day. We instead seek a recognition of the struggles and continued suffering of others, and we reject this implicitly special association with the white majority, especially in times in which racism, ultra nationalism, and fascist-style ww rhetoric are again rearing their ugly head.

This text has been authored collectively by Luisa Del Giudice, Claudio Fogu, Laura E. Ruberto, Joseph Sciorra, and Geoffrey Symcox.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 33

A scene from Aging Magician, co-created by writer and performer Rinde Eckert, composer Paola Prestini, and director and designer Julian Crouch Photo: Jill Steinberg

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ww A WOMAN WHO’S NEVER AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT

Paola Prestini-A Vision Into Art

Founder of VisionIntoArt, a New York interdisciplinary art company, Paola Prestini is also the Creative Director of National Sawdust, a non-profit venue with the mission of being a platform for contemporary artists.

We met Paola and talked about her career and her experience with National Sawdust.

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by Tommaso Cartia

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On Wednesday August 30, 2017, the City CouPaola Prestini has lived a life full of different cultural experiences and is always driven by the desire for discovery and the thrill of the journey. Born in the Northern Italian region of Trentino Alto-Adige, as a child she immigrated with her family to Nogales, a town on the Arizona-Mexico border. Her diversified ethnic experiences blended with a passion for music Paola had since an early age. So a very peculiar artist was born, one who, although classically trained, has never been afraid to experiment with different musical influences.

A union of opposites is not just a philosophy Paola channels when she creates music, but it’s the lifestyle that shapes her professional and personal life. The composer is always very attent in creating union and in promoting artistic integrity.

This is the philosophy behind VisionIntoArt, the non-profit Paola founded in 1999 while she was studying composition at Julliard.

Paola was then faced with an even bigger challenge: to establish a platform in New York

where emerging artists can share their visions and experiment in front of the public. National Sawdust was created to be that platform, giving performers the chance to make their raw talent flourish into established carriers. Prestini, Creative Director of the theater, was able to realize her dream in National Sawdust thanks to a rich task force of talent behind the scenes. From Jean Pierre Chesse, President of the National Sawdust Board; Rick D’Avino, President Emeritus; and Kevin Dolan, Founder and Chair; to some of the most exceptional contemporary artists that form the Artistic Advisory Board, like Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Renée Fleming, Helena Christensen, and Suzanne Vega, to name a few.

We had the chance to talk to Paola about her ties with Italy, what inspires her to write music, and the National Sawdust.

How and and when did you discover your passion for music?

I was born in Trento, Italy, and immigrated to the Arizona/Mexican border town of Nogales at www.i-Italy.org

Left: Paola Prestini. Rigth: At the National Sawdust Spring 2017 Gala Photo via nationalsawdust.org

ww I strive to stay ahead of the curve, and I am tremendously interested in nurturing new talent. As a composer, I believe the role of an artist in the 21st century should be that of creator, educator, performer, and entrepreneur. a young age. I still return every year to the Dolomites where my mother still resides part of the year. My father is a leading musical instrument maker who is still based in Nogales. I was raised in a culture steeped in song. I came to composing early and now create music that takes the listener on a journey through different life experiences, creating an aural and visual map of the different countries and cultures that have inspired me.

Take us through your composing process...

When I write, I am in a state of flow: I often cannot remember the details of writing. It is as if all the years of experience come together to transport me through the process of expressing the cumulative inspirational sources into the musical concept at hand. My works are often inspired by literature or my different disciplines. My last work was Aging Magician, which opened at the New Victory Theater on Broadway. Another work, The Hubble Cantata, will go to the LA Opera and the Kennedy Center and is a collaboration with an astrophysicist.

Your music takes inspiration from different countries. In these terms, what is your specific tie with Italy?

One of my favorite works is an opera called Oceanic Verses, which began as a Carnegie Hall commission—a chamber work that painted a picture of Italy as it once was. By researching the Salento region of Puglia, which maintains many ancient traditions and still speaks a nearly forgotten language, I created a work that illuminated the complex ethnic mosaic that has shaped my cultural heritage. The story was derived from the text of the songs I chose laced with poems from a variety of Italian poets, such as Vittoria Colonna, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Dante Alighieri, and Aleardo Aleardi. www.i-Italy.org

Beyond composing and being an artist, how important it is for you to be a mentor for the future generation of artists?

My love of the artistic and executive process is in bringing disparate voices together and allowing the synergy that emerges to grow. I have brought this inclusive vision to all of my curating with a focus on new music and interdisciplinary art. I am unswayed by trends and yet excited by all voices; I strive to stay ahead of the curve, and I am tremendously interested in nurturing new talent. As a composer, I believe the role of an artist in the 21st century should be that of creator, educator, performer, and entrepreneur.

Tell us about National Sawdust. What is its mission, and what type of performances can we experience there?

National Sawdust (NS), is a unique space founded with an expansive vision: to provide composers and musicians across genres a home where they can flourish and share their work. We also believe the future of new art lives in education.

We define education broadly. At NS, our advisory board and curators participate by giving us their discoveries according to their tastes and diverse disciplines. You can see FLEXN dancers on one night, the punk rock activist group Pussy Riot on another, and opera on yet another!

What are your future plans both artistically and as the creative director of NS? My plans are to continue writing opera—I have a new one with Robert Wilson—and to continue to refine my interdisciplinary language. For NS, I plan to expand our brand through franchising ww eventually!

ww At its Spring 2017 Gala

National Sawdust Enters Its Second Year of Activity Esteemed philanthropists such as Ann Ziff, Daisy Soros and Alberto Cribiore came together with art world luminaries including Marina Abramovic, Karen Wong, and Nicola Vassal to launch National Sawdust into its second full year. Several artists performed at the event, from Kinan Azmeh, recently profiled on NBC to discuss the travel ban, to Grammynominated singer and spokesperson for UN Women, Magos Herrera. “All of the artists who performed represented the rich and diverse community that makes New York so special,” Paola Prestini told us.

“They helped raise the National Sawdust’s profile and strengthen our residency program.” The values anchored in this young, dynamic non-profit organization were supported by the icons of the music world, from celebrated composer Philip Glass and founding member of Talking Heads, David Byrne, to the renowned soprano Renée Fleming.

Julianne Moore spoke about her upcoming movie Bel Canto, for which she spent hours observing Fleming in rehearsal to prepare for her role as a diva — Renée is also voicing the character for the film.

David Byrne spoke about his relationship with Philip Glass and the importance of breaking down musical barriers, while Fleming emphasized the importance of championing women in the field. In a true representation of the types of unexpected collaborations that National Sawdust curates, the gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello joined forces with the Brooklyn rapper Latasha Alcindor in a lively finale to the gala.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 35

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ww ENERGY EDUCATION

The End of Coal, the Rise of Natural Gas In August, the Italian energy giant ENI announced the discovery of potentially the world’s largest naturalgas field off the Egyptian coast. Luca Longo explains why the most sustainable choice, to protect our planet and fight climate change is to use natural gas.

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by Luca Longo

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Every year we consume more than 24 PWh of electricity: 24,000,000,000,000,000 Wh/year, in other words, the energy that would be used by a million billion 24W energy-saving bulbs kept on for an hour. To be clear, it is as if every one of the seven and a half billion human beings on the planet kept 15 24 W light bulbs on all day and night for the whole year. Twothirds of this enormous quantity of electricity that we consume comes from fossil fuels, 10.7% from nuclear power, and 23.9% from renewable sources. Even though world averages don’t provide a very useful picture, ranging from France, which gets 75% from its nuclear power plants, to China, which uses coal for 78%, and Norway, which derives 98% of its electricity from hydro.

But let’s look in more detail at the three sources used to generate electricity: • Among renewable sources the lion’s share is currently taken up by hydroelectric turbines (16.6%). Followed by wind (3.7%) and biofuels

(2.0%, mostly first generation). At the bottom of the list there is solar photovoltaic (1.2%), while thermal solar (CSP), geothermal, tides and waves combined make up for the remaining 0.4% of the 23.9% total share of renewables. We still need to invest in research because the most technologically advanced sources (photovoltaic, biofuel, tides, wind, …) have to replace the less efficient ones we have been using for hundreds of years.

• It is expected that there will be a downsizing of nuclear energy. This is mainly for political reasons, rather than serious technical issues related to plant safety or environmental protection (it is, in fact, an entirely fossil source, but is among those available it has one of the lowest levels of environmental impact).

• In order to meet the growing demand for electricity, today and in the immediate future, we will have to continue to rely mainly on fossil fuels. Currently, coal, gas and oil account for 40.8%, 21.6% and 4.3% respectively of electricity generation. And, returning to the example above, four in ten electric light bulbs operate on coal, two on gas, a half on oil, one uses atomic fission, two on water, while the last half bulb is powered by a mix of all the remaining renewable sources.

Substantially 66,7% of electric energy global production (equal to 15,9 PWh) is made from fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil). These energy sources, in soild, liquid or gaseous forms, are burnt and turned into heat. This evaporates water and creates high pressure steam that drives turbines which, in turn, are connected to a generator that generates electricity. In modern installations, this transformation of the chemical bond energy stored in the fuel into thermal energy, and then into mechanical energy and finally into electricity, has an overall efficiency of about 40%. This means that 60% (or more) of the energy is dispersed in the environment, mainly as heat. The most virtuous plants try to reuse part www.i-Italy.org

Infographics, left t0 right: 1. Where electricity comes from: Between fossil and renewable sources how 10 light bulbs are powered. 2. Renewables used to produce energy. 3. Weighted average efficiency of thermoelectric plants.

of this heat for preheating incoming streams or for the heating of surrounding facilities or homes. While coal and fuel oil plants have a yield of around 40%, and technological development has enabled combined cycle gas systems to reach yields of up to 55%.

Another important consideration is that fossil fuels are not pure substances but contain variable amounts of other elements and compounds that turn into particulates, fumes or gas when burned. The same combustion process can produce toxic compounds. Even at the extraction phase, coal is a particularly dirty fuel compared to others. The pollution produced by prospecting, drilling and oil and gas extraction impacts much less on the environment than the open or underground mines needed to extract coal.

Moreover, the health of mine workers is much more at risk, both at depth and in the vicinity of mines, than that of oil and gas well technicians.

In addition, all fossil fuels burn by oxidising carbon and producing carbon dioxide. While the various forms of coal produce from 350 to over 400 grams of CO2 per kWh, fuel oil produces emissions of between 240 and 260 g/kWh and natural gas stops at just 200 g/kWh. In fact, CO2 is the main cause of the greenhouse effect and global warming. The main advantage in the use of gas rather than coal for the production of electricity is precisely this: while the chemical energy contained in coal is in the carbon-carbon chemical bond, in gas it is stored in the carbonhydrogen bond. To release the energy trapped in these fuels millions of years ago, both the carbon – which produces CO2 – and the hydrogen – which produces H2O water vapour – must be completely oxidised. This is why, for the same amount of energy produced, the complete combustion of natural gas produces about half of the CO2 produced by burning coal. Consequently, replacing coal-fired thermoelectric power plants with gas could save up to half of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, with obvious www.i-Italy.org

ww Coal is a dirty fuel. It is dirty when it is extracted, dirty when it burns and dirty when you have to treat the dust it produces.

Its only value is that it costs less. So, what can we do? we need to invest more in the research and development of renewable sources, and, on the other hand, use gas as a “bridge” towards a low carbon future. benefits in terms of global warming.

It is not easy to compare the average cost of electricity from different sources. In addition to the variable costs of raw materials, the costs of building and managing more or less advanced, more or less efficient and more or less polluting plants has also to be considered. A Fraunhofer ISE study shows that in Germany the cost of one MWh of electricity ranges (in euro) from 63 to 80 using coal to 75-98 for combined cycle gas systems. In the United States, the EIA estimates a cost of $95/MWh for coal and $75/MWh for gas. But if carbon capture and storage systems are installed, the costs rise to $144 and $100 $/MWh respectively. Despite lower costs, it is

clear that the less attention paid to purifying fuels and breaking down fumes – the more polluting plants will be are.

This is why less developed countries that are less aware of the risks of global warming tend to prefer coal-fired plants built without such scruples. The consequences have been obvious, for example, to the Chinese government after another consecutive Beijing winter was invaded by a level of smog that made it impossible to see more than a few metres and made the airports unusable. The Chinese Centre for Prevention and Control on PM10 published, in the British Medical Journal, an estimate of 1.2 million deaths attributable to particulate matter in just one year.

In conclusion, coal is a dirty fuel. It is dirty when it is extracted, dirty when it burns and dirty when you have to treat the dust it produces.

Its only value is that it costs less. So, what can we do? Since it is not possible to replace it directly with green energy sources, we need, on the one hand, to invest more in the research and development of renewable sources, and, on the other hand, use gas as a “bridge” towards a low carbon future. But, how? For example, stepping up the progressive replacement of coal and gas fired power plants would be a decisive step forward in the decarbonisation process and environmental protection requirements set out in the Paris climate agreement that has already been ratified by 195 countries.

Moreover, in the future, it will be possible to use modern gas-fire power stations in conjunction with renewable energy to offset seasonal and daily fluctuations in the energy demand with changes in the production of energy from ww renewable sources.

Reprinted with permission from the energy webzine Eniday.com, a communication project of the Italian Oil and Gas company ENI

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 37

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The wildly popular American womens’ monthly McCall’s featuring Krizia on its covers in 1980.

ww A Trip in Time to Italy’s Fashion Hubs / 2

The Prêt-à-Porter Revolution: How Milan Overtook Rome As Italy’s Fashion Capital From Florence on down, craftsmanship reigns. Up north is the reign of finance, industry, and media, with Milan at the helm. And at the center presides Rome, like a classy patrician, the ancient capital of Italian couture.

Leading us on this first installment of a multipart trip to the heart of Made in Italy is a doyen of the fashion world.

by Stefano Dominella

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On the first leg of our journey through the history of Italian fashion, we covered the major capital of haute couture. Rome in the 1950s and ’60s. Rome and its pioneering designers like the Fontana sisters, Gattinoni, and Emilio Schubert. It was also the heyday of Cinecittà, aka “Hollywood on the Tiber,” the set where Italian-style dreams were manufactured. Abroad and at home, Rome represented the collective image of Italy.

We last left off at the end of the 1970s, as the power of Rome was beginning to wane, and Rome’s historic rival—Milan—was already on the rise. Rome, as we mentioned, is like an old aristocratic lady pining after an era of tailor-made, handsewn apparel that only the rich could afford. Milan on the other hand is an ambitious, modern, middle class girl, the manifestation of a market-driven age, an age domi-

www.i-Italy.org

nated by industrialscale production even of luxury items. The age of prêt-à-porter.

We’ll pick up the story there.

Rome-Milan

In the 1980s, as mass tourism was starting to replace elite tourism in Rome, the international city of luxury shopping began to decline. Rome remained anchored to haute couture and consequently lost out to modernity. The victor was Milan, home of prêt-à-porter. However, Rome was slow to realize the impending crisis because there stll continued to be a certain market for couture fashion, where one single dress could fetch ten million lire ($15,000 today).

But the truth is that such prices couldn’t compete with the sales volume of the new prêt-à-porter leaders, who in the same stretch of time could churn out thirty dresses that would sell for just a fraction of that

ww Meet the author

Haute Couture Professional and Manager Stefano Dominella is the President of Maison Gattinoni Couture, and past president of Alta Roma. He chairs the Textiles, Attire, Fashion and Accessories Department at Unindustria; and is member of the Scientific & Organizational Committee for the Archives of 20th c. Fashion Project sponsored by the Italian Cultural Heritage Authority. He is the Technical Director of the Istituto Modartech of Pontedera, and teaches several courses in fashion, design studies and marketing strategy in Italian universities, includig the European Design Institute, the

Italian Academy of Rome and Florence, and the Accademia del Lusso in Rome and Milan; he is the Director of the Master’s Program in Luxury and Fashion Management at the Link Campus University of Rome.

Stefano Dominella is also a television host on Italy’s public television RAI and has designed and directed several exhibitions, including Elegenza del Cibo: Tales about Food and Fashion for Expo 2015, which debuted in Rome and was later presented in Milan, Hanoi ,and New York.

For more information visit: www.stefanodominella.com Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 39

style one. The Romans weren’t equipped for such a high production volume— neither psychologically nor commercially. In Rome and Lazio there are no big fashion companies, but old-style taylors and artisans who also work for the most important brands of Made in Italy, which usually go to the fashion shows in Milan and Paris.

In Northern Italy the situation was the complete opposite as far back as the early 1970s, when the National Chamber of Fashion sensed the importance of ready-towear shows, and Milano Collezioni Donna wagered on three talented unknowns: Armani, Krizia, and Versace. This trio of young cuttingedge stylists would use prêt-à-porter to launch the Made in Italy myth across the globe.

International and industrial

Behind these developments was the growth in the north of a genuine industry. In Como and Biella there are the silk and wool districts.

In Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont, Tuscany and Veneto, thousands of manufacturing companies took advantage of satellite activities, producing accessories, zippers, and buttons, as well as the manufacturing machines themselves. The industry’s great insight was to fold these small companies of specialist craftspeople into one large stylistic and commercial enterprise. It signaled both a shift in attitude and an enormous jump in sales. In the face of this development, the Italian textile industry snubbed high couture and embraced prêt-à-porter. And that changed everything.

Naturally, this change came from abroad, and the United States played an important role. In the US, prêt-à-porter had emerged in the 1970s and exploded commercially in the 1980s, when major department stores like Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s and Saks landed in Milan to acquire the rights to Albini, Armani, and Versace. The one to recognize this development early on was the Rivetti brothers’ Gruppo Finanzario Tessile (GFT), which was then collaborating with emerging designers like Armani and 40 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

Time’s covers clockwise: Coco Roca wearing Prada (2007); Giorgio Armani’s portrait (1982); Claudia Schiffer wearing Versace (1995)

ww In the 1970s three talented unknowns: Armani, Krizia, and Versace, wagered on prêt-à-porter to launch the Made in Italy myth in the world.

Valentino, and, in France, Ungaro.

There’s a reason I bring up the French. In those years, the same shift toward prêt-à-porter fashion was happening in France. However, France’s manufacturing and textile industry was not as advanced as Italy’s. So in Paris, new names, like Jean-Paul Gautier, and old, like Chanel and Dior, came to Italy to buy textile materials and accessories. The relationship between French and Italian fashion is storied and complicated, as we shall see.

The Birth of the Fashion Entrepreneur

The “young lions” in Milan represented a new figure. Two actually.

The traditional creator/designer who works alone like a sophisticated craftsman or artist and serves a small and affluent clientele was now paired with another figure, the entrepreneur, who sees fashion becoming a viable international mar-

ket capable of bringing in billions of sales and producing in bulk. The entrepreneur was a new person, distinct from the designer. For Gianni Versace, it was his brother Santo.

For Krizia, Gigi Monti. Armani is a rather rare breed, since after the death of his longtime partner Sergio Galeotti and later the president of

GFT Marco Rivetti, he did everything himself.

The fashion entrepreneur is a symbolic figure of the new way of doing things: the man who understands that Italian stylists are mature enough to occupy their own corners in New York’s department stores, and who will later go on to www.i-Italy.org

Hollywood and Italian fashion, clockwise: American Gigolo (1980) and The Untouchables (1990) are dominated by Armani; the iconic shopping scene in Pretty Woman (1990) kates place in a Versace store; Anna Hattaway refashioning her look in The Devi Wears Prada (2003). a status hitherto unknown to photographers. Richard Avedon, Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplethorpe, and later Giovanni Gastel and Mario Testino, produced artful images that added significant value to the evolution of fashion.

However, the power of these artists’ images were rooted in their ability to absorb and reiterate in a modern key the principal message of the cultural revolution from two decades prior: provocation. It was a young, anti-conformist, anti-establishment zeal that had arisen in America and England in the early ’60s and exploded in Europe in 1968, particularly in France and Italy, and explicitly in Paris and Milan.

Everything “old” was mocked.

There were two key symbols: men hung up their ties and women showed off their legs. A decade later, fashion and marketing would appropriate that provocative aesthetic and turn it into a commercial instrument.

The Role of Movies

ww Hollywood had gone back to LA. Neither Rome nor Milan supplied the sets. But Italian fashion played a leading role. sell their own brands in flagship stores on Fifth Avenue. Krizia was the first to arrive in New York. Others followed soon after. Among the pioneers was Benetton. Though not a luxury brand, it was the first to earn billions of dollars through direct sales.

Thanks to this new entrepreneur, www.i-Italy.org

in the 1980s Italy discovered that fashion could produced nine-figure earnings

The importance of marketing

That the change was also cultural was reflected in the new role of marketing.

While Vogue began to pre-

fer prêt-à-porter to high fashion, emerging designers began to rely on nascent marketing offices. Just think of the role Rudi and Consuelo Crespi played in promoting Krizia and Versace.

There were also major photographers emerging who saw fashion photography as a new way to attain

The great movie directors didn’t really embrace fashion. They would rather create high impact commercials for companies that produced perfumes. But then came a special type of director: the fashion show director. Amid the major changes in the 1980s, fashion became spectacle, and here the precursors were Sandro Massimini, and Alberto Garbati, who for over a decade had enlivened the runways of Milan, New York, and Tokyo. To think that before then there wasn’t even music on the catwalk!

In any case, the relationship between movies and fashion was still strong. Actually stronger than before. Even if things had changed a lot since the age of “Hollywood on the Tiber.” Hollywood had gone back to Los Angeles. Neither Rome nor Milan supplied the sets. But Italian fashion played a leading role.

For example, American Gigolo (1980) is an apologia of the “Made in Italy” brand. A boyish Richard Gere sports Italian clothes exclusively and Armani specifically. Yet it was The Untouchables (1987) that cemented Armani’s reputation in Hollywood.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 41

Provocative images, clockwise: Helmut Newton for Versace; Mario Testino for Furla and Gucci

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The entire cast of Brian De Palma’s epic wears Armani. When Julia Roberts goes shopping in Beverly Hills in Pretty Woman (1990), the scene is shot in a Versace store.

More recently, product placements were so prominent as to even appear in the title of The Devil Wears Prada (2003).

The “Made in Italy” industry blew up in the 1980s and ’90s, “spectacularizing” and democratizing tastes, not in the sense of creating a homogenous mass, but in the sense of making beautiful high quality objects affordable for many people—a lot more than in Rome’s heyday.

The Challenge of “Organizing”

At the same time these developments were happening, Italian institutions began to sense the need to better coordinate and organize the Italian industry’s rise abroad.

For example, there was the Istituto per il commercio estero (ICE) created in 1926 and now better known in the US as the Italian Trade Agency (ITA). But—paradoxically, considering the enormous growth of the sector—these developments had little effect on fashion. There were few public contributions for the sector.

Italy didn’t “organize,” our industry remained anchored in family traditions (and sizes) — 42 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

ww We also have to consider the role of the Internet. When an Italian label dresses an actress who wins an Oscar, it blows up on Instagram The Internet could save “Made in Italy.” and the Italian entrepreneurial “family” didn’t have the ability to make the jump to the international dimension. It didn’t have the same economic power as the great luxury groups that are found in France.

The country that did adapt to the need to organize was in fact France, as attested to by the birth of large private luxury groups. That explains why the French bought many Italian labels: Fendi, Bulgari, Gucci, Loro Piana, Emilio Pucci...

There are few Italian brands still based in Italy. Armani, Ferragamo, Dolce & Gabbana.

Long Live the Made in Italy— on the Internet

After Rome and Milan, did the capital of Italian fashion transfer to Paris?

Not exactly. First of all, the French are, fortunately, savvy businessmen and leave Italian brands in the hands of Italian artists, Italian offices, Italian CEOs, and Italian manufacturers. The French understand the commercial importance of italianità, and they emphasize it. Trusting in the added value of the “Made in Italy” brand, they don’t try to frenchify it.

So “Made in Italy” endures. In fact it’s a successful brand all over the world, independent of its ownership.

We also have to consider the role of the Internet. This can be seen spectacularly in the US. When an Italian label dresses an actress who wins an Oscar, it blows up on Instagram! In the US, there’s a lot of retail on the Internet, including fashion. And there is still a large middle class willing to spend a little more for an Italian image. For a young American manager, placing your Prada computer case on the conference room table is making a statement of your status.

So, will the Internet save “Made in Italy”? Sounds like a good subww ject for the next installment. www.i-Italy.org

Mauro Porcini and Maria Teresa Cometto at the Italian Cultural Institute

ww Innovative Italian Leaders at the Cultural Institute of NEW YORK

Designing in a Globalized World Recently, Mauro Porcini, Chief Design Officer of PepsiCo, Inc. talked with journalist Maria Teresa Cometto as part of the series, “The excellence of Italian human capital and personal success stories” held at the Italian Cultural Institute of New York.

by Maria Teresa Cometto

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The complete conversation, curated by i-ItalyTV, is available at www.i-Italy.org. The excerpts here have been edited slightly for publication.

What’s your job as Chief Design Officer for PepsiCo?

It is a new job that didn’t exist before I joined the company but it does exist in a few corporations.

The reason is because we live in a world that is radically changing.

Essentially, these big corporations don’t just compete with other big corporations anymore but with a series of new startups that arrive from everywhere. So a corporation needs to figure out how to innovate in a different way and how to build brands in a different way-this is where design plays a very important role. In the past, it was all about building those amazing campaigns every year but you need to activate those brands every day in a variety of different ways. So it is about creating new products, new packaging, new experiences in retail, hospitality, and on the street.

Can you talk about something that you created? www.i-Italy.org

ww Who’s Who Mauro Porcini joined PepsiCo in 2012 as the company’s first Chief Design Officer. Through innovative design, Porcini has revitalized PepsiCo’s image in pop culture with new products, packaging, advertising, and social media. His fresh new approach also touches such PepsiCo brands as Gatorade, Tropicana, Doritos, and others.

Maria Teresa Cometto is an Italian journalist and award-winning author based in New York City. For the past 17 years, she has been covering business, finance, and high-tech for Corriere della Sera, the leading Italian newspaper.

When I joined Pepsi we kept the logo because it was redesigned a few years earlier but we completely redesigned the identity system.

There were different colors and a different presence on the store shelf. A second project we did right away and one that has been extremely successful is our design for dispensers. Essentially, when you go to a fast food restaurant, you put your cup under a machine to get your drink, what we call a fountain in America. We redesigned this machine by adding intelligence to it. The new machine - we call it Pepsi® Spire - has a screen that could range in size from an iPad up to the size of a big television.

You select your drink, then select the different flavors, and you can completely customize the drink. We added real-time information about what kind of drinks people at the fountain are creating, and it’s all sent to our innovation teams who will make the drinks of the future.

Let’s go back to the origin. You are from Varese, right? I was wondering if that is why you Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 43

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From “The Pulse of New Talent” collection (2014), a partnership between Pepsi and Vogue Italia to showcase emerging global talent, such as Masha Reva shown here.

ww The dream of the designer is to do something amazing for people. I usually say we are people in love with people. We want to create something cool that surprises people, something they can fall in love with.

have so many shoes—I read a few years ago that you have a hundred pairs.

Well I don’t count them anymore, but probably between 200 to 250.

I thought I was collecting shoes but collecting is the wrong word because I just buy them and then they happen to accumulate. I was looking at my wardrobe and I have hundreds of all of those things like jackets and trousers. I just buy.

I love clothing but then if you come to my house, you’ll see that I collect other stuff too. I am just a curious person who likes to buy and discover things. The idea of discovery is something that is part of me so shoes are just a part of who I am. It’s probably the most physical part of my clothing because as a man, you can be a little bit more extreme on the shoes, more so than other pieces. It’s just part of who I am.

I am obsessed with social media, actually. I am very active on it and my job wouldn’t exist if social media didn’t exist. Or at least it wouldn’t exist as it is today.

Essentially, companies used to build brands by crafting content and communicating top down through TV channels. Today, companies are not the sources of conversation anymore but rather the topic of conversation among people in social media. Companies are are moving from buying their way into the the conversation to earning their place in it.

You once said that a designer is someone who thinks differently—can you elaborate on that?

The dream of the designer is to do something amazing for people. I usually say we are people in love with people. We want to create something cool that surprises people, something they can fall in love with. Eventually, you can make money out of that but that is not what drives us. The dream of the designer is to make something that really changes the world. This is the way a designer thinks.

Because of the global market, social media, and the evolution of technology, there are no longer those entry barriers so your product needs to be as relevant and as competitive as possible. The quality of the product needs to be amazing but also very meaningful for people, and this is why companies are realizing that designers are important because we are there to design with a human centric approach.

You had brilliant career. Did you have any famous mentors?

Yes, I had famous teachers at 44 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

How do you earn this place?

Politecnico of Milan like Andrea Branzi, who is the historian of Italian design. There were many others in Milan, too. One was Stefano Marzano, the head of design

at Philips, who is revolutionizing the design in consumer electronics.

Your are fond of social media.

How do you deal with them?

By being relevant to people and by creating content: the situation is shifting from the marketingdriven approach of building innovation to a more design-driven approach where essentially you need designers to create stuff. To create limited-edition cans, partnerships with celebrities, fashion inspired by the world of Pepsi, amazing experiences in the music world, or innovation with Usain Bolt and Serena Williams for Gatorade.

It’s really about the continuous creation of content in a variety of different ways driven by this changing world, the global world, the inww ternet, and social media. www.i-Italy.org

The “Dotted 1950s.” Audrey Hepburn, Marylin Monroe, and Sophia Loren wearing polka-dots

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ww FASHION TRENDS FOR THE SEASON

Beware: It’s a Polka-Dots-Kind-of-Fall!

Polka dots are not just a spring/summer(ish) pattern, one that can only be linked to bright and candy colors. This year, the major runways from all over the world were giddy with pois embellished dresses and accessories in all forms and shapes – giving this everlasting pattern a whole new fresh take.

by Camilla Santinelli

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Either you’re used to calling them polka dots or pois – there’s no doubt that these funny freckles have been a major presence in fashion for quite a while now, defining new styles and trends each time they are brought into play.

As a synonym of cheerfulness and a guarantee in terms of glamour, they have been and still are being repeatedly interpreted in a variety of ways, always giving fantastic outcomes.

In this sense, both international and Italian designers opted for embracing this trend for the upcoming fall season, proposing it in a different, more autumnal-like key – both in terms of colors and styles.

While in the international scenario names such as Balenciaga and Loewe stand out – among the Italians we find big names as Armani, Dolce e Gabbana, and Giambattista Valli with their haute couture creations, together with more low-key brands that offer more affordable and continuative trendy items that are perfect for everyone and every occasion.

Let’s take a look! ww

www.i-Italy.org

ww Cinema & Fashion

Those Golden ‘Spotted’ Fifties It was the far 1958 and the location one of the most glamorous of all: the Cannes Festival. The lady who is smiling at the camera needs no introduction for sure, as she’s one of the most renowned icons of the Italian cinema, whose acting and style marked an era. In this precious picture, we find a radiant Sophia Loren surrounded by a glimpse of the wonderful French Riviera as an enchanted frame.

1958 was a golden period for her career: it was the year when she signed the contract with Paramount Pictures, which assured her a place in the international stardom scenario. Among her films at this time were Desire Under the Elms with Anthony Perkins, Houseboat – a romantic comedy co-starring Cary Grant – and Heller in Pink Tights.

Loren has always been considered a symbol of Italian femininity and elegance.

Here we see her wrapped up in a delightful pois dress which highlights her Mediterranean beauty and brightens up the general scene at the same time.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 45

Yayoi Kusama, “Dots Obsession” (2011).

World famous Japanese artist Yoyoi Kusama, born in 1929, recreates rooms entirely covered by polka dots which have become her trademark (www. yayoi-kusama.jp)

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Diadora Heritage-Equipe Dots

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pants – or with a black leather sheath skirt, for a bolder look, perfect for the season.

www.diadora.com

The iconic Diadora Heritage shoe has been revisited in this new blend of casual and elegance, specially designed for women who want to be glamour without giving up comfort and practicality. This particular style features a black-and-white canvas and premium leather upper combined with this exquisite polka dots detail for a traditional yet fashionable shoe which is always right on trend.

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Funny legs

Calzedonia ww

www.calzedonia.com

A pop of fun is always necessary, especilly when it’s time to deal with rainy, grey days. Therefore, if you do not already have them in your closet, you’d better go and buy them (there is no excuse).

The traditional Calzedonia pois

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Polka dots all everything

Dolce e Gabbana ww

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Romantic rouches

Giambattista Valli ww

www.giambattistavalli.com

www.dolceegabbana.com

Pois on dresses and accessories are just the brand’s distinguishing feature since… ever. The pattern has been the protagonist of many collections over time and the one we chose is from the latest spring/ summer collection. We know it’s not purposely from a fall collection but look at it: wouldn’t it be great also for a warm October day or paired with a light pair of black collants for when the temperatures begin to drop? The answer is all yours.

46 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

We know you might wonder if this is a spring/summer runway, but it’s not.

For the latest ready-to-wear fall 2017 collection, Giambattista Valli proposed exquisite outfits that perfectly mix together the fresh brightness typical of spring with an autumnal touch. Light chiffons are combined with heavier materials – such as velvet and fur –creating interesting volumes and enchanting appeals. This chiffon ruffled top would be perfect either matched with a light bottom – such as beige

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collants have been slightly renewed – featuring bigger pois and looking nicer than ever. This is just a basic, inevitable accessory that every woman should consider as the starting point of many of her fall/ winter outfits. Don’t you agree? www.i-Italy.org

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ww Ecologically and environmentally friendly

A special atmosphere from the ‘Patterns If anyone has a better idea of autumn Remind’ collection than cozying up indoors, watching a Join Lamp movie or reading a good book while ww www.ecoliving.it sipping a hot brew – raise your hand. We just can’t think of something better.

That’s why our selection of items could not end without a piece of furniture that seems to be created just for this purpose. The table lamps from the ‘Patterns Remind’ collection by Join-Lamp are designed to light up any room with a touch of originality, providing different patterns for every taste. Of course, we could not help but fall in love with this pois one, which is absolutely perfect for the seasonal trend we chose to deal with.

In addition to its exclusive assembly system – which is entirely designed and produced in Italy and protected by an international patent – this lamp is also ecologically and environmentally friendly, as it is made by Priplak, a 100% recyclable material. Available in different sizes and colors, we bet you won’t resist to buying at least one. Aren’t we right?

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Sophisticated pois

Emporio Armani ww

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www.i-Italy.org

www.armani.com

The fall 2017 Emporio Armani runway was a real polka dots tribute.

The Maison proposed sophisticated black and white outfits characterized by a mesmerizing optical component. This outfit is composed by a longuette skirt and a blazer made of thick stretch cotton with contrasting polka dots and concealed buttoning with three decorative buttons that highlight the waistline and show off the silhouette. The foulard around the neck finishes the look, giving a super feminine and sophisticated result.

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Polka dots Love

Twin Set ww

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White dream

Blugirl ww

www.blugirl.it

Overlappings, transparencies, and contrasts create a dreamlike dimension in all the Blugirl fall 2017 collection and in particular in looks like this one. We just love how different materials are combined together, and the proportions these overlappings create. Those subtle pois embroidered on impalpable veil are exquisite, and the contraposition (also in color) the fluid shapes create with the accessories is just brilliant.

www.twinset.com

What’s better than this soft and super-cute Twin Set pashmina to keep you warm during fall’s first chilly evenings? Either you are considering buying it as a present for someone you love or getting it for yourself, you can’t go wrong either way. Perfect for a casual outfit or to brighten-up a more elegant one, these adorable red pois spaced out by tiny hearts on an antique rose base is just the item every girl and woman needs to kick the autumnal season off right.

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Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 47

Bookshelf

48 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

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Domenico Starnone

ww TALKING TO ACCLAIMED ITALIAN AUTHOR DOMENICO STARNONE ABOUT HIS POWERFUL TIES

Is Marriage the Ultimate Bourgeois Trap?

Winner of Italy’s most prestigious literary prize, the Strega, Naples-born writer Domenico Starnone talks about his short, provocative novel Lacci (Ties), translated into English by Pulitzer Prizewinning author Jhumpa Lahiri.

www.i-Italy.org

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Anna Lawton: First of all, congratulations for the American edition of Ties. What was the reaction of the American public?

Domenico Starnone: Hard to tell. It’s got positive reviews, and the readers I met during my tour in March welcomed me warmly.

But this doesn’t mean much. It’s a very “Italian” story, and this may be an obstacle. Although, the pain endured during a family crisis, or when a family gets back together without actually overcoming the crisis, can be felt by anyone. In fact, don’t we in Italy, and in the whole world, read very “American” novels?

The place where a story is born is extremely important, its specific local features are the salt of the story.

To erase them in order to make the

story work everywhere would be a terrible mistake. It is essential that ways of life different from ours possess a heart, and that in their heart beats we can find our own.

AL: The title, Ties, seems to be a metaphor that connotes family relations. As such, it creates a certain ambiguity, because the ties can be done and undone, and perhaps re-

ww Any kind of order is only a lid over disorder. And if the pot starts boiling, the lid pops off…

done. How is this ambiguity rendered in the novel?

DS: The ties figured in the title appear only once in the novel, and they are just shoe ties. When the boy, Sandro, realizes that he is tying his shoes in exactly the same way his father does, the metaphorical ties—the emotional ones—which had been apparently cut off acquire strength. Aldo, the father, comes back home, the family is reunited.

But his return is not a happy one.

My idea was that the metaphorical level can be totally disjointed from reality, and that what seems to be a winner as a metaphor in reality is a flat defeat.

AL: Besides the ties, there is another central metaphor which is exFall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 49

Domenico Starnone signing copies of his latest novel. To his right: writer Jhumpa Lahiri, translator of Ties.

Bookshelf tremely important, also because of its visual impact. It is the devastated apartment. This image saturates about two thirds of the novel and it is described in minute details. Why does it occupy so much space?

DS: It was pointed out to me that most of my stories end up in an apartment. It’s true. Apartments are a rigorously defined space, they give us an impression of order and safety. But in Ties, the order is only an illusion, and if someone brings chaos to the surface the hidden truth comes up from the bottom.

And this does not concern only apartments. Any kind of order is only a lid over disorder. And if the pot starts boiling, the lid pops off.

ww Ties

Domenico Starnone Translated by Jhumpa Lahiri Europa Editions w Pages 144 w $ 16 Ties is the thirteenth work of fiction written by bestselling Italian novelist Domenico Starnone. It’s a powerful short novel about relationships, family, love, and the ineluctable consequences of one’s actions.

Vanda and Aldo’s marriage, like many others, has been subject to strain, to attrition, to the burden of routine. Yet it has survived intact.

Or so things appear. The rupture in their relationship lies years in the past, but if one looks closely enough, the fissures and fault lines are evident: a cracked vase that may shatter at the slightest touch.

Or perhaps it has already shattered, and nobody is willing to acknowledge the fact.

Known as a consummate stylist and beloved as a talented storyteller, Domenico Starnone is the winner of Italy’s most prestigious literary award The Strega. Ties is powerfully translated by Pulitzer Prizewinning author Jhumpa Lahiri.

AL: There is more than one narrator in this story—one may use the term “polyphonic” to describe it.

The narrators are the three main characters, and the reader follows the individual point of view of each as they define ourselves and the other two. Part one is narrated by Vanda, the wife, through the letters that she wrote to her husband. Part two is narrated by the husband.

And part three, by their daughter Anna. Why did you choose this structure?

DS: I thought it was the only possible structure. I thought of the three parts of the novel as self-contained short stories. Wife, husband, children—although they’re a family they gradually grew estranged into separate worlds, and each now has his/her own voice which does not communicate with the others. The reader cannot intertwine those three voices—it’s now impossible to connect them—and therefore he makes them clash. The story is resolved in this clash.

AL: There are some flashbacks to the 1970s and the youth movement that produced the cultural revolution. What is their function in the narrative context?

DS: The references to the 1960s and 1970s tell of the end of the old patriarchal family and the at-

50 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

tempt to create new ways of living together. But the story of Aldo and Vanda ends up in failure, and shows us that we are still in the middle of the ford. We cannot go back. Just like in the devastated apartment, where it’s not only impossible to put the shards back together, but it’s even wrong. At the same time, to live amidst the debris generates suffering, as it happens with the children, Anna and Sandro.

AL: At one point, Aldo justifies leaving the family in political terms: “Marriage is a bourgeois trap. By leaving you, I’m actually setting you free, you and the children.” This line connotes Aldo as an irresponsible person, but it also broadens the issue to the field of social criticism of marriage as an institution. True?

DS: Yes. Marriage is a fundamental institution that throughout history has been experienced as an extremely painful necessity. It’s been wildly criticized, but it’s always come back

ww Marriage is a fundamental institution that throughout history has been experienced as an extremely painful necessity. as good as new. It seems we’re not able to figure out other, less trite, ratifications of love which would also ensure mutual assistance.

AL:In the Nineteenth century and up to Modernism, the novel contained a moral. But then there was a change in literature. The moral became ambiguous, although not absent, and the reader was forced to make his own conclusions. In your novel, the characters/narrators are not very likeable, and cerwww.i-Italy.org

A detail of the painting Dante and Beatrice (1884) by Henry Holiday

tainly not exemplary. Why did you make them this way?

DS: I don’t think a novel must be edifying and the characters likeable. Morals grow old, and what feels upright today it may feel corny tomorrow. Literature has one single task: to tear apart screens, to show what we don’t see or pretend not to see.

AL: We said that Ties deals with family relationships. In your novels the family is a recurrent theme— first in Via Gemito, then in your latest one, Scherzetto. Why do you have this continuous interest in the family?

DS: The family is the place where the individual, as a young animal, receives the first fundamental varnishing that will proudly distinguish him from other forms of life. But it’s also the place where the humanization process shows its cracks. In this sense, it is an extraordinary and inexhaustible narrative space.

AL: On this precise point, I’d like to broaden the scope of the discussion and place your novels in the context of contemporary Italian literature. The prevalent theme today seems to be the family. Of the twelve books in competition for the Premio Strega, more than half were novels/memoirs, reminiscences of childhood and the family environment on a historical background.

Can you comment on this trend?

DS: Well, the family has always been a central theme, often found in extraordinary novels. Today we should examine each individual novel and see how the family setting is being used. We’ll probably discover an interesting variety of approaches. Therefore, I want to avoid any generalization.

AL: Thank you so much, Domenico, for sharing your views with our readers. My wish to you is that the American edition of your novel will help to strengthen your “ties” with ww the USA. www.i-Italy.org

ww aN ODE TO A masterpiece that rewards rereading

Dante In Love: Dante Alighieri’s Vita Nuova Reinterpreted There have been many translations and interpretations of Dante’s Vita Nuova, mostly used by students and scholars, so one might ask, could one more do something so completely different that it matters today?

by Fred Gardaphe*

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You might know Anthony Valerio from his previous stories, novels and biographies, and if you do, then you’ll have found that he is a master of the love story.

Whether it’s street love in Brooklyn, the historical romance between Giuseppe and Anita Garibaldi, or the illicit affair between a writer and a married woman that’s mediated by a gangster, the common thread of them all is love: how people live with it and without it. In his latest work, Valerio reaches back to the Renaissance master Dante Alighieri and explores this theme in a very unique way.

Valerio’s Dante in Love combines and transcends earlier work by creating a palimpsest through which we read Dante through Valerio. The brilliance of the work is how it presents a translation of the original Italian while simultaneously covering it with insightful commentary along the way.

Now whether you’re familiar with Vita Nuova or not, Valerio’s take on it is worth the read. More than an insightful read of this important text, Dante in Love is interactive in an intriguing way.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 51

Bookshelf Strategically placed throughout the work are phrases followed by blanks, such as: “I measure my love for _____ by __________” and “I’m a mess when my love ________.”

At first, I thought we needed to rely on Dante to fill them in, then I realized, these are for readers to complete. By doing so, we connect our experiences with love to Dante’s, and in the process, we contribute to the work, learning much about how good writing creates good thinking.

Like Dante, Valerio uses contemporary English vernacular to render this over seven-century-old writing into a version that speaks to us right now. The story is simple and common: a young man falls in love, and through his inexperience and uncertainty shadows the one he loves, making mistakes that all of us know; he pretends to ignore her, while stalking her at public and private events; he composes sonnets of adoration and despair; he dreams of her; he befriends her family and acquaintances; he becomes lovesick; he grieves her absence in his life, especially after her death when he wonders how he can go on living.

Beatrice becomes somewhat of a celebrity of her town, and the young Dante’s crush on her, unrequited, becomes the fuel that feeds his artistic endeavors, becoming the center of all the writer creates in poetry and prose. Written many years before his great Divine Comedy, Vita Nuova helps us to see the early life of an artist who will go on to create one of the greatest written works of Western humanity. Through this “new life” or “young life,” we can locate ourselves in him, and better understand what make us all seek love.

This book is also available in electronic format. Explanatory notes and a link to the original work follow the text to help us better understand how and why Valerio created this unique reading experience. Like the work that he translates, interprets and interpolates, Valerio has composed an ode to a masterpiece that demands attention and rewards ww rereading. *Distinguished Professor of English and Italian American Studies at Queens College/CUNY and the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute

ww Dante In Love: Dante Alighieri’s Vita Nuova Reinterpreted Anthony Valerio Daisy H Productions LLC w Pages 115 w $ 6.99

ww Book excerpt “Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), author of the monumental work The Divine Comedy, wrote his little book of about fifty pages entitled Vita nova around the age of twenty-seven, early in his career. Supposedly, it’s the real story of Dante and Beatrice, of a tormented lover and writer of prose and poetry and an elusive young woman named Beatrice. Some say that very little happens in their story; they meet at the age of nine; he falls for her hard; for reasons known only to him, he tries to hid his affect, seducing and using other women as shields and fails. Beatrice dies; and Dante spends the rest of the work lamenting and praising her. But more happens…. For the sake of that good beguiling story to emerge and crystallize, I have compressed and modernized Dante’s words in Italian into English, from the point of view of my life as a writer.”

52 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

ww LOUISA ERMELINO’S LATEST NOVEL

16 Stories of Women Who Take Control of Their Own Lives Whether in danger or ecstasy, Ermelino’s women can handle themselves better than the men they attract, and it makes you wonder just what part of equality social tradition has masked.

by Fred Gardaphe*

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When Neapolitan actor, Antonio de Curtis, known as Totò, penned the song, “Malafemmena,” back in 1951, it was payback for a tough woman who had done him wrong. When Louisa Ermelino, author of Joey Dee Gets Wise, The Black Madonna, and Sisters Mallone, gave her first

story collection the same title as the song, she takes that now famous song and makes it an anthem for women who take control of their own lives and don’t wait to simply react to what men do to them.

Sixteen short stories

The sixteen short stories take the shape of folktales in their efwww.i-Italy.org

From the left: Antonio “Totò” De Curtis (1898-1967) with his last wife Franca Faldini; the poster of the movie inspired to his famous song “Malafemmena.” Below: Louisa Ermelino.

ww Malafemmena

Louisa Ermelino Sarabande Books http://www.sarabandebooks.org w Pages 162 w $ 15.95

ww Book excerpt

fect by making us think of what we might do in similar straits, and some of these are pretty wild situations, like when a kidnapped Annemarie finds herself in Staten Island. “Sister-in-Law,” brings out the worse behavior in Angela, her husband’s sister with a “cigarette voice. Philip Morris unfiltered” and her husband Joey “a small guy in a big car,” who reveal that she has done her husband wrong one too many times; for that she’s going to be immured in the evergrowing stone wall that surrounds their home.

Whether they’re set in a Little Italy or in exotic foreign locations, these stories all ring true in spite of their “I can’t believe she did that” actions. In fact, the more absurd the behavior of her cast of femme fatales, the more we believe it happened. This speaks to the power of the author’s imagination to see the surreal in the simple, to draw the ordinary out of the exotic, as in “Fish Heads” where after a vacation filled with delectable foreign delicacies, the women are served fish heads at every meal on a ship and learn to love that which skeeved them. www.i-Italy.org

ww Whether they’re set in a Little Italy or in exotic foreign locations, these stories all ring true in spite of their “I can’t believe she did that” actions.

Smart, bold women

Whether in danger or ecstasy, Ermelino’s women can handle themselves better than the men they attract, and it makes you wonder just what part of equality social tradition has masked. It’s not that these women are reacting like men, for that would be too simple an explanation. No, they are acting smart, boldly going where women have always been; through Ermelino’s prose they take their places as directors of the theater they create out of life. There’s no better place to

“I took good food for granted. I grew up a first-generation Italian American. We weren’t big on ambience (I don’t think I saw a milk pitcher until I was of legal age) but we know about food. Lamb at Easter, the rib chops as tiny as a baby’s fist, the lamb’s head, capozelle, split and roasted with parsley, garlic and parmigiano; minestrone soup with five kinds of fresh beans and gobs of pesto stirred it; veal shoulder stuffed with egg and bread and oregano.

When I started traveling, I didn’t know much about the world or what there was to see, but I was open to what there was to eat. Camembert in France, ham sandwiches with butter (butter? Hmmm) pork-liver pâté. In Italy, puntarella and buffalo mozzarella, sautéed rabbit, fresh figs. Yogurt and honey in Greece and feta with tomatoes and cucumbers; profiteroles, zaatar bread, King of Persia pistachios, roasted corn, duck eggs swallowed raw in a tea glass on the road to overland India.” see this than in the story, “James Dean and Me.” Set on the border between Afghanistan and Iran a woman is sure that the man she hooks up with is none other than the famous actor who died in that tragic car accident a long time ago. She is so certain that Dean still lives and travels with her that we begin to believe her.

In “Death Becomes Her,” we have an elegiac tale of love, and the deaths of loved ones, that transcends the sentimental. The unnamed narrator reaches the higher ground of survival with dignity. She’s a professional woman, swamped with the demands of her job that takes seriously the impersonal superficiality of Hollywood star fashion; her grief is beautiful as it deals with the extremes be-

cause she balances delicately, but surely, between the professional and personal.

Stories that merit rereading

The key to the successful story is whether it can be read more than once, and in Emerlino’s hands, the genre is safe, for nearly all of these reward second and third readings because once you get the substance of the tale, you are drawn back by the desire to know just how she did this. ww _ *Distinguished Professor of English and Italian American Studies at Queens College/CUNY and the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 53

Bookshelf

ww EXCERPT FROM ANNA LAWTON’S AMY’S STORY

A Gripping Story of Friendship, Love, and Social Turmoil Amy’s Story takes the reader on a life journey from Italy to the US. Following in the steps of Amy (full name America) and her childhood friend Stella, the reader experiences friendship, love, struggle, and social turmoil against the backdrop of American history from the 1960s to 2011.

ww

We lived in Venice. That is, Venice, California. The house was right on the beach. In those days Venice was a funky neighborhood, a favorite hangout of the Flower Children who drifted south after the Summer of Love in San Francisco. But also students and junior faculty with no money lived there.

I closed the bedroom door behind me. The house was empty.

Everyone had already gone out, leaving the breakfast dishes on the kitchen table. I went out the front door, not bothering to lock it. I crossed the front lawn cluttered with folding chairs, sleeping bags, and children’s toys, and stepped on the boardwalk.

I found myself a spot on the beach where I could have some privacy, and laid down my towel.

Young people in tattered jeans and colorful rags hung out there,

54 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

strolling leisurely or lying on the sand, their manes blowing in the wind. Bead necklaces, bracelets, anklets and headbands completed their look of urban refugees in an imaginary tribe of noble savages. The smell of pot was heavy even in the open. The vastness of the ocean could not absorb it.

But the cops rarely showed up, and when they did everybody made the two-finger peace sign— “Peace, man”— and moved a few yards away. There was no confrontation, no violence. At least, not there. Not yet.

Cindy and Ken were sitting in a group nearby. They shared the house with us and a few others.

Cindy came up to me. She was pretty, a fresh flower blooming in her hair. Long, blond, straight, silky hair. The kind I liked. The kind I wished I had. But mine was short, wavy and light brown with golden highlights.

“Am I bothering you? If you’d rather be alone, just say so.”

“On the contrary, I enjoy your company. Please, sit down. I’ve been here for only three months and there are many things I’ve got to get used to.”

“Like what?”

“Like corn flakes for breakfast and square bread in plastic wraps. And especially the academic system, which is quite different from the one back home.”

“Why aren’t you at school today?”

“I’ve classes in the afternoon. I’ll have to leave in a short while.”

“And Jim?” “What about him?”

“D’you have to get used to him

ww I was in the crowd with my boyfriend, Giorgio, mainly to find out what was going on. We didn’t belong to any radical movements and hardly knew what their demands were. as well?”

I was surprised Cindy would ask me such a personal question.

But I was also pleased because I needed a friend, someone to talk to.

“I guess so,” I replied, “things are not going smoothly between us.”

“How did you two meet?”

“It’s a long story. We met in Italy, during the campus occupation at the University of Turin, my hometown.”

Trouble had just started. Those were the first signs, well before the Red Brigades came into existence and terrorized the country for more than a decade. The students had occupied the administration building, a stately

Baroque palace in the heart of the city. A banner hanging from the façade said in big characters: UNIVERSITÀ OCCUPATA. The massive portals were closed and guarded by militant fellows with red armbands. They would let in, by a small door, only those who could show the proper credentials. A large number of students crowded the portico in front of the building and spilled out into the street, blocking the traffic in both directions.

I was in the crowd with my boyfriend, Giorgio, mainly to find out what was going on. We didn’t belong to any radical movements and hardly knew what their demands were. An animated diswww.i-Italy.org

Student demonstrations, hippie rallies, and social unrest in California (left) and in Italy (right) in the 1960s and 1970s

ww A must read

Amy’s Story. A Fascinating Journey Through History and Across Continents

by Daniela Enriquez “Yes, good novels can leave a mark on our imagination”. Those are the words that Nik – one of the characters in Anna Lawton’s book – states while talking to Stella, the protagonist. There is no doubt that Amy’s Story is one of those novels, because in addition to narrating a captivating story, this book transports readers through almost 100 years of American history and allows them to get lost in a different time. Reading Anna Lawton’s book is almost like watching a movie where you wish you could talk to the characters, give them suggestions, and take part in the political arguments and debates which are scattered throughout its pages.

Amy’s Story is a novel that narrates the life of Stella – an Italian girl who immigrates in the USA—through the words written by the woman herself during the course of several years. The literary structure is sophisticated, and demands some mental jumps in time and space. The frame—Amy’s attempt to publish her friend Stella’s manuscript—is in the present, but the core of the story—narrating Stella’s life—is set in the 60’s through the 80’s. That gives the author the chance to include many historical events and elements from those years. Although most of the story is set in California, there are entire chapters that happen in Italy and New York. The language is colloquial but researched, and the story is narrated in both first person – Stella’s Story—and third person—Amy’s story.

A kaleidoscope of characters inhabits the pages of the book. They are fictional characters, but they come across authentically as though they could have been real people living at that time in America. As it happens with every good book, it is ultimately hard to depart from them.

Love, sex, social justice, drugs and immigration are only some of the themes of this novel, all of which are intertwined with a fictional story incorporating real events. History ultimately reveals itself as another protagonist of the book, always in the background but constantly present.

Toward the end, Jim—the charismatic male lead—says of the published manuscript: “It’s literature at its best, and at the same time it’s an engaging story that pleases the reader, with intriguing characters and a dynamic plot”. There are no better words to define Anna Lawton’s novel than those. Oh, and just a small tip: be ready for surprise finale! cussion was taking place right in that spot. A student in a Che Guevara beret was haranguing those who gathered around him: “No more grades based on an unjust evaluating system. We demand political grades for all.

Equality of grading.”

“What’s a political grade?” someone asked.

“We maintain that you should be evaluated not on the basis of false knowledge inculcated on the

ww Amy’s Story

Anna Lawton New Academia Publishing www.newacademia.com w Pages 246 w $ 22 (paperback) www.i-Italy.org

masses by the hegemonic professorial class, but on the basis of your belief in the cause and your involvement in the struggle.”

“I agree, school must be radically reformed,” another said.

“No, not reformed. It should be abolished. The whole bourgeois educational system must be overthrown,” still another replied.

A guy a few years older, who did not seem to belong in that crowd, managed to make himself heard.

“We don’t want to abolish the school. We want the right to go to school. I am a metal worker and represent the Union. Some of you guys asked me to come to this rally today to see whether we can make common cause.

But the Union disagrees with your demands. I was not able to go to school. I had to go to work as a young boy. And I don’t want my little brother to have to do the same. I want him to get an education.”

“The working class has sold out to its masters,” shouted the Che Guevara guy.

“This is a provocateur,” said a student pointing a finger at the Union man.

A scuffle erupted, and the man would have been badly beaten if the police had not been on their way. At the sound of the approaching sirens, the crowd froze and then frantically tried to disperse. But the police had already Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 55

Anna Lawton

Bookshelf surrounded the area.

Many were clubbed and many were arrested. A few managed to escape. Tear gas was rapidly filling up the street. Giorgio and I got separated. I was swept along the portico that extended for the entire length of the street by a stream of panicking students.

All the stores were locked and looked empty. I stopped in the doorway to a bookstore to catch my breath, choking on the gas.

I must have cut a rather pathetic figure. Suddenly, the door opened. A hand grabbed me by the arm and pulled me in.

“It looks like you can use some help,” the guy said with a sly grin.

He had a foreign accent—definitely, American.

“What makes you think so? I was just window shopping,” I answered in the same vein, freeing my arm. I hurriedly wiped my tearing eyes. As my sight cleared, I took a good look at him. He was handsome, longish blond hair, a square jaw, blue eyes sparkling with a roguish smile.

“If you’re interested in books, this is the place. I spend the good part of my days in here and always find what I look for.”

“And what’re you looking for?” I asked staring at him intently.

“You mean, other than books?”

He held my stare and for a second we weighed each other up. Then, we both laughed.

He extended his hand, “I’m Jim Welsh. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.” (...)

“Wow, what a story! You should try and sell it to a Hollywood producer. They like love stories with a happy ending,” Cindy said.

“Well, this is only the end of Part One. Now Part Two has started, and the ending’s not necessarily going to be a happy ending.”

“Oh, what a pity. D’you still love him?”

“Of course, I love him. But I’m not sure I like him these days. He’s changed. He’s depressed, unsociable, and angry all the time.

Even at me.”

“He must be unhappy.”

56 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

ww Many were clubbed and many were arrested. A few managed to escape.

Tear gas was rapidly filling up the street.

Giorgio and I got separated. (…)

I stopped in the doorway to a bookstore to catch my breath, choking on the gas. (...) Suddenly, the door opened. A hand grabbed me by the arm and pulled me in.

“Yes, he is unhappy. But it’s not my fault. He’s unhappy because his book project has not been well received in the academic community. He’s not got the expected endorsements from the senior faculty, and therefore two university presses have already rejected the proposal.”

“So sorry. But I’ve got positive vibes about the two of you, and I’m sure everything will work out beautifully in the end.”

“Thank you for the rosy forecast. Time for me to go. I’ve classes in an hour and I can’t afford to be depressed. I must be super-efficient.”

I picked up my towel and started back toward the cottage.

Cindy stood there for a minute, a concerned smile in her eyes.

She waved me good-bye, “Take it easy!” she yelled after me. I turned around and waved back.

ww Meet the author Anna Lawton, born in Italy, has earned her PhD in Russian Literature at UCLA. As a professor, she taught courses in literature, cinema and visual culture at Purdue University and later Georgetown University. She also worked for USIA at the American Embassy in Moscow as the Deputy Director of Public Information and Media Outreach and the editor-inchief of the magazine Connections, and at the World Bank in Washington, as the managing editor of the magazine Development Outreach. She published three scholarly books and numerous scholarly essays and book chapters. She has received several awards, including the CHOICE Award as Outstanding Academic Title for her book, Imaging Russia 2000: Film and Facts. Her first novel, Album di famiglia, was published in Italy and is now being translated into English. Amy’s Story is her second novel. In 2003, she founded the publishing house New Academia Publishing, which is today a successful enterprise. For more information visit: www. annalawton.com and www.newacademia.com.

Twelve o’ clock. I had to quickly change clothes and be on my way. Jim was still asleep. I raised the venetian blinds with a sharp pull. A beam of light burst into the room like a punch. It hit him full-on.

“Whadda fuck you doing?” he muttered angrily, raising his head.

“Come on, Jim, get up. I’ll fix you some lunch.”

He turned to the wall, making disgruntled sounds, something unintelligible, “… and shut the goddam blinds,” he concluded.

That, I distinctly heard.

“Shut ’em yourself,” I snapped back.

I slammed the door and was ww gone.”

Abridged and published by permission of the author

www.i-Italy.org

Italian jazz icon Paolo Fresu

ww JAZZ & ITALY

‘Summertime, and the Livin’ is Easy...’

This time I want to talk to you about a very famous song. It’s one of those songs that will exist forever and that nobody will ever forget–not even after a thousand years. The song is called “Summertime,” with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by DuBose Heyward, and a contribution by Ira Gershwin.

by Enzo Capua

ww

I believe that e ven those who are not so passionate about jazz or even about music know this beautiful melody. Perhaps some will even know how to whistle it. However, not everyone knows the story of “Summertime,” a story that has become very fitting for our time. The song was composed

by George Gershwin in 1934 for his opera Porgy and Bess, and the lyrics written by Heyward, author of the 1925 novel Porgy, on which the opera was based.

This magnificent musical came to Broadway in 1935, and its resounding success still echoes today in the story of American music and theater. It’s important to know that the play deals with a tragic story set in the south, in the old city of Charleston, South Carolina. The opera involves the life of Charleston’s black community and it created quite an uproar among the public and the critics: accusations of racism and of a superficial vision www.i-Italy.org

of black people’s lives alternated with complaints about an excessive indulgence toward blacks.

Beyond these fruitless controversies, Porgy and Bess was, and still is, one of the great masterpieces of all American art. The music’s beauty and its various interpretations over the decades constantly serve to confirm to the genius of its creators. In the first act, “Summertime” is sung by a woman, Clara, and it’s a lullaby she whispers to her baby. It’s a sweet melody, sung by a mellow

ww ‘Summertime’ has a style that’s similar to blues, and therefore, it has always lent itself to great interpretations by jazz musicians.

voice on a summer evening on Charleston’s Catfish Row, creating a highly poetic image that shines in sharp contrast to its impoverished setting. The song, with a style similar to the blues, has always lent itself to great interpretations by jazz musicians.

Among some of the most memorable versions are those of Ella Fitzgerald (with Louis Armstrong in the recording of the complete Porgy and Bess) and of Cleo Laine (with Ray Charles).

Among the instrumental versions, that of Miles Davis with arrangements and direction by Gil Evans is essential. Many Italian jazz musicians challenged themselves with the beautiful song. On this front, we remember two versions: one is a duo with pianist Stefano Bollani and percussionist Roberto Gatto in an album dedicated to Gershwin’s music (Gershwin & More Live!), and the other is by trumpet player Paolo Fresu ,who wanted to follow in Miles Davis’ footsteps.

Fresu’s splendid interpretation is a reworked version of Gil Evans’s arrangement that will forever be a part of jazz history.

Fresu recorded it in at least two completely different settings: one with the Orchestra Jazz della Sardegna (Porgy and Bess, 2001) and another in 2002 (Kind of Porgy and Bess) with an ItalianFrench big band. They’re all extraordinary interpretations that Italian jazz can be proud of. It’s too bad that the great Gershwin, who died in 1937 at the age of 38, was only able to see the Broadway version. He surely would have appreciated the Italians’ versions of his opera, and “Summertime” in particular, which we will never grow tired of listening to–even in this heat and this distance from ww those times.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 57

Bookshelf

ww Stile Ducati: A Visual History of Ducati Design Various Authors Skira w Pages 320 — w $ 85.00

Book w It is fitting to define Ducati’s history as a dream, because the adventure began in a dark laboratory in the center of Bologna, in Via Collegio di Spagna 7, when the workforce consisted of just two workers and a secretary.

Probably not even the Ducati brothers could have imagined what would one day become. Two employees at the small laboratory became almost 1200 in 1936, and the company grew in overwhelming fashion.

ww Diagnostics: Poetics of Time Joseph A. Amato Bordighera Press w Pages 140 w $ 12.00

Book w This is a collection of poems on our attempts to read, or by diagnostics’ Greek roots, to distinguish and discern, our place and condition in time. And it is the root sense of poiesis that explains the subtitle Poetics of Time: to make or bring forth meanings of lives lived out in times, constant and many. Joseph A. Amato is the author of several books. He taught a range of courses in European intellectual and cultural history and historiography, with a particular interest in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, German, Italian, and French histories and European rural life, as well as taught ethics and introductory social science courses.

ww Viva Voce: Conversations with Italian Philosophers Silvia Benso SUNY Press w Pages 318 w $ 85.00

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ww The need to eliminate war in the powerful work of a renowned Italian scholar and writer

A tale of man’s obsession with humanity’s darkest atrocities ww Blameless

Magris’s ambitious novel, a fragmentary, densely detailed account of one man’s obsession with building a “Museum of War for the Advent of Peace,” is a collection of anecdotes about the evil that humans do and the banal ways in which that evil survives us. Magris’s narrator, inspired by a real-life collector of war memorabilia, grows up in the multicultural and cosmopolitan city of Trieste, Italy, where his early childhood games with toy soldiers impress upon him “the need to eliminate war.”

Claudio Magris Yale University Press w Pages 368 w $ 26.00 From one of Europe’s most revered authors, a tale of one man’s obsessive project to collect the instruments of death, evil, and humanity’s darkest atrocities in order to oppose them.

Claudio Magris’s searing new novel ruthlessly confronts the human obsession with war and its savagery in every age and every country. His tale centers on a man whose maniacal devotion to the creation of a Museum of War involves both a horrible secret and the hope of redemption. Luisa Brooks, his museum’s curator, a descendant of victims of Jewish exile and of black slavery, has a complex dilemma: will the collections she exhibits save humanity from repeating its tragic and violent past? Or might the display of articles of war actually valorize and memorialize evil atrocities?

In Blameless Magris affirms his mastery of the novel form, interweaving multiple themes and traveling deftly through history. With a multitude of stories, the author investigates individual sorrow, the societal burden of justice aborted, and the ways in which memory and historical evidence are sabotaged or sometimes salvaged.

Book w Through conversations with twenty-three leading Italian philosophers representing a variety of scholarly concerns and methodologies, this volume offers an informal overview of the background, breadth, and distinctiveness of contemporary Italian philosophy as a tradition. Every conversation is a testimony to the differences that characterize each thinker as unique and that invigorate the Italian philosophical landscape as a whole.

The individual replies differ widely

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Claudio Magris is an Italian scholar, translator and writer. He is an essayist and columnist for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and for other European journals and newspapers. His numerous studies have helped to promote an awareness in Italy of Central European culture and of the literature of the Habsburg myth.

Professor emeritus of modern German literature, University of Trieste, Magris is a recipient of the Erasmus Prize among scores of other literary awards. His best-selling novel Danube has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in Trieste, Italy. Anne Milano Appel, an award-winning translator, recently received the Italian Prose Translation Award. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

in tone, focus, and style. What emerges is a broad, deep, lively, and even witty picture of the Italian philosophical landscape in the voices of its protagonists.

ww Ferdinando Scianna: The Venice Ghetto 500 Years After Denis Curti Marsilio w Pages 100 w $ 35.00

Book w The ghetto today: a story told in pictures, a history in the making. The forty-four blackand-white photographs presented here have been selected from the many pictures taken by Ferdinando Scianna on a succession of visits made to Venice between May and

June in 2016: they take the form of notes, a series of precise annotations on the course of daily life in a neighborhood of the city.

The result of his work is a lucid and vivid photographic reportage on the Venice ghetto in the late spring of last year filled with initiatives organized to mark the 500th anniversary of the setting up of the first enclave for the segregation of Jews in the world, the one in Venice.

ww Palazzo della civiltà Italiana Franco La Cecla Rizzoli w Pages 300 w $ 75.00

Book w A stunning portrait of the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in Rome, the iconic building www.i-Italy.org

where Fendi relocated its headquarters. In 2015, the storied fashion house Fendi moved its headquarters into the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in Rome, a stark white cube perforated by symmetrical arches.

Originally commissioned as part of an exhibition on Roman civilization for the 1942 world’s fair, the architects took their cues from ancient history to create a building that was quintessentially Roman yet decidedly modern, earning its nickname “the Square Colosseum.”

ww Eutopia

Liftiba TEG w $ 50.00

Music w Pure rock is coming back!

Piero Pelù is an Italian singer and songwriter, best known for his work with the Italian band Litfiba. It’s an Italian rock-band formed in Florence in early 1980. Four years since the “Great Country” album, Litfiba returns! In these four years, Litfiba have released the live album “Trilogia 1983-1989” (2013) and the “Element Tetralogia” (2015) special box. Currently, they are continuing their tour with a Mediterranean rock sound.

ww Le migliori

Mina & Celentano Sony Music w $ 21.80 Music w The first single “Amami amami” was released on October 21, 2016. Le migliori became the best-selling album of 2016 in Italy.

On March 2015, rumors began of another collaboration between Adriano Celentano and Mina, especially after the message he posted on his blog to congratulate her on her 75th birthday. In the following months, these rumors became more pervasive until it was officially confirmed on October 20, 2015 that the two artists would indeed be releasing an album of new songs together. www.i-Italy.org

Watch our interview with Dacia Maraini ww Imagine: New Imagery in Italian Art 1960-1969 Luca Massimo Barbero Marsilio w Pages 288 w $ 43.95

ww A homage to the finest Italian woman writer alive today

A unique collection of the most important works of Dacia Maraini You might know Dacia Maraini, one of Italy’s most acclaimed contemporary fiction writers and essaysts, from her outstanding novels which include La vacanza (The Holiday), L’età del malessere (The Age of Malaise) and La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa (The Silent Duchess), but she is also the writer of captivating short stories, poetry, and plays. Writing like Breathing celebrates a writing career that has spanned over half a century, covering all forms of literature, including prose, poetry and drama. It is a collection comprising some of her most important works, the majority of which have never been translated into English. The series is divided into four major volumes that are meant to give a full picture of Maraini’s production from 1962 to the present: I. Autobiography, novels, short stories and poems; II. Plays; III. Articles; IV. Essays, talks and interviews.

Writing like Breathing shows how the finest Italian woman writer alive today has embraced and fought for a vast number of issues: women’s rights, abuse of women and children, emigration, discrimination, politics, the Holocaust, among many others.

Moreover, this collection of Maraini’s autobiographies, novels, short stories, and poems, emphasises the author’s long relationship with Japan and the United States, countries to which she ww Dacia Maraini. Writing Like has devoted several books and articles, Breathing both autobiographical and fictional.

Edited by Michelangelo La Luna Some unpublished manuscripts enrich ListLab this unique first volume: two short w Pages 270 w $ 20 stories (“A Christmas in the Snow Globe” and “Aylan”) and three poems (“At Night”, “Rome”, “Like Sea Bass Underwater”). The other volumes contain unpublished plays (“Diotima and Socrates,” “My Name is Antonino Calderone,” “Celia Carli, Ornithologist”, and “Lia, Who Thought Herself Antigone”), essays, talks, conversations, and interviews given by the author at American universities.

Dacia Maraini is a winner of the most prestigious Italian literature awards such as Campiello and Strega. Her books have been translated into 22 languages and some of her bestsellers were turned into successful movies.

Book w The 1960s were a revolutionary time for Italy in many aspects. The economic boomed resulted in years of imaginative thought and creativity. This book recounts the Italian mindset of mixing engineering with art to create a multifaceted era of art and design while illuminating the post-war freedoms, which created a never before felt desire for personal identity in Italy. The artists represented include Franco Angeli, Domenico Gnoli, Giosetta Fioroni, Tano Festa, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Mario Schifano.

These individuals are known as the creators of a new and original direction that that categorized the art of this period.

ww The Italian Art of Shoemaking: Works of Art in Leather Christina Morozzi Rizzoli w Pages 244 w $ 80.00

Book w This book offers an exclusive look inside the world of Moreschi, one of the world’s most prestigious shoemakers. This richly illustrated book boasts the standards set by the internationally recognized shoemaker: high quality leather and the ability to design and create shoes on site. Moreschi shoes have been worn by the likes of Richard Burton, Liam Neeson, Adrien Brody, Michael Jackson, James Brown, Johnny Cash, and also sports stars such as Michael Jordan, Novak Djokovic, and Alberto Tomba.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 59

cuisine

ww PIZZAMANIA CONQUERS THE STATES

How Many Stories Top a Pizza?

by Tommaso Cartia

60 | i-Italy | Spring 2017

www.i-Italy.org

Clockwise: Roberto and Giorgia Caporuscio; Students getting their certificates at PAF; Teaching kids how to make pizza.

ww THE Pizza Academy FOUNDATION in New York

Father & Daughter Teaching Pizza Master pizza maker Roberto Caporuscio shares the secrets of true Neapolitan pizza as the U.S. president of the Pizza Academy Foundation (PAF)–the Neapolitan pizza school headquartered in his Kesté Wall Street. But there is another secret in the family: Giorgia, his daughter and a talented pizzaiola, is also a fantastic teacher.

by T. C.

ww

Roberto Caporuscio’s story is fascinating and adventurous.

It’s a story of passion, love, and determination that guided him from his Roman roots to Neapolitan culture, becoming a kind of adopted Neapolitan, and rising to success in the United States. All of this was lead by his passion for pizza and Neapolitan culture, and one of its most distinctive gifts: pizza.

An American Adventure

After working in Naples with master pizza makers such as Don Gennaro Capatosta, Antonio Starita and Enzo Coccia, Roberto arrived in the United States in 1999 and began working as a pizza maker in Pittsburgh, making authentic Neapolitan pizza. It was a gamble at a time when Americans were used to the taste of their own and ItalianAmerican pizza and cuisine. However, Caporuscio won his personal gamble that the taste of true Neapolitan pizza could win over Americans , and, from that point forward, he has seen resounding success. www.i-Italy.org

Moving to New York, Roberto is now the owner of some of the most popular Neapolitan pizzerias in the city: Don Antonio and Kesté Pizza & Vino, which has three locations: West Village, Wall Street, and Williamsburg. He has also received wide recognition for his work: “#1 Pizza in New York” by New York Magazine, “Best Pizza” in New York State by Food Network Magazine, and top 25 “Best Pizza Places in the US” by Food and Wine.

PAF, The Pizza Academy

The idea of sharing the secrets of

Neapolitan pizza was always on Roberto’s mind. “The idea for the school has existed for 10 years,” he tells us. “We had our first student in 2007 in Madison, Wisconsin.

From there, the Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani (Neapolitan Pizza Makers Association) asked me to educate people here in America and to show Americans what true Neapolitan pizza is.”

Little by little, the master pizza maker began teaching students, like Mark Dym in Denver, who today has four pizzerias there. Soon after the opening of Don Antonio

and Kestè, Roberto’s teaching and advising was concentrated in New York, and he taught almost 200 students. The students received certifications and are now successful pizza makers.

Recently, Roberto’s daughter, Giorgia, a young and extremely talented pizza maker, joined in and began teaching. And her father proudly confesses, “She’s even better than me at teaching!”

Roberto and Giorgia’s dream was to find a physical space that was equipped to host a real school.

They found such a space downtown, in which they opened Kesté Wall Street. The largest room in the restaurant lent itself perfectly to hosting the school—inside of a real pizzeria. Students could then have the opportunity not only to learn Spring 2017 | i-Italy | 61

cuisine

how to prepare a Neapolitan pizza but also how to work with the right ovens and in a professional kitchen, a chance to understand how a pizzeria works and how it should be run. As Roberto emphasizes, “This school is dedicated both to teaching amateurs and to training chefs, but companies also come for team building. We also teach how to make pizza to children who are looking to have fun.”

What the school does

The opening of the Pizza Academy Foundation saw the collaboration of various sponsors like Caputo, Ciao, Belgioioso, and Urbani Truffles.

Inside, there’s also a beautiful bar, which may be used to teach how to prepare true Italian cocktails.

Seaside Communication, which collaborated on the project, advised Roberto to livestream the lessons from Kesté Wall Street. “This allows us to conduct lessons online, streaming through our website, and it allows us to be present outside the United States... We’ve already been able to reach Australia, South Africa, Berlin, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Santo Domingo,” he says enthusiastically .

Caporuscio feels it’s important to teach not only how to cook a perfect Neapolitan pizza but also to teach what a true Neapolitan pizzeria should feel be, beginning with decor and interior design. For Kesté Wall Street, Roberto was inspired by a classic book about the Neapolitan lifestyle in the 1800s, Usi

ww Our school is dedicated both to teaching amateurs and to training chefs. We even teach how to make pizza to children who are looking to have fun.

62 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

e costumi di Napoli e contorni by Francesco De Bourcard. It describes a traditional Neapolitan pizzeria, and gave Roberto his inspiration.

“I recreated that atmosphere here thanks to the Neapolitan architect Roberto Iuliano. I photocopied the pages and gave them to him. This is how he decided to recreate that rustic environment.”

Roberto adds, “Something important that we always explain during the lessons is that a restaurant’s environment needs to match the product that you sell. It needs to respect the food that you serve and its traditions. Neapolitan pizza can’t be presented in a modern place, especially in the eyes of Americans.”

Neapolitan pizza secrets

“First of all, Neapolitan pizza requires an artisan who knows how to make it, the pizza maker,” Caporuscio says. “It’s an art that must be learned, from the dough to the oven, the temperatures, the cooking times, and the ingredients. Neapolitan pizza can be prepared only with Caputo flour, either 0 or 1. The dough needs to be made with a small amount of yeast, fermented for a long time, and with the right amount of salt. After this, the most important part is the kneading. It needs to be soft and fluffy but also elastic. It must be able to be eaten with your hands, and the ingredients must not slide off.

Mozzarella, tomato, and extra virgin olive oil are obviously the main ingredients. It should be made in a wood-burning oven and cook for approximately 90 seconds.”

The school also teaches how to make Roman pan pizza and American pizza with a class run by Michele Ameglio, a world-champion of pizza. Still, while Roberto is open to various interpretations of pizza, he argues that “Neapolitan pizza is either Neapolitan or it’s not. If not, we risk it becoming like spaghetti and meatballs, which is the big problem that Italian gastronomy had in America. This is why it’s important to educate and teach the timeless tradition of true Neapolitan pizza.

This a fundamental mission of my ww work.”

ww Chef Pasquale Cozzolino’s Pizza Diet

Eating Pizza, Losing Weight, Becoming a Celebrity Eat pizza and lose weight? It can be done! When Executive Chef Pasquale Cozzolino discovered his pizza diet, the news became viral and hit the headlines both in the US and in Italy. Newspapers and TV shows wanted to know, and Paquale finally wrote a book to share his secrets and keep everybody happy.

by T. C.

ww

It might seem like a dream to be able to lose weight by eating, especially by eating your favorite meal. In reality, it all depends on what you eat, how you eat, and when you eat. It’s known that the

Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest, but not everybody, especially outside of Italy, knows how to cook it or serve it to draw out its maximum benefit.

Chef Pasquale Cozzolino grew up with the traditions of Mediterranean cooking, and he knows them www.i-Italy.org

Left to right: Pasquale Cozzolino talking to Andrea Boehlke of People; the article by Claudine Ko in The New York Post that launched his pizza diet; Pasquale making his point at “Good Morning America” on ABC

ww Pizza is often considered junk food in America. The message for Americans is not to ‘eat whatever pizza you want,’ but rather to eat this pizza, which is prepared according to the criteria of the Mediterranean diet. well. His passion for pizza was born in Naples, the homeland of pizza.

As a boy, he would anxiously wait for the day when his mother would bring him to eat his favorite meal: “When I was little, my mother brought me to eat pizza once a week,” he told us. “I was fascinated watching the pizza makers actually make the pizza. I wanted to eat it every day even though I wasn’t allowed. I always dreamed of being a pizza maker, so I could eat a pizza every day!”

Pasquale made his dream come true. Today, he’s an accomplished pizzaiolo and the Executive Chef of one of the most important Italian restaurants in New York, Ribalta.

He also achieved his dream of eating a pizza every day thanks to his special diet. “The pizza diet began from a personal need,” the chef told us. “I put on some weight, and I needed to lose it. I am the kind of person who eats often, and I always have food around me since I’m a chef. The usual diets made me feel as if I were in some type of cage.

So I consulted a friend, Doctor Giuseppe Moscarella, who is a biologist and nutritionist from Naples. www.i-Italy.org

York Post about his experience, the news of his pizza diet spread, and now everybody is talking about it. In 2016 it was the third-mostresearched diet online. The diet’s growing popularity landed the chef a book contract—and his story, told in The Pizza Diet–How I Lost 100 Pounds and You Can Too! (Penguin-Random House) became a great success.

Pizza Diet 101

He’s also a consultant and dietitian for soccer teams. He told me about how the human body works and how to benefit from the so called ’super burn‘ moments. You intake a large number of calories during those parts of the day, but the body burns them quickly. Then he asked me what my favorite dish is. This is how pizza was included as the ‘happy item’ in my diet.”

Cozzolino was able to lose 100 pounds (50 Kg) in nine months, and after an interview with the New

During the first part of the day, the diet allows eating foods with a higher calorie count and which take time to digest, such as complex carbohydrates. The pizza diet’s breakfast is very generous but should only prepared with products of an excellent quality--cereal, fruit, almond milk, and possibly an egg.

Lunch, around 12pm, is when it’s time for pizza, and a salad. At that point, 70% of the daily caloric requirement is consumed. Dinner at 6 pm means protein, particularly lean protein, preferably with a salad or greens.

Use Only Neapolitan Pizza

The pizza of choice is classic Nea-

politan pizza prepared with 220 grams (about a half pound) of dough (made from flour, water, salt, and yeast), uncooked tomatoes, and a bit of mozzarella and basil, without added fats and sugar. It’s the typical Margherita pizza and, if cooked correctly, it’s a complete, nutritious meal of 570 calories. The secret to making this pizza light is to not overdo it with condiments and oil. The ingredients need to be balanced.

Still, it’s not possible to eat just any type of pizza every day, especially those prepared in American fast food restaurants, which are almost always unhealthy and high in calories. “Pizza is often considered junk food in America,” the chef said. “The message for Americans is not to ‘eat whatever pizza you want,’ but rather to eat this pizza, which is prepared according to the criteria of the Mediterranean diet.”

Traditional Neapolitan pizza is artisanal, and it needs to maintain its specific characteristics. “If you overdo it with condiments, you lose the sense of the pizza,” the chef affirmed. “It then becomes almost like a dish that supports what’s on it.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 63

Domenico DeMarco in a photo by Gabriele Stabile on the back cover of issue n. 9 of Lucky Peach. Source: Kaleidoscope, School of Visual Arts Library (https://library.sva.edu/kaleidoscope/hours/lucky-peach)

cuisine Instead, the important thing with pizza is the dough. My research on pizza as a chef is focused on always finding new processes of leavening.

This is what makes a pizza dish modern. However, it’s a dish that needs to stay true to itself.”

Behind the pizza diet is a concept that stems from biosophy, a humanist idea that balances all aspects of a healthy life. Once you lose weight, it’s important that this diet becomes a a lifelong practice, because you don’t lose weight by being on a diet, and losing weight is not an end in itself. The objective is changing your attitude and embracing a more healthy lifestyle .

For Pasquale, pizza is not only good food, but it’s also a symbol of conviviality: “Pizza is the food of the gods. Its shape–the circle– represents brothership, the embrace. It’s a food that symbolizes sociability.”

The Book’s Mission

The book isn’t just a classic cookbook with recipes and the recommended diet. It contains a complete philosophy of eating, from buying the right products in the supermarket to understanding ingredients on the label. It also tells the story of Pasquale Cozzolino. It recounts his debut at thirteen years old when he prepared his first pizza with famous pizza maker Gaetano Esposito, a descendant of Raffaele Esposito, one of the inventors of pizza. It also tells of Cozzolino’s New York adventure, which gave him not only a successful career but also a family. Pasquale married an American woman, and they have two children together.

“I grew up with the idea of eating well. My mother passed it down to me. My mission, having two American kids and seeing what they eat, is to educate people to eat well, by going on TV or to schools to talk about food culture. I already did something at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. It was a panel with 50 students on nutrition. I receive hundreds of emails a day from people who follow the ww diet and ask for my advice.”

64 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

ww “GRUPPO ITALIANO” LAUNCHED IN NEW YORK

The Legend of “Di Fara Pizza” A Classic Italian Story The adventurous and romantic story of Domenico “Dom” DeMarco, who, in 1959 moved from Caiazzo (province of Caserta) to Brooklyn. The story of a simple man who made his historic Di Fara pizzeria into a legend.

by T. C.

ww

If you enter the heart of Brooklyn from the Avenue J subway station, you’ll find yourself in a classic Jewish neighborhood, with synagogues and kosher restaurants. It’s the last place you would ever think of finding a typical Italian pizzeria.

However, New York is a city of infinite surprises, of contrasts but also of cultural synthesis. And just a few steps away from the Avenue J subway station stop, you’ll find one of the city’s most venerable pizzerias, Di Fara Pizza, a place that has become legendary and in recent years an important destination for tourists and celebrities from all over the world.

The secret of this little storefront lies in the golden hands of Domenico DeMarco, a pizza maker from Caiazzo, in the province of Caserta, who, since opening the pizzeria in 1964, has been preparing his classic pizzas daily.

Domenico’s Story

His story is also a classic one. In 1959, Domenico left Caiazzo and followed his father, an American citizen, to the dream metropolis of New York.

When he told us his story, the silence, www.i-Italy.org

Di Fara Pizza 1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn www.difarany.com

the pauses, and his eyes, still full of youthful passion, spoke a thousand words. “My father was an American citizen, so I automatically became a citizen. I came here from the city of Caiazzo, a very old city. My family was a family of farmers. We cultivated oil, figs, and also made wine. Before moving here to Brooklyn, I lived in the town of Huntington on Long Island. I worked on a farm there.”

While he was working on the farm, Domenico remembered that someone told him about the neighborhood near the Avenue J subway stop and that there were interesting opportunities there. One Saturday night, Dom went to visit the area, and he was surprised by the amount of people on the street. The place that would eventually become his pizzeria was for sale and was situated in a great location, steps from the subway entrance. Domenico already had some pizzeria experience, and he felt ready to open his own business. Trusting the instincts that had always guided him through the important decisions in his life, he decided to take the storefront. When he opened the business, his partner’s name was Farina. The two combined their names, DeMarco and Farina, and Di Fara Pizza was born. The pizzeria is the same today as it was back then, unchanged thanks to Domenico’s strength, determination, and his great love for his art. “As soon as you open the door, you don’t stop working until 9 at night. It’s my passion, www.i-Italy.org

my life. I’ve been in business for 53 years,” Domenico proudly told us.

However, pizza was not DeMarco’s only love. He married an American woman who gave him wonderful children. To this day, his daughter Margaret still sticks by her father’s side and helps him run the pizzeria.

“I married a very religious Catholic woman. We got married in the church. I liked her because she did her own thing, and she was reserved.

It was good because as I always say, ‘it’s better to be alone than in bad company!’”

find the right rhythm for my work.

My favorite song is “Ave Maria.”

Di Fara’s Pizza

But what’s made Di Fara so popular?

It has become a must stop for tourists visiting New York. Many Italians affirm that the pizza is even better at Di Fara than it is in Italy, and celebrities have never stopped showing up, including singers Tony Bennett and Ed Sheeran and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, to name a few.

“When Italians come here to try my pizza, they tell me that they like it

ww When Italians come here to try my pizza, they tell me that they like it even more than the pizza they eat in Italy.

I don’t know how that’s possible, for all of the ingredients I use come from Italy...

In addition to being a tireless pizza maker, Domenico is also a positive and friendly man. He loves life and, in particular, music, which he listens to and plays for Di Fara’s customers.

“I always listen to Italian music here.

I like the sound of the accordion, the tarantella, and Italian folk music.

One of my favorite artists was Enrico Caruso, who I was able to see here in New York. I also like Enrico Fiume, who always used to come here to have pizza. My music helps me to

even more than the pizza they eat in Italy,” Dom says. “I don’t understand how that’s possible because all of the ingredients I use for the pizza come from Italy. The Casapulla mozzarella from Caserta, San Marzano tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil. Perhaps this is the reason: I use only products of an extremely high quality. If you do what you like, if you have passion for your art, in this case the art of making pizza, the magic happens, and people like it. I like what I do, and I’m very

proud of what I do.”

Using ingredients of the highest quality is, of course, important. But DeMarco’s skill is also key. He’s able to make approximately 150 pizzas daily at a rate fast enough to cause any of the larger restaurants to be jealous.

Dom does almost everything by himself; he’s helped only by a few assistants, among whom are his children.

DeMarco’s prowess is not only in his extraordinary hands but also in his knowledge of cooking, of the importance of the dough and the constant search for new processes. “I always experiment with the pizza. I’m always evolving,” Domenico told us. “Before letting my clients taste a pizza, I’m always the first to try it. The dough is the most important part of the pizza, and that’s where I experiment the most. Pizza shouldn’t stay inside the oven for too long. I keep it in for no more than 5 minutes. If it’s in there for more than 5 minutes, the taste changes radically, and it gets too dry.”

Writing about the taste of this pizza is easy; you can safely say it’s exquisite because that’s just the truth. But it’s the experience of going there to the Avenue J stop in Brooklyn, of walking into a place that seems like something out of a black and white postcard, and of seeing this man, both strong like a rock but as good as bread, knead his pizza, as he’s been doing every day for fifty years… and then of eating something that allows you to taste an important part of our ww Italian history.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 65

cuisine

ww FROM The Italian Diabetes Cookbook

Healthy and Authentic Cuisine If you think Italian food is off-limits for people with diabetes, think again. While thoughts of the Bel Paese (“Beautiful Country”) generally conjure up the image of platters of carbohydrate-rich pastas and fat-laden sauces, authentic Italian cuisine is both healthful and delicious.

by Amy Riolo

ww

My motivation for writing The Italian Diabetes Cookbook was to change the way Italian cuisine is viewed abroad and to demonstrate ways in which traditional Italian food can be part of a diabetes-friendly eating plan. The inspiration came to me years ago. I was 15 years old when I began preparing many of these recipes for my family after my mother’s diabetes diagnosis. Since I didn’t want to create two separate meals for our family, I strove to make the recipes that fit into my mother’s eating

plan delicious enough for the whole family to eat. Who knew that it would turn into a career? When I visited our ancestral hometown of Crotone for the first time, I was struck by how much healthier our Italian family members were than our American ones. While we share the same genes, it is the diet and lifestyle of our southern Italian relatives that make the difference to their health. While living in Rome, I was struck by how fit even the elderly citizens were. Belying the stereotypical figurines, even most Italian chefs are in good shape.

Ever since that stay, it has been my

goal to demonstrate that fantastic food and good health don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

The secret to my success with cookbooks, teaching, and lecturing has been to focus on what people with diabetes can eat, instead of what they can’t. Vegetables, fruits, grains, beans and legumes, nuts, dairy, seafood, poultry, lean meats, and wholesome baked goods can all be part of a healthful lifestyle. Fortunately, each of these food groups offers scores of ingredients to choose from—many of which include nutrients that are particularly beneficial to people seeking

optimal health. Best of all, preparing these foods in a traditional Italian fashion helps to coax the ultimate flavor, texture, and aroma out of them.

May you enjoy these recipes as much as I do. Buon appetito a tutti! ww

ww How to prepare Pomodori di riso alla romana

Roman-Style Rice and Herb Stuffed Tomatoes Stuffed tomatoes are one of the ultimate delicacies of the Roman diet and the pride of many home cooks— some of whom bake tiny, matchsticksize pieces of potato along with the tomatoes. Simple and delicious, they are a great accompaniment for grilled seafood and meat.

Serves: 4 Serving Size: 1 tomato Prep Time: 5 minutes Cooking Time: 45 minutes 1/2 cup Arborio rice or Calrose rice 1 cup Homemade Chicken Stock, low-sodium chicken stock, or water 4 beefsteak tomatoes, approximately 6–8 ounces each

66 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1/4 cup minced basil 1/4 cup minced mint 1/8 tsp unrefined sea salt 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper 1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 2. Place rice and chicken stock in a saucepan. Bring to boil over a high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for 20 minutes, or until rice is tender but firm (al dente). Add more water, 1/4 cup at a time, if rice begins to stick to the bottom of the pan. When rice is finished cooking, set aside.

3. Meanwhile, wipe off the tomatoes, discard the stem without damaging the skin, and lay the tomatoes stem side down. Cut a round slice from the

side opposite to the stem; you will be using it as a lid. With a melon scoop, scrape out the flesh of the tomato, being careful not to break the skin.

Reserve the pulp and the juice.

4. Chop the pulp and mix it with the juice (you can use a food processor).

In a bowl, combine the pulp and juice with the rice, 3 tablespoons olive oil, basil, mint, salt, and pepper.

5. Stuff hollow tomatoes with the rice mixture. Cover with the tomato lids and arrange in a greased baking dish, standing the stuffed tomatoes with the lid side up. Drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and bake for 20–30 minutes, or until the tomatoes are cooked through. Serve hot or at room temperature. www.i-Italy.org

Culatello di Zibello served at Eataly

ww Attention! Starting in the fall, Culatello di Zibello will be imported in the United States!

Culatello: The King of Cured Meats Culatello di Zibello represents the heritage and the richness of Zibello, a town in the province of Parma, nestled along the Po river and wrapped in its fog. That fog, or really, the Po Valley climate, is the key factor in properly aging this king of cured meats. The art of its production has been handed down from generation to generation and contains the story of a land, the traditions of its people, and the characteristics of its terroir.

by Dino Borri *

ww

For centuries, Culatello’s fame was celebrated only near its place of origin, the Bassa Parmense plains south of the Po river that extend west to Piacenza and east to Reggio- Emilia. People of the reigon knew to appreciate the taste of this very special kind of prosciutto and to safeguard its secrets. The first evidence of Culatello di Parma is in a document dating to 1735 from the Comune of Parma. The document lists prices for pork products, and it’s also the first time “Culatello” is used before it became part of the popular vocabulary. Other important accounts of Culatello date back to the 1800s and 1900s in the works of Giuseppe Callegari, a poet from Parma, and in the correspondence between www.i-Italy.org

sculptor Renato Brozzi and the celebrated poet Gabriele D’Annunzio.

Culatello has long been considered a noble food. Even as a purely local food, Culatello was a luxury, a “rare and exquisite” delicacy that only few could afford to afford to have on their tables, and for a long time, Culatello remained a product for the few, limited in its production and geographic distribution.

Only since the 1980s has its fame and consumption spread beyond the borders of the Bassa Parmense.

Production and Procedure

Culatello is commonly identified as pork cured in a natural casing usually made from pig’s bladder. It has received the prestigious “Protected designation of origin” recognition (Denominazione d’Origine Protetta ,or DOP given to food prod-

ucts whose unique characteristics depend exclusively on the specific techniques and on the area in which the product is made. Every year, more than 60,000 Culatello di Zibellos are stamped with the DOP certifiying seal and also with the names of the producers that adhere to the Consortium of Culatello di Zibello’s standards. This is a further guarantee of its distinctiveness and authenticity. The alternation between dry and humid periods in the area of production makes Culatello unique--production occurs between November and February, and climate is fundamental for the process. The towns of Busseto, Polesine Parmense, Zibello, Soragna, Roccabianca, San Secondo, Sissa, and Colorno are some of the most notable places for production and aging. The pigs used to

ww For a long time Culatello was a luxury, a “rare and exquisite” delicacy that only few could afford to afford to have on their table produce Culatello must be raised in Emilia Romagna or Lombardy.

Production Method

Bundles of filet or loin muscle from the hind legs of these protected pigs—the best of the same general cuts used for prosciutto-- are cleaned and cut into a pear shape. The meat Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 67

cuisine is salted by hand in a process lasting anywhere from one to six days.

Next, the muscle must be refrigerated between 32°F and 41°F, so that it can absorb the salt. It is then put in another room before it is encased in

ww It pairs perfectly and simply with a slice of bread, and makes a great appetizer when served in hand-cut slices and accompanied by Parmigiano Reggiano or butter.

intestines and tied up. Aging occurs in specific locations in temperatures between 55°F and 63°F for at least ten months. Finally, the Protected designation of origin “Culatello di Zibello” is applied to the label, and it’s ready for sale. To best preserve the Culatello once it’s opened, spread a small about of olive oil and butter on the part that was cut. Wrap it in a linen cloth that has been steeped in dry white wine, and store it in a cool area, not in the fridge as that would diminish the flavor.

Taste and Characteristics

Culatello is a delicate and sweet cured meat with an intense smell.

When it is cut, the meat has a uniform red color with white fat between the various muscle bundles. It is an excellent source of energy: 3.5 ounces of Culatello contains approximately 200 calories with 15% fat content. This includes unsaturated

fat and an extremely low percentage of cholesterol. It’s digestible and perfect for any age and pleasing to all palates. Culatello has a unique taste and an unmistakeable smell. It pairs perfectly and simply with a slice of bread, and makes a great appetizer when served in hand-cut slices and accompanied by Parmigiano-Reggiano or butter. It can also go well with a nice glass of Malvasia, an intense, sparking wine from Emilia-Romagna that pairs particularly well with long-aged meats. For optimal con-

ww How to Prepare

Rice with Culatello and Parmigiano

sumption, this cured meat must be treated and preserved with care. If it has been long aged,, it must be first be softened with lukewarm water.

Then, spread a small amount of olive oil and butter on the cut surface before wrapping the piece in a cloth that has been steeped in dry white wine. Store in a cool area, but not in the refigerator, which would compromise its inimitable flavor. ww * Dino Borri is VP of Purchasing

for Eataly USA

Cooking with Rosanna

by Rosanna Di Michele

Serves 4 people Ingredients

11 ounces (1-1/3 cups) of Carnaroli or Arborio rice; l 7 ounces of culatello (sliced less than half an inch thick); l 3.5 ounces (1/2 cup) of chopped fresh spinach leaves, cleaned; l 3.5 ounces (1cup) of ParmigianoReggiano, grated; l 1 glass of white wine l A knob of butter l 1/2 quart ( 2 cups) of filtered chicken or vegetable broth (cooked separately with 1 zucchini, 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk, 1 onion, 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil) l

raw culatello to the rice, and let it cook for a few minutes. Add the rest of the wine, mix well, and pour the broth a little at a time until the rice begins to soften and thicken. Add the spinach leaves just before the rice finishes cooking (about 20 mins). w Take the saucepan off the heat, add the crisped culatello, the knob of butter, and the all the Parmigiano. Mix everything together, cover, and let cook slowly until creamy. w Garnish with the raw spinach leaves and a touch of extra virgin olive oil.

Directions

Dice the culatello slices and lightly brown half of them in a frying pan for a few minutes. Leave the other half raw. w Pour the rice into an ungreased saucepan and toast over medium heat for a few seconds. Add half of the white wine and mix. w Add the 68 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

www.i-Italy.org

Left page: Ageing Cuatello in Emilia-Romagna

ww A favorite dish... Michele Scicolone

ww ... paired with the right wine. Charles Scicolone

From Western Sicily to Your Table: Spaghetti with Pesto alla Trapanese

Etna Bianco. A Great Pairing for White Meet, Cheese, and Pesto alla Trapanese

While everyone is familiar with Ligurian style pesto, the Sicilian version known as Pesto alla Trapanese is not so well known. The Sicilian variety contains with tomatoes and almonds, ingredients abundant in that region.

This recipe was given to me by a friend many years ago. He was originally from Trapani, a city on Sicily’s west coast, and insisted that the sauce should contain an entire head of garlic and could only be made by pounding it until smooth with a hand-held mortar and pestle.

But a little fresh garlic goes a long way and a food processor does a fine job of turning a handful of familiar ingredients into a quick pasta sauce.

In Trapani, pesto is traditionally served with busiate, a spiral shaped pasta made by wrapping the dough around a wooden dowel, but it is also good on spaghetti.

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients l 1/2 cup blanched almonds l 1 large garlic clove l 1/2 cup packed fresh basil leaves

www.i-Italy.org

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper l 1 pound fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped l 1/4 cup freshly grated pecorino Romano l About 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil l 1 pound spaghetti l

Directions w With a mortar and pestle, or in a food processor, combine the almonds, garlic, basil and salt and pepper to taste. Pound or chop the ingredients until fine. Add the tomatoes, cheese and oil and pound or process until smooth. w Meanwhile, bring a large pot water to boiling. Add the pasta and salt to taste. Stir well. Cook over high heat, stirring often, until the pasta is firm yet tender to the bite. Drain the pasta, reserving a little of the cooking water. w Pour the pasta into a large warm serving bowl. Add the pesto and toss well. Add a little of the reserved cooking water if the pasta seems dry. Serve immediately.

Adapted from 1,000 italian Recipes, Wiley Publishing, Inc., by Michele Scicolone.

For more information about cooking, vist www.MicheleScicolone.com

The soil around Mt. Etna is volcanic and rich in minerals. The fertile soil supports extensive agriculture and vineyards have been cultivated there since before the time of the ancient Greek. Vineyards on Etna can be as high as 1,000 meters.

One of the best white wines from Mt. Etna is Etna Bianco DOC. The Etna D.O.C. region is situated on the north, east and south slopes of the Etna volcano. Etna DOC may take the following forms: Etna Bianco must have a minimum of 60% Carricante grapes and a maximum of 40% Catarratto. Also included in the blend may be up to 15% of non-aromatic grapes such as Minnella and Trebbiano.

Etna Bianco Superiore must consist of a minimum of 80% Carricante, and a maximum of 20% Catarratto or Minnella. The grapes have to come only from the Milo area.

Carricante is an ancient wine grape, which does very well in volcanic soil and at high altitudes. It is indigenous and cultivated only on Mt. Etna. The grapes ripen slowly during the long growing season and retain the good acidity for which they are known. The finest examples of Etna Bianco are made from 100% Carricante.

Catarratto grapes are grown almost exclusively in Sicily. The variety takes up over 60% of the island’s total vineyard area and this makes it one of Italy’s most common white grape varieties planted.

Etna Bianco has hints of lemon, lime, grapefruit with good acidity and minerality, and a touch of smoke and almond on the finish. It goes well with a number of different foods such as fish, shellfish, white meats, cheese and pasta such as Spaghetti alla Trapanese.

Most of these wines sell for around

$20 or less, however, those that cost more are among Sicily’s best white wines.

Where to find them in NYC Flatiron Wines and Spirits 929 Broadway New York, NY 10010 212-477-1315 Astor Wines and Spirits 399 Lafayette St New York, NY 10003 212-674-7500 For more about wine visit Charles’ website: www.charlesscicolone.wordpress.com

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travel travel

ww THE HEART OF MEDITERRANEAN AESTHETICS

Under the Spell of Baroque Sicily

There are so many ways to by Goffredo Palmerini earthy flavors. Like a gendarme, Etna watches over the splendid city explore Sicily. This time we As you turn from scanning of Catania, which merits a visit, but chose to highlight the the Tyrrhenian to the peaks of we’ll have to save that for another Mount Peloritani flitting by, the air- day. This time we’re headed to the southwestern side of the plane begins its descent into Cata- southwest of Sicily.

Island and its baroque nia. In a few minutes the commanding profile of Etna appears, a feath- A Trip through Time treasures. Baroque Sicily ery white cloud hovering on top. Or Our friends from Modica are waithas a particular charm, one maybe it’s smoke. We should respect ing for us in the airport. All it takes the volcano; despite the headaches is a quick meal in a little restaurant that epitomizes its eruptions can cause, it is still part on the outskirts of town for Sicily to Mediterranean aesthetics. of our heritage. Viewed from above, welcome us with a waft of flavors:

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Etna really is a wonder, with its lavablackened summit and lush green base at the start of summer. The surrounding volcanic earth yields savory red and white wines with

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pasta with sardines and a fennel aroma washed down with an excellent white wine from Etna, grilled swordfish, and for dessert a slice of Sicilian cassata and good coffee.

www.i-Italy.org

The Cathedral of Syracuse.

Below: Santa Lucia alla Badia.

Next we hit the highway in the direction of Syracuse. The bright sun casts a golden light over the citrus fields and vegetable plots in this lush, fertile soil. The vibrantly lit oleanders in bloom flank the blacktop until to our left there appears a skyline of chemical plants that signal we’ve reached Augusta. The port city sits on the northern end of the bay, and in the center of the gulf shine the ancient remains of Megara Iblea. Founded in the eighth century BC by Greek colonists from Attica, there are still vestiges of the city wall, agora, temple to Aphrodite and thermal baths. You can also visit an “antiquarium” to see the ruwww.i-Italy.org

ww Those looking for history, art, and architecture are in for a real treat in southwestern Sicily, a region filled with stunning beauty. ins and grave goods of the colony’s necropolis. On the southernmost point of the gulf stand the remains

of Thapsos, which dates back to the Bronze Age. Fifteen minutes down the road there emerges on the horizon a peak, almost a pyramid. That’s the sanctuary of the Madonna delle Lacrime, a radically designed circular temple, at the entrance of Syracuse. We can’t stop long because our destination is the old city on the island of Ortygia.

Syracuse shoulders a millennial-old history. It was founded back in 734 BC by Greek settlers from Corinth.

One of the major Hellenistic cities, in terms of power and wealth, Syracuse was a competitor of Athens, which tried in vain to subjugate the city, and the main rival of the Phoenician Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 71

travel city Carthage. Only Rome succeeded in conquering it, in 212 BC, and not without difficulty. A hub of artists, philosophers and scientists, Syracuse was the birthplace of Archimedes and a destination for illustrious figures, like Plato, who visited three times, Aeschylus, Pindar and Xenophone.

Cicero later lauded it as the most beautiful Greek city. In successive centuries, it became an intersection of peoples and conquerors: Angevins, Arabs, Aragonese, Byzantines, Normans and Swedes. This melting pot phenomenon led to Sicily’s extraordinary hybrid of civilizations.

A Real Gem

Our first stop is to admire the ancient Doric temple of Apollo at the entrance of Ortygia. Throngs of tourists enliven the maze of narrow streets running through the island, granting it the kind of grandeur that only cities with a long history can summon. We follow the crowds streaming by, browsing for glass souvenirs, until to our right we spot a wide paved road leading to the heart of the city and a broad rectangular piazza. There we glimpse the magnificent Cathedral built over the ruins of a Doric temple of Athena, the Municipal Palace, the Episcopal Palace, the Church of Santa Lucia alla Badia, and other elaborately designed palazzos. The Cathedral combines a number of styles: its facade ranges from the baroque to rococo periods, and its interiors has everything from Greek ruins to Norman-built medieval sections.

But we’re headed straight for the Church of Saint Lucy – she was born

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ww Modica’s special urban design, with its intricate network of stairs and narrow alleys that snake up the four surrounding hills, explains its designation as “the most unique city outside Venice” and UNESCO World Heritage Site. here and is the city’s patron saint – to admire Caravaggio’s large canvas, the Burial of St. Lucy, a masterpiece by the great artist of light.

This splendid city harbors many other jewels for tourists, but our time is running out. We hop back on the road and in no time reach Avola. It lies on our left, near the sea.

The city is renowned for its almonds and, especially, “Nero d’Avola,” a full-bodied red wine with hints of cherries and prunes, best grown in the coastal stretch between Avola and Pachino. We speed off in the direction of Noto. We would be remiss not to make a pit stop in the baroque capital of Sicily. Noto was entirely rebuilt on a new site after

the devastating earthquake of 1673.

We enter through the Porta Reale onto Corso Vittorio Emanuele. The Church of Santa Chiara, magnificent palazzos, monumental staircases, Palazzo Ducezio, Cathedral, and the Churches of San Carlo and San Domenico rise up in all their beauty, lit by the setting sun. The city, a world heritage site, is a real gem. Its beauty is intoxicating. We have just enough time for a refreshing granita and cannoli—the out-of-this-world and not-to-be-skipped sweet here.

“The Most Unique City Outside of Venice”

There’s a pleasant sense of anticipation en route to Modica, especially

when the highway ends abruptly in Rosolini and merges with a minor arterial road. No problem. Actually, it allows us to get a better glimpse of the landscape in this part of Sicily, as we cross the Hyblaean Mountains, an expansive rocky tableland.

The fields show off the variety of the island’s agronomy: vineyards, orchards, olive groves and leafy carob trees fleck the earth that alternates green vegetable patches with golden wheat ready for harvesting. The series of fields are fenced off by orderly stonewalls, made with stones that have been gathered from the earth and carefully assembled by generations of farmers, as their colors attest.

The stunning panoramic stonewalls

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A view of Modica. Below: the famous Saints of Modica.

Opposite page: Il Loggiato del Sinatra in Ispica; a view of Noto and its cathedral.

form a dense labyrinth of property lines, a harmonious mix of working farmland where cows, sheep and goats graze. The air is clean. The clear sky is an intense blue.

Near Ispica, the limestone has been deeply scored by coursing water for millennia. Dense brush gives it a wild look. The deep grooves in the rock are called “cave.” The cliff walls often face grottoes. Prehistoric

people emerged from these caverns, as was revealed by the necropolises in Pantalica and Cava d’Ispica, which date back 2200 years before Christ. Important ruins and rock paintings have been discovered here, while a third century bronze statue of Hercules, now housed in the civic museum, was found on the outskirts of Modica. Speaking of Modica, we’ve almost arrived.

After a series of windy curves, the profile of the “città alta” emerges, dominated by the Church of Saint John above and a little farther down by the majestic facade of the Cathedral of Saint George. The city is really something, jutting from either side of two canyons that were hollowed out over millennia by a pair of streams that merged below, in today’s “città bassa.” Modica’s special

countryside of Caselle on the eastern slope of Etna in the commune of Milo and the countryside of Cavaliere on the southern side of the mountain, in the commune of Santa Maria di Licodia.

The soil is sandy, volcanic, and rich in

minerals, with subacid reaction. The consulting enologist is Michele Bean.

The grapes are late ripening and are picked in the third week of October; they are intact and softly pressed.

Temperature controlled fermentation in stainless steel vats.

urban design explains its designation as “the most unique city outside Venice” for its intricate network of stairs and narrow alleys that snake up the four surrounding hills.

UNESCO World Heritage Site

The urban design is utterly affecting, quilted as it is by a hundred or so late baroque churches, noble family palazzos, monasteries, and various

ww Sicilian Wine Tour

Three Special Wines That I Enjoy

by Charles Scicolone I am often asked to recommend my favorite Sicilian wines. There are many, but these three are among those I have been enjoying lately.

Benanti Etna Bianco Biancodicaselle 2014 DOC Benanti made from 100% Carricante, vines grown as freestanding bushes (alberello). This indigenous vine is cultivated only on Mt. Etna. The vines are 35 to 50 years old and at 800 to 1,000 meters. The area of production is the www.i-Italy.org

The wine matures for a certain period of time in tanks before being bottled. After two months in bottle the wine is released. The color is pale yellow with greenish hints; it is aromatic, fruity with hints of apple, and nice acidity.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 73

Below: Caravaggio, The Burial of St. Lucy.

Opposite page: Palermo, Oratory of Santa Cita, Stucco of Giacomo Serpotta.

travel convents, which have impacted the cultural life of the city for centuries.

Modica has been recognized by UNESCO for its architectural value.

Founded in 1360 BC, the city experienced a golden age around 1296, when King Frederick II of Aragon appointed Manfredi Chiaramonte Count of Modica. For centuries the County of Modica was the largest, richest and most powerful feudal state on the island. In Sicily, the figure of the Count of Modica also happened to be the King’s Viceroy.

And the Chiaramonte family enjoyed uncontested prestige, partly because the family descended from Charlemagne.

But on January 11, 1693, tragedy struck. The entire county was hit by a devastating earthquake that reverberated over a wide swath of southwestern Sicily, as far north as Catania, destroying cities and castles. 100,000 died. Yet the area was quickly rebuilt and the cities emerged more beautiful than before. In fact, the greatest Sicilian architects – Rosario Gagliardi, Paolo Labisi, Vincenzo Sinatra and others – were operating at that time. These sophisticated artists and expert artisans breathed new life into Sicilian baroque. Their best works have been recognized by UNESCO, as have Planeta Cometa 2014 100% Fiano Palm Bay $40.99. Production area Menfi from the Gurra vineyard planted in 1998 and the Dispensa vineyard planted in 1996. There are 4,500 vines/hectare.

The grapes are destemmed and crushed; the juice is clarified by cold settling overnight and then inoculated with selected yeast.

Fermentation takes place at a controlled temperature in stainless steel tanks for 20 days. The wine is bottled in the second half of February following the year of harvest.

This is an elegant, full-bodied wine with a wide range of aromas and flavors. It has hints of pineapple, mandarin, thyme and chamomile with a long finish and very pleasing aftertaste.

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ww After the devastating earthquake of 1693, the entire county of Modica emerged more beautiful than ever thanks to a handful of great architects who breathed new life into Sicilian baroque. the cities of Caltagirone, Catania, Militello, Modica, Noto, Palazzolo Acreide, Ragusa and Scicli.

A stupendous example of baroque Sicily, Modica is now a beautiful city with 55,000 inhabitants. Nobel laureate Salvatore Quasimodo was born here in 1901, and it is the city of chocolate. Beloved the world over, Modica chocolate is specially prepared. There are

many manufacturers, but there is one in particular worth singling out: Casa don Puglisi. The manufacturer uses proceeds from its chocolate and candy production to help support its namesake shelter and community center.

Our tour ends in Scicli, another pearl studding this corner of Sicily, all the more precious for its magnificent churches and superb

baroque buildings, including Palazzo Beneventano and Palazzo Civico. The latter is well known as Inspector Montalbano’s police station in RAI’s film adaptations of the famous novels by Andrea ww Camilleri.

Firriato Harmonium Sicily DOC Sicily 2013 100% Nero d’Avola from the Borgo Guarini Estate. This is a “cru” from 3 vineyards: Ferla cru with a north-east exposure, Beccaccia cru with a south exposure and the Lepre cru with a

south-east exposure and they are at 300 meters. The soil is calcareousslime, there are 5,000/5,500 vines per hectare and the vines are cordon trained and spur pruned. Grapes are hand-picked the third week of September. Vinification in

temperature controlled steel tanks according to tradition. The wine is aged for 12 months in French and American durmast barriques. This is a well-structured wine with hints of cherry, blueberries, prunes and a hint of pepper and nutmeg.

* Writer and journalist Goffredo Palmerini continues his fascinating journey through the beauty of Italy.

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ww A DIFFERENT WAY OF EXPLORING THE CAPITAL CITY OF SICILY

Four Baroque Corners in Palermo Known throughout the world for its millennia of history, stunning mountains in the backdrop, and rowdy vitality, Palermo is also renowned for its marvelous baroque architecture. Let’s focus on its “four corners,” all of which will surely take your breath away.

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by Dominique Fernandez*

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The first corner of baroque Palermo, marmi mischi (colored or inlaid marble) is a sumptuous local specialty that bears witness to the wealth and politics of eighteenth-century churches. The most luxurious of these polychrome churches, the Chiesa di Santa Caterina, is overlaid with ornate flutes, arabesques, and precious stone cabochons. However, it’s almost never open. Fortunately, the Chiesa di San Giuseppe dei Teatini and Chiesa del Gesù are, and they never cease to amaze. Set in the heart of a working class neighborhood, the Chiesa del Gesù is laden with marble inlays of every color, numerous putti, scantily clad figures, angels, peacocks, winged dogs and griffins

clinging to pillars in an lively blend of realism and fantasy. Behind the altar, in the recesses of the choir, the sculptor Vitagliano recreated scenes from the Old Testament taken from the story of David. The statues are set against a backdrop of yellow and blue inlay and depict three workaday commoners – a miller, a vintner and a man delivering bread – who stand in sharp contrast to the church’s theatrical pomp, naturalist motifs in a lyrical setting.

Palazzo Gangi, our second baroque corner, was made famous by Visconti in his movie Il Gattopardo (The Leopard). A remnant of Palermo’s old aristocracy, Palazzo Gangi is the only family house of its kind in such good condition, thanks to the ingenious work of the current owner, a woman from Lyons who married

Prince Gangi. The French princess offers private tours of the adjoining halls she has restored bit by bit, wall hanging by wall hanging, trinket by trinket – repairing, gluing, scrubbing and polishing with admirable earnestness and self-sacrifice. Rare cabinets, chandeliers teeming with branches, armchairs with gnarled feet and intricate lace adorn every room without a care for how much it once cost – or will cost in the future. The ballroom and adjoining hall of mirrors are among the most beautiful antique remnants of a class that has all but disappeared. What impeccable taste! What unpretentious beauty!

Another noble residence, the Palazzo Mirto, was donated to the government and opened to the public. Though not as spectacular as the Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 75

The famous scene from Luchino Visconti’s Il Gattopardo (1963) with Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale dancing in the ballroom of Palazzo Gangi in Palermo.

travel Palazzo Gangi, you will find a few interesting paintings there.

On the third corner we find the three oratories decorated by Giacomo Serpotta, a stucco worker about whom little is known. In fact, his talents never made it off the island. Besides his work on the Santo Spirito Monastery in Agrigento, Serpotta exclusively operated in Palermo, where he was born in 1656 and died in 1732. His body, buried in the basement of the Chiesa di San Matteo, disappeared when the cemetery was removed.

Until recently, there had been no mention of his work. For two and a half centuries, he was forgotten, confirming how little Sicilians care to boast of their reputation. Or should their silence be attributed to indifference? Contempt? Why, for instance, did the Prince of Lampedusa wait so long before writing his book, so that Il Gattopardo only became famous posthumously? According to his cousin the great and utterly unknown poet Lucio Piccolo, “We don’t want to be judged by the mainland.” By the mainland, Piccolo means Italy, and that powerful word both expresses the inferiority-superiority complex of Sicilians and explains their distaste for attention. Sicilians, you might say, prefer to stay in the shadows, where their talents may remain intact, intangible, sacred, like a diamond in the depths of a mine.

Until recently, visiting Serpotta’s three oratories was virtually impossible, unless you could somehow charm the fickle guards by, say, petting their cat. Now the oratories have regular opening hours; all you need to do is buy a ticket to enter. Inside, you will discover the work of a sculptor of striking imagination and skill, whose medium was not marble or bronze but stucco. The artist’s specialty was a snake or lizard (serpiotta) that he would sometimes carve into the corner of his statues.

Serpotta’s world is entirely white, and you’re not immediately aware of it, given that the first oratory he worked on, the Rosario in San Domenico, houses massive paintings by van Dyck, Pietro Novelli and other famous artists, which are em76 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

bedded in the walls and above the altar. In the next chapel Serpotta decorated, Santa Zita, a flurry of white shapes fills the space. You see nothing but white – life-size female Virtues and playful putti frolicking about like acrobats, skipping, swaying, playing with their mouths and genitals, among garlands of roses, bunches of fruit, and war trophies. But this child-like space can’t muffle the noise of war: the Battle of Lepanto is rendered in admirable detail in a large panel above the entrance and between two older boys—one, holding his head high and staring insolently, symbolizes the victor; the other, in a turban, the defeated Turks.

The twelve alcoves along the walls reveal the mysteries of the Rosary.

These miniature theaters were

ww Sicilians, you might say, prefer to stay in the shadows, where their talents may remain intact, intangible, sacred, like a diamond in the depths of a mine. fashioned with exquisite precision and poetry. Serpotta may have never set foot off the island, but his deep understanding of perspective makes you wonder if his bas-reliefs were borrowed from Donatello.

Shapes gradually recede, creating a sense of depth.

The last oratory is in San Lorenzo, adjacent to the church of San Francesco d’Assisi, and introduces a new kind of human next to the serious Virtues and whimsical babies, several naked adolescents stretched out or prone in poses redolent of Michelangelo’s Ignudi or those by Carracci in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. The total absence of adult men among dozens of figures is novel and mysterious; it’s a

world of white with only women and children. When Serpotta was fourteen years old, his father was sent to the galleys and died a slave.

Does the color white, combined with the absence of virile characters, suggest a boy who has erased his father from his mind? Or is it a post-mortem homage to the idealized criminal according to the Sicilian code of omertà? A large painting

by Caravaggio (The Adoration) once hung above the altar. It was stolen in 1969 and its whereabouts are still unknown.

The fourth corner lies at the other extreme of this relatively muted baroque building, in over-the-top Bagheria, a small town about ten miles from Palermo. Here, the

Prince of Palagonia topped the wall surrounding his villa with extravagant “monsters” that would startle Goethe, one of the first visitors to see them. Dwarfs riding lions, hunchbacks donning large wigs, dragons with donkey ears, bird-women, fish-men, and oversized heads on contorted bodies – if you attribute them to the wild imaginings of the mentally insane, then you fail to grasp the Mediterranean mindset. Like a Pirandello character, the “mad” prince was fully aware of what he was doing.

Chances are he commissioned these statues to tarnish the image of Sicily, which he believed worshipped at the altar of restraint and reason.

Bagheria’s brand of baroque is www.i-Italy.org

The grotesque statues of Villa Patagonia, Bagheria.

ww The Prince of Palagonia topped the wall surrounding his villa in Bagheria with extravagant “monsters” (…) if you attribute them to the wild imaginings of the mentally insane, then you fail to grasp the Mediterranean mindset.

merely an exaggeration of a quintessential island trait: a tendency to defy Greek clichés and impatiently dispel the myth that had reduced the island to a college campus. On the contrary, what has best represented Sicily since the end of antiquity are not the columns you see on the temples, the tiered seats in the theaters or the grandeur of the ruins, but rather art that express a lust for life, the direct result of a tragic and turbulent history and the constant threat of violence from the earth and below the earth – the island’s erratic earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. “Sicilitude” is a permanent state of anxiety.

Mount Etna beckons. Lava, basalt, blackened prisms, black lava flows, www.i-Italy.org

heaps of carbonized ash, clouds of black smoke, random craters formed by ice melt: the world as it was, a telluric jumble. It’s not uncommon to emerge from the slag heaps and see a shrub suddenly burst into flames, reclaimed by the fire underneath the surface. How can you maintain your composure or your bourgeois lifestyle when you can’t even trust the earth your house stands on? The notions of saving for the future, making plans, keeping obligations and career building don’t exist in Sicily.

What’s the point when at any minute ww it could all go up in smoke? * Dominique Fernandez is a French writer, a renown expert on Italian art and literature, and a member of the Académie française.

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 77

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Italy in the City Italy is everywhere around you

Washington New York boston san francisco los angeles

In this issue: The Capital Italian Exploring the Italian influence in Washington, DC

Causes on Weels The Blue Bus Project and the Mobile Care Clinic in New York

Where to go What to do

Italian

Boston’s North End How Itaiians changed it from a slum into a desirable area

A Guru of Italian Cuisine on the Rise Meet world-acclaimed chef Barbara Lynch of Boston

Cinema Italia SF Taking the Bay back to to the Golden Age of Italian classics

Through February 4, 2018 Modigliani Unmasked

The Jewish Museum 1109 Fifth Ave, New York City

Amedeo Modigliani, Seated Female Nude, c. 1911 - Paul Alexandre Family, courtesy of Richard Nathanson, London

Italian Cinema in the ‘Mecca of Cinema’ How Italy is promoting itself through films in Los Angeles

washington

Italy in the City

OVERVIEW ww The Italian Scene in Washington, DC

The Capital Italian A journey through DC’s Italian roots while enjoying its contemporary Italian-centric culture. The city’s strong tie to the Italian sense of beauty has remained steady through modern times.

by Amy Riolo

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A lot has changed since I first moved to the Washington, DC area in the mid 1980’s. When my family first arrived from New York State, we were the only Italians in our neighborhood. Procuring Italian products from the local supermarkets was almost impossible. I remember joking with a friend who used to forage basil from Rock Creek Park because he couldn’t find it in stores! That was, of course, before “we” all began growing our own herbs and vegetables to fill our insatiable culinary nostalgia. Whenever we did meet Italians, or Italian-Americans, everyone would lament about there being no Italian community in Washington.

Lack of Italian influence?

Even as a young teenager though, it struck me as odd that this very capital city in which our American forefathers incorporated Italian inspiration, was known for its lack of Italian influence. I began seeking refuge in the rotunda of the capitol building, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian art galleries –such as the National Gallery of Art, the Hirschhorn Museum, and the more recent National Museum of Women in the Arts, where Italian names and aesthetic sensibilities were plentiful. Making friends with Italians in the diplomatic community and those who came to work (usually at World Bank, the IMF, or NIH) was another way to construct a personal sense of community.

Ever since those early days, it became somewhat of a mission of mine to explain the Italian roots of DC not only to new Italian members of the community, but to the community at large.

Once all of the historical roots and synergy between America and Italy are understood, it would be very difficult for an Italian-American not to feel at home here. In future articles, I will focus on more modern aspects of the Italian scene in DC, but for this initial piece, I feel that a historical overview is the best guide to all of the Italian – influenced federal flavors.

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ww Other American cities may have larger Italian populations than ours, but it’s hard to visit a neighborhood in the District without seeing evidence of the artistic and architectural influences of Italy.

— Adrian M. Fenty, Former Mayor of Washington, DC

A fascination with Italy

Former Washington, DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said “Other American cities may have larger Italian populations than ours, but it’s hard to visit a neighborhood in the District without seeing evidence of the artistic and architectural influences of Italy. He also stated, “Italy’s roots run deep in

the District of Columbia.” I couldn’t agree more.

Many of our monuments are in honor of Italian historical figures. A large bronze statue of Dante that was gifted to the US from Italy can be found in Meridian Hill Park. Leonardo Da Vinci and Galileo statues can be found in the National Academy of Science Building. There is an Art Deco statue of Guglielmo Marconi on Sixteenth Street and another of Columbus at Union Station.

Evidence of our American forefathers’ fascination with Italy can be found all around the Washington, DC area today. In a future article, I will discuss how George Washington laid the foundation for the American wine industry when he asked Filippo Mazzei to introduce the “culture of wine” to the United States, hence beginning our nation’s love affair with viticulture.

Thomas Jefferson himself visited Italy as often as possible, as is evidenced in his Monticello. While entire books are devoted to this subject alone, Jefferson’s importation of Italian style didn’t end there. Many Americans are shocked to learn that it was the result of his smuggling riso di Pavia, rice from the town of Pavia, that lead to our $2-3 million-dollar rice industry in the United States.

An Italian sense of beauty

While the 16th-18th centuries remained a littleknown chapter in the history of Italian-Americans www.i-Italy.org

washington

Clockwise: Costantino Brumidi, Apotheosis of Washington (1865) Cupola of the Capitol Building; The Landing of Columbus (1877) frieze in the Rotunda of the US Capitol. Below, the statues of Dante and Guglielmo Marconi in Washington, DC.

ww Meet the author

Sharing History, Culture, and Nutrition With this issue, Amy Riolo starts her regular collaboration with i-Italy from Washington, D.C. As an award – winning, best-selling, author, chef, television personality, and educator, Amy is one of the world’s foremost authorities on culinary culture.

She is known for sharing history, culture, and nutrition through global cuisine as well as simplifying recipes for the home cook. A graduate of Cornell University, Amy is considered a culinary thought leader who enjoys changing the way we think about food and the people who create it. Amy is a food historian, culinary anthropologist and Mediterranean Diet advocate who makes frequent appearances on numerous television and radio programs both in the United States and abroad. Amy’s seventh book, The Italian Diabetes Cookbook was released on January 12, 2016 and was the #1 New Release on Amazon.com. Amy, an American of Calabrian descent, was awarded the 2015 Wise Woman Award from The National Organization of Italian American Women. She is a Culinary Advisor for The Mediterranean Food Alliance who lives in the Washington, DC area and travels to Italy and other Mediterranean countries often.

in the United States, it was perhaps the height of Italian architectural dominance in Washington.

Our urban planning relied heavily upon Italian artists, artisans, architects, engineers, stone cutters, painters, and masons. Constantino Brumidi, famous for designing the capitol building’s rotunda, became known as “the American Michelangelo”, and Andrea Palladio, “the most imitated architect in history” left Italian imprints on the DC area that cannot be escped. The late architectural historian James S. Ackerman said that Palwww.i-Italy.org

ladio’s influence on the development of English and American architecture has been greater than that of all architects combined.”

Despite the fact that the majority of Italian immigrants had not yet arrived on Ellis Island, tributes and connections to their homeland were already being built in our nation’s capital. The city’s strong tie to the Italian sense of beauty has remained steady through modern times. Even the Watergate complex was designed by an Italian architect – Luigi Moretti. Our city’s current

fashion, art, dining, decorating, and theatre scenes all boast Italian elements.

Join me on a monthly journey through DC’s Italian roots while enjoying its contemporary Italian-centric culture. In the next issue, we’ll explore more of Palladio’s influence and the visions of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison with a trip to Barboursville, VA. After getting to know Virginia Wine Country, we’ll head into DC’s top Italian restaurants to find out how the capital’s chefs and sommeliers are putting local wine to good use! ww Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 81

washington

Italian events

Italy in the City

E V E N T S

Italian Calendar October 17 Italian Is a Language Spoken By Dubbers

17th Italian Language Week in the World 6:00 pm Embassy of Italy - Auditorium 3000 Whitehaven St, NW ww iicwashington.esteri.it

n iItalian cinema relinquished Italian literary language back to the shelf. Its role as a guardian of the language was handed to television, where Italian films in which dialect is prominent are still excluded from programming.

Caterina D’Amico, Director of the Centro di Cinematografia Sperimentale in Rome will show us how Italian cinema changed and shaped the Italian language, in a lecture on movies by Vittorio De Sica, Mario Mattòli and Lina Wertmüller. The event is part of the Italian Language Week in the World , held under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic

October 19 & 20 The Course of Empires: American-Italian Cultural Relations, 1770-1980 6:00 pm Embassy of Italy - Auditorium 3000 Whitehaven St, NW ww iicwashington.esteri.it

n This international conference will examine the persistent fascination of American and Italian artists with the cultural achievements of ancient Rome and the Renaissance. In creating national identities, both countries turned to history for similar reasons: to find inspiration for enlightened political practices; to locate models of artistic, political, and economic preeminence; and to seek ways to ward off imperial decadence and decline. Yet alongside this tendency toward emulation, some American and Italian artists looked askance at the myths of antique and Renaissance glories, demonstrating a skepticism toward the notion of imperial

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greatness. They utilized imagery of the Roman Colosseum, for example, as a multivalent symbol to articulate the rise, grandeur, terrors, and fall of empire. The keynote “AmericanItalian Artistic Exchange after World War II” by Ester Coen, Professor of Art History, Università degli Studi dell’Aquila, will highlight the reality of political interactions that is reflected in the cultural history of two nations.

How to understand such different courses—one of an imperialist state and one of a country that, amongst many difficulties, was unified in the second half of the nineteenth century and then went on to wage an artistic battle to enforce its contemporary relevance? In postwar Italy, the real semantic rupture happened with Lucio Fontana, the most direct heir to the vision of time and space proclaimed by the Futurists, who carried their ideals beyond their canonical methods of painting. Correspondingly, in the United States, that rupture was enacted by Jackson Pollock and the unprecedented gravitational shift evidenced in his painting. Exploring American and Italian art of the fifties and sixties—among, for example, pop art, arte povera, and minimal art, or between conceptual and land art—allows us to rediscover encounters and intersections and above all differences in origins, sources, and cultural expressions.

October 20 An Italian-Language Excursion into Swiss Cinema

17th Italian Language Week in the World 18:30 pm Embassy of Switzerland 2900 Cathedral Avenue NW ww

October 21 Innovation in Italian Programs and Pedagogy

17th Italian Language Week in the World 8:00 am - 7:00 pm Department of Italian, Georgetown University 37th & O Streets NW with all its socio-cultural and political significance. It is a time of Italian immigration to Switzerland, which Swiss cinema depicts with films such as Siamo Italiani by Alexander Seiler. We then make another stop in the ’80s. Before our journey ends, we explore cinema in the SwissItalian region.

The presentation will be given by Domenico Lucchini, current director of CISA (International Academy of Audiovisual Sciences). CISA is a training Institute in the fields of cinema, television and multimedia culture, oriented toward student development with the aim of improving their inclinations, talents and skills. This presentation, part of the Italian Language Week in the World, is organized in partnership with the Embassy of Switzerland in the United States of America.

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n The third iteration of the Italian Language and Culture Conference this year focuses the discussion on pedagogical innovations to increase enrollments in the Italian classroom. The event is part of the 17th Italian Language Week in the World, held under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic. The Keynote Speaker will be Giuseppe Cavatorta, from the University of Arizona, and the conference will feature guest speakers from the US and Italy. The ability to innovate has always been a fundamental trait of the Italian spirit characterizing the work of Italians in many domains, from the arts, to design, to cuisine. In recent years, Italian departments, researchers, and teachers have had to find innovative ways to confront the challenges brought about by changes in higher education and the general shift in students’ interests.

This event is sponsored by the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics at Georgetown University, the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute in Washington DC. Professional development credits will be awarded to K-12 educators in attendance.

October 26 The Garbage Patch State: Ocean Plastics Pollution

guevents.georgetown.edu

n Fasten your seat belt and join us on a time-travel trip to discover the path between images and words.

Our time travel will start with some examples, such as Eve by Francis Borghi and Heidi by Luigi Comencini, representing the origin of Swiss cinema in the ’40s and ‘50s. We will then fast forward to the ’60s, a time period during which the Italian language will make its appearance

guevents.georgetown.edu

6:00 pm Intercultural Center Auditorium, Georgetown University 37th & O Streets, NW ww

italianinstitute.college.georgetown.edu

n The Georgetown University Italian Research Institute, in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute, is pleased to sponsor a conference

www.i-Italy.org

dedicated to raising awareness of the environmental harmful impact of plastic pollution in our oceans and to the global marine ecosystem. Maria Cristina Finucci will show, with numerous images, all the “actions” of THE GARBAGE PATCH STATE, the new Federal State she founded at the Paris UNESCO in 2013 to create awareness about the critical problem of plastic choking our Oceans. Through art she is addressing this previously unknown phenomenon. In just five years she has provided visibility to the plastic pollution in our oceans through her monumental installations placed in strategic locations around the world. These exhibits have attracted positive artistic reviews as well as increasing understanding about this serious environmental issue.

Featuring: Maria Cristina Finucci, Architect & Artist, Founder of The Garbage Patch State; Laura Parker, Senior Staff Writer at The National Geographic, Washington, DC. Moderator: John McNeill, Ph.D., Professor at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

October 30 The Bridge Book Award.

Third Edition

7:15 pm Embassy of Italy 3000 Whitehaven St NW ww

ambwashingtondc.esteri.it/

n You are invited to the Award Ceremony and Panel Discussion for the Italian winners of the Third Edition of the Book Award “The Bridge” with curator Maria Ida Gaeta, panelists Tiziana Rinaldi Castro and Eli Gottlieb (2016 American Fiction winner), and the 2017 Italian winners, Andrea Inglese for fiction (Parigi è un desiderio, Ponte alle Grazie) and Antonella Tarpino for Non Fiction (Il Paesaggio Fragile: L’ Italia Vista dai Margini, Einaudi). The award ceremony will also mark the opening of Librografie by Gonzalo Orquin, an exhibition inspired by the protagonists of the greatest Italian novels of the 20th Century, and curated by the House of Literatures of Rome.

www.i-Italy.org

ww At the Embassy of Italy

Honoring 2 million U.S. troops who served at the Western Front in Europe in WWI—more than 50,000 of whom died

Join the Embassy of Italy as they present the catalogue War & Art: WWI USA in Italy followed by a preview of a previously unreleased documentary about the First World War provided by the Museo Centrale del Risorgimento.

When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America’s closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter’s attempted quarantine of the British Isles. Several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines, and in February 1915 Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain.

In 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced the resumption of unrestricted warfare in war-zone waters. Three days later, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German Uboat. On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.

Four days later, his request was granted: on April 6, 1917, America entered

World War I. The first U.S. infantry troops arrived on the European continent in June 1917. In October, the first American soldiers entered combat, in France. That December, the U.S. declared war against Austria-Hungary.

The 332nd Infantry Regiment, 83rd Division, with attached medical and supply units, was sent to the Italian front in July 1918 in response to urgent requests from the Italian Government. Its principal missions were to build up Italian morale and to depress that of the enemy by creating the impression that a large force of Americans had reached that front and was preparing to enter the battle line and to take an active part in the fighting. A pivotal role was also to protect Italian works of art from the bombings, as we can see from the unique exhibition now on display at the Pentagon.

The United States 332nd Infantry Regiment had a distinctive and unique role in WWI as the sole American combat unit to serve and fight alongside the Allies in Italy. The men of the “reggimento americano,” some of whom were killed or died while serving on the Italian Front, trained with the gallant soldiers of the Italian Army, crossed the Piave and successfully engaged the enemy in combat at the Tagliamento during the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. Quite a few of the men in the regiment were born in Italy and returned to their homeland as American soldiers in the 332nd Infantry.

In addition, nearly 500 American volun-

teer Army Air cadets had flight training in Foggia, in southern Italy. They were under the command of Captain, Fiorello LaGuardia. Known today as the Foggiani, they took part in an extraordinary operation, which combined the vision of Major Giulio Douhet, the genius of Engineer Giovanni Caproni, and the cooperation of American and Italian Army Commands.

When the war concluded in November 1918, with a victory for the Allies, more than 2 million U.S. troops had served at the Western Front in Europe, and more than 50,000 of them died. War & Art: USA in Italy was created to honor them.

October 12 War & Art: USA in Italy

6:00 pm Embassy of Italy - Auditorium 189 North Street ww iicwashington.esteri.it

Welcome remarks: H. E. Armando Varricchio, Ambassador of Italy to the United States.

Opening Remarks: Major General Luca Goretti, Defense Attaché, Embassy of Italy.

Panel discussion: Ambassador Tod Sedgwick, Commissioner, World War One Centennial Commission.

Deanna DeSante, Deputy Director, OSD European Policy (South & Central), Country Director for Italy.

Roberto Tonon, Mayor of the city of Vittorio Veneto, Treviso.

Marco Pizzo, Deputy-director of Museo Centrale del Risorgimento in Rome (in Italian).

Antonella Uliana, Cultural Councilman of the city of Vittorio Veneto.

Maria Cristina Scalet, Director of Museo della Battaglia in Vittorio Veneto Alberto Luca, President of Fondazione Museo Hemingway e della Grande Guerra di Bassano del Grappa.

Douglas Farquhar, nephew of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Douglas Farquhar, member of the Foggiani Pilots based in Italy during the First World War.

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in the Capital

washington

Italy in the City

dinin g out ww A New Culinary Capital

The Golden Age of DC’s Dining Scene When considering the greatest food cities in the United States, the nation’s capital never usually come to mind. Today however, a new culinary scene is developing in Washington DC, and Italian restaurants are definitely contributing to it.

by Joelle Grosso

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Lately the most talented chefs in the industry have been looking to DC as their dream destination to open up new businesses, and the world is beginning to take notice. In an effort to become a true global leader in cuisine, chefs are opening up more restaurants than ever with fresh concepts. These restaurants are drawing crowds of people, who want to experience something other than the White House and Capitol Hill. Last year during the summertime alone, Eater DC counted 85 new restaurant openings with less than half closing throughout their first year in business.

This remarkable expansion truly

puts DC on the right track to becoming a foodies’ paradise, and it also makes for the perfect environment to experiment the intricacies between traditional and modern Italian food. Restaurants like Acqua Al 2 and The Red Hen already have lines going out the door and are full of customers eager to taste an authentic Italian meal with surprising contemporary twists. The new generation of gastronomic artists are introducing an exciting sophistication to the rapidly evolving dining scene in one of the most eclectic neighborhoods in the States, transforming America’s capital into the culinary capital of the world.

Enjoy our selection of some of the best Italian restaurants in the city ww and stay tuned for more!

Our Picks For This Season

cuisine Traditional ambience Friendly price $$$

dining experience known for the San Leo ravioli bursting with ricotta cheese & fresh lemon zest and finished with almonds & hints of fine herbs. The bar is another decadent aesthetic to your experience at the osteria; it offers a variety of signature cocktails along with red wines, white wines, and prosecco. Both the fabulous wine list and rustic dishes make you feel as if you have crossed the border into Italy for a romantic meal.

Overall, Casa Luca provides an intimate experience that suits all needs.

n This upbeat and trendy Italian sit

ww Chinatown

ww Mount Vernon Square Casa Luca 1099 New York Avenue NW % (202) 628-1099 ww

casalucadc.com

down restaurant provides a warm and delectable dining experience that will surely stand out. Bite after bite of classic Italian dishes will cater to all of your cravings. Originally from Marche, owners Fabio and Maria descended to Washington DC and created an upscale

Graffiato 707 6th Street NW % (202) 289-3600 ww

graffiatodc.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Modern price $$

n As an Italian American who was influenced by the culinary skill of his Italian grandmother, Chef Mike Isabella ensures there are strong Italian and American influences that permeate all the dishes at his joint—at all hours of the day. The reservations fill daily for those awaiting the prizes that come from the wood burning oven.

The potato gnocchi with pork ragù, chicken thighs with pepperoni sauce, charred octopus with summer squash puttanesca, and hanger steak with sundried tomatoes are a few of the Italian meals with an American twist that keep both locals and travelers hooked. The classic Italian-inspired New York style pizza comes piping hot from the pizza

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www.i-Italy.org

washington

Pizza oven at Al Dente (left), and Ari Gejdenson of the Mindful Restaurants Group (right). Opposite page: Meat and seafood at Casa Luca.

Urbana 2121 P Street NW % (202) 956-6650 ww

urbanadc.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Casual price $$

n It’s no secret that Dupont Circle is

oven that fills the swanky restaurant with the scent of pepperoni, cheese, and countless other toppings. The bottom floor presents a casual dining spot while the top floor is the perfect brunch spot. If you’re in the area late at night, fear not. The kitchen may be closed, but the oven is still hot in order to serve you a late-night snack.

one of Washington’s most competitive food districts, and Urbana does fail to please! The interior is classy, cozy, and warm. The service is top-notch, and the bar is welcoming. And the food– wow! The restaurant considers itself to be a “contemporary Italian food spot,” and that proves to be true. The lobster ravioli is creamy and fresh; the plating is elegant, and each bite is better than the last. The lobster flavoring is buttery and light, and it stands out on the fluffy al dente ravioli. The roasted artichoke hearts–served with rapini, red quinoa, salsa rossa, and pine nuts– create an entree that will absolutely keep you coming back for more. Compliment your dish with a half off bottle of wine from Wednesday through Saturday after 5:30pm.

ww Dupont Circle

ww Cathedral Heights

Floriana 1602 17th Street NW % (202) 667-5937

Al Dente Ristorante 3201 New Mexico Avenue NW % (202) 244-2223

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florianarestaurant.com

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aldentedc.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Romantic price $$

cuisine Traditional ambience Casual price $$$

n Made with fresh locally grown

n Al Dente offers three great dining

ingredients, Floriana’s dishes are rich with Italian flavor. Chef Jamie’s eclectic menu pays tribute to several of Italy’s regions. His knowledgeable staff will also assist you in selecting the perfect bottle of regional wine. Thry lamb gnocchi with a Montepulciano, or the scallop and shrimp risotto with a Sicilia Bianco—you won’t regret! Nestled in a three-story Victorian townhouse in the upscale Dupont neighborhood, Floriana is known for its intimate dining experience. It is located just a stone’s throw from the White House; in fact, during the springtime, you can dine while enjoying the sight and smell of the cherry blossoms. It is no surprise that this restaurant was voted one of the top ten most romantic restaurants in the District, making for a memorable dining experience.

options: brunch, lunch, and dinner. For a fixed-price brunch of $29, you can enjoy as many mimosas as you would like, accompanied by any one of their delicious brunch entrees. For lunch and dinner, be sure to try one of the pizzas. If you’re a white pizza lover, we recommend the Piemontese with its fontina cheese, porcini mushrooms, and sausage. Sit at the bar and watch your pizza be prepared right before your eyes! Al Dente does not joke around with the quality of its cheese, fish, and meat. Whether you want the perfectly cooked seafood pasta or the grilled branzino filets, the texture and flavor of all the produce served is sure to please. The wine and beer list is constantly changing, and the bar is always buzzing. For a delicious dining experience, Al Dente is surely a hit.

www.i-Italy.org

ww Neighborhood Gems

A Taste of Tuscany The story of an Italian restaurant in DC that has a twin in Piazza della Signoria, Florence

by Samantha Janazzo

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Today more than ever, food is becoming a means for slowing down the hectic pace of life and for spending time with those dear to us.

This most Italian philosophy is the belief behind the Mindful Restaurants Group. The Group was founded by Washington DC native Ari Gejdenson, together with his wife Stacy, and director of Operations Brian Zaslavsky, who has worked for some of the best restaurants on both coasts. Ari founded the group after he had retired from his soccer career and returned to the U.S. It’s comprised of nine different restaurants in the Washington DC area: Acqua Al 2, Ghibellina, Mindful, Sotto, Denson Liquor Bar, Harold Black, Dock Fc, Ari’s Diner, and La Puerta Verde. Each of the restaurants has a distinct theme. Harold Black, for example, is a speakeasy named after Ari’s grandfather.

Ghibellina is an Italian gastropub that specializes in Neapolitan pizzas and craft cocktails. Ari’s Diner is the Washington DC incarnation of the original American diner that Ari first opened in Florence. Our favorite is Acqua Al 2 and here is its story.

As his soccer career came to a close, Ari decided to enter the culinary business. He lived in Florence, a city where late night cuisine was rare, so he opened “Ari’s Diner,” complete with a classic American menu and feel.

It just so happened that this was a stone’s throw from the internationally-renowned restaurant, Acqua Al 2, which kept its wait-list exclusive, causing lines out the door. After some some healthy competion between traditional and new-world cuisine, a beautiful companionship developed between Ari and the Executive Chef of Acqua Al 2, Stefano Innocenti. Stefano was conquered by young Ari’s passion and personality.

Ari told us, “Stefano came to me one day saying, ‘you remind me of me!’”

Then he invited Ari and his business partner Ralph Lee, and taught them all about Italian cuisine. Four years later, the three of them partnered to open Acqua Al 2 in DC. They decided on Eastern Market, and agreed on keeping the interior and exterior as authentic as possible. In fact, the Acqua Al 2 locations in both Eastern Market and Piazza della Signoria sport very similar interior décor—and equally authentic Florentine menu, of ww course! Not to be missed.

Acqua Al 2

212 7th Street SE (Capitol Hill) % (202) 525-4375 ww

www.acquaal2dc.com

cuisine ambience price

Regional (Tuscan) Modern $$$

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Works of Amedeo Modigliani Clockwise:

Jeanne Hébuterne with Yellow Sweater, 1918-1919 Oil on canvas - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Head, 1911-1913 Limestone - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Head of a Woman, 1910-1911 Limestone - National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Chester Dale Collection Opposite page:

Study for “The Amazon,” 1909 Black crayon on paper - Paul Alexandre Family, courtesy of Richard Nathanson, London Images: Courtesy of The Jewish Museum

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www.i-Italy.org

OVERVIEW ww “Modigliani Unmasked” at the Jewish Museum

New York Showcases the Work of Amedeo Modigliani After 66 Years The tremendous interest in the exhibit curated by Mason Klein has forced the museum to stay open for longer hours. “Modigliani Unmasked” is scheduled to last until February 4, 2018.

by Riccardo Chioni

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New York reporters are quick in identifying cultural events of great significance, as in the case of “Modigliani Unmasked” at the Jewish Museum on Fifth Avenue. The centenary museum, has opened its doors to all those who want to see the exceptional collection of Amedeo Mogliani’s early works. The line that winds around the corner all the way down the block to Fifth Avenue, confirms that the public’s interest is great and that people flock to it week after week.

The tremendous interest in the exhibit—a showcase curated by Mason Klein who wanted to present the Italian Jewish artist in a different light—has forced the museum to stay open for longer hours. “Modigliani Unmasked” is scheduled to last until February 4, 2018.

Modigliani’s work returns to New York sixty six years after a retrospective held at MoMA back in 1951; the show at the Jewish Museum features the first works by the artist, made in his twenties upon moving to Paris, and it’s mostly comprised of drawings.

Born in Livorno in 1884, by an Italian father and a French mother, the artist moved to Paris in 1906 where he found himself, for the first time, face to face with fierce ostracism, due to his Judaism. That had never happened to him before back in Italy.

The works on display, mostly coming from the private collection of Dr. Paul Alexandre, an old friend of “Modi’s” from the years back in Paris, are comprised of 130 drawings, 12 paintings and 7 sculptures and are grouped in the exhibition halls by theme.

Located in the Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue, the Jewish Museum, even if small in size, has become the focus of the cultural attention of New Yorkers and international visitors alike, the many languages spoken by them are a way to tell they are coming from all corners of the world, thanks to “Modigliani Unmasked.” www.i-Italy.org

What the museum offers is the opportunity to discover lesser known works, pieces that are little known just as the emerging artist from Livorno himself was during his first years in Paris. There he had the chance to find himself and explore different cultures. Mostly, Modigliani admired African, Asian, Greek and Egyptian art, all identifiable in the works he completed at the age of thirty, works that

addressed ancient art by personalizing his representation of the caryatids. Modigliani, in opposition to their classic female representation, re-designed them and portrayed them in his drawings as both women and men but also as ambiguous beings.

The city of Paris, at the beginning of the 1900s, was characterized by waves of antisemitism and xenophobia, and Modigliani couldn’t feel at home, despite being at ease with both the classic Italian and French cultures and both languages.

Charming and troubled, Modigliani did not live a serene life, mostly due to tuberculosis which killed him in 1920, when he was only 36 years old. On January 25th, the day after his death, his lover and model, Jeanne Hébuterne, desperate for the loss and pregnant with his child, committed suicide.

Reports from those years relate that the artist from Livorno, arrived in Paris with great expectations and he loved to stand out from the group of Jewish artists he was a part of. Out in public, he liked to introduce himself like this: “My name is Modigliani and I am Jewish.” This was his way of protesting assimilation.

Broadway and Hollywood both portrayed Modigliani’s life and career, with a long standing off-Broadway show and with “Montparnasse 19,” a film that’s almost sixty years old.

More recently, back in 2004, a film came out with Andy Garcia playing Modigliani himself.

The Jewish Museum – located on Fifth Avenue & 92nd Street – has also put together an audio tour, a program of lectures and meetings, and a catalogue (172 pages with 165 photoww graphs) edited by Yale University Press.

For information call (212) 423.3200 or visit TheJewishMuseum.org.

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Italy in the City

new york

Italy in the City

The Blue Bus Project this past summer

OVERVIEW

Photos: Annalisa Iadicicco

ww New York Causes on Wheels / 1. The Blue Bus Project

Making Socially Conscious Art on the Streets of NYC This school bus doesn’t take you to a classroom, but it comes to you.

It comes to your neighborhood to provide a safe space for artists and communities to merge, while cultivating self-worth, social expression, imagination and creativity.

by Natasha Lardera

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“I wanted to start a movement of change throught art,” says NYC- based mixed media public artist, Annalisa Iadicicco, creator of the Blue Bus Project. “After creating my installation “2nd Amendment” (an anti gun violence art piece and the T-shirts inspired by it), I felt the need to do more. I believe in the artistic process and its ability to bring social awareness. Our most powerful weapon to express what we are going through, and/or what society is experiencing, is Art! And, as Nina Simone once said “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.”

Re-connecting the Disconnected

Inspired by her community and her engagement with the social environment, Annalisa concieved the Blue Bus Project, a living, breathing mobile art gallery that takes this conversation to the streets of NYC and beyond. This is her speaking.

“In times where our art funds are being cut, our governments are poisoning us with lies, putting our children’s future into jeopardy, and our technology of the “eternally connected” is actually, if not used properly, disconnecting us from our selves, I wanted to create a platform, a safe space for artists and communities to merge, interact, explore and stimulate discussion that will lead them to action and social change. And what a better place than the streets! A venue suited for artistic intervention, where people don’t expect to find art but they are organically drawn to it.

With all these ideas brewing in mind, one day I saw this school bus parked a few blocks from my house. At the time, I was working for a sculptor, whose project was mobile; seeing the effect that his artwork was bringing to people, I decided that a bus, a school bus, would be perfect for my BIG idea to change the World!

So day after day I kept biking there just to check if this bus was moving and/or function88 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

ing but I would always see it parked in the same spot. One day I put a note on the window that said: ‘If you are selling the bus, give me a call,’ and after 9 months I got the auspicious call.

Suddenly I found myself with this big bus, an insurance to pay, a mechanic to deal with, and a colossal dream waiting to become reality. With the help of some of my patrons, I was able to fix it up and put it on the road. I’m now driving around NYC, with the desire to reach different parts of the world and, one day, to end up in my hometown; Naples.”

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Founded in May 2016, the Blue Bus Project is a platform for participants - neighborhoods, artists, students of all ages - to contribute to their community while enhancing its beauty and cultural identity. Since its inception, The Blue Bus Project has reached out to several communities, held different programs and was commissioned workshops for the youth in public parks and neighborhoods, in Harlem, Governors Island, Socrates Sculptor Park, Williamsburg, Jamaica Ave, and Rockaway. Said workshops were ranging from the creations of sculptures, painting, and dance performances to Food&Clothing drives for the needy.

This past summer, the Citizen Committee for New York City gave the Blue Bus Project a Neighborhood Grant for its series of workshops called RE(F)USE ME! Held in the Rockaways, the workshops focused on the three R’s of the environment: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The goal was to help broaden the ability to value discarded objects while cultivating self-worth, self-expression, imagination, and creativity, but mostly, while being socially conscious (in this particular case by keeping the ocean and the beaches clean). Participating artists, Iadicicco herself with visual artist/educator Maria Liebana, sculptor Daniel Valle, musician Ivan Dalia, and this writer mingled with local kids and made art together. For example, you can craft

your empty plastic bottles into something awesome, instead of just leaving them on the sand. The PET plastic that most beverage bottles are made of is a fairly useful material – it’s resilient, flexible, transparent and food safe. You just need some paint, scissors and imagination. Sculptor Daniel Valle showed kids how to turn these bottles into colorful fish, a cute sculpture for any room or classroom.

Get to the streets!

“To wrap things up, we are a collective of artists driving our own mobile art gallery into any www.i-Italy.org

ww New York Causes on Wheels / 2. The AICF Mobile Care Clinic

A Mobile Care Clinic to Fight Breast Cancer The American-Italian Cancer Foundation does a remarkable job in helping New York City women learn about breast cancer. A mobile care clinic that travels throughout the city is one recent example.

by T. C.

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community. With our white walls, hardwood floors, and gas in our tank, our bus is a fully equipped alternative art space that crosses all barriers. The bright blue color of the bus’s exterior cultivates curiosity, creativity, and joy and serves as a bridge to connect people with their community. All the antiwar, civil rights, and feminist movements of the past, have showed us that together we have strong power and together we can do a lot. And we need to get to the streets, that’s a real powerful place: the streets!” ww www.i-Italy.org

The American-Italian Cancer Foundation is about improving research, but it also cares about the community and being part of it. Its mobile care clinic aims to shorten the distance between patients and quality medical care, which is often complicated by bureaucracy.

We had the chance to witness the community work done by the “Mobile, No-Cost Breast Cancer Screening” program when their bus stopped in front of The Ryan Center to offer special screenings to the public. Ruth L. Vega,Director of Cancer Screening, Outreach, and Education for AICF, explained the importance of cancer awareness and the significant support that each year an Italian sponsor provides for the Foundation (this time the sponsor was Colavita USA).

“We operate this mobile care clinic. We do mammograms, clinical breast exams, and offer education on self-breast awareness,” said Vega.

“Our focus is really on making breast cancer [screening] available to medically underserved women, women with no insurance, who have low income, women of color. We provide the women with this service at no cost. If they don’t have insurance, they don’t have to pay anything.

If they do have insurance, we take their information, but they don’t have to pay either. We also do it in conjunction with a community based organization that knows the women of this community and can help us to let them know that this service is available to them.”

Every day, Wednesday through Sunday, the mobile clinic goes to a different location. Including weekends is of importance, for in this way they can also see women who have a job, or kids to attend to during the week. “We cover all of New

ww Sponsored by Colavita USA

The Mediterranean diet may help cancer prevention Every year the mobile clinic and its screening program is supported by generous sponsors. This year it is Colavita USA–the Italian food company that produces and imports authentic Italian products like extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, pasta, and sauces. Colavita USA embraced the cause wholeheartedly and, besides covering all the daily expenses, they gave out gifts to the patients. “They offered oil and vinegar and pasta. The women loved it! It’s wonderful to have them as our partners” says Ruth Vega. Thanks to Colavita USA, 37 women received no-cost mammograms and clinical breast exams on the day of our visit. On the subject of food, we asked Vega about the relation between nutrition and cancer prevention. “A good healthy diet, low in cholesterol with lots of vegetables, is always the best diet for your health in general,” she pointed out. “But specific to cancers, it has been found that women who have much leaner diets actually do better. Asian women, who have lots of fish in their diet, or those following the Mediterranean diet. These are the kinds of diets that may reduce the rates of cancer.”

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A patient poses in front of the mobile care clinic after taking her screening

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Italy in the City

OVERVIEW York’s five boroughs,” Vega remarks. Women can make an appointment with the mobile clinic just as they would with any other medical facility, but the process is much easier and faster. Results of their mammograms are sent via mail. If the radiologist sees something suspicious, the women are contacted by the organization and helped to find additional diagnostic testing and treatment.

Awareness and Communication

Of course, breast cancer awareness is the key to prevention. The way in which awareness increases can make all the difference–especially in a city like New York, which is so diverse. We asked Ruth Vega about how the Foundation reaches out to women.

“Breast cancer awareness, overall, has been raised in New York. What we try to do is work with community-based organizations that know the women and that can get our message to them.

If women speak a language other than English or Spanish, we usually partner with their community-based organizations that can get the message out in their language. New York women are from many different places in the world, so there are some cultural divides, but these organizations help us to get the message out.”

Communication is also important for dispelling misconceptions and clarifying uncertainties.

For example, some women don’t know how often they’re supposed to get a mammogram. AICF follows guidelines from the National Breast Cancer Foundation and the Susan G. Komen organization, and it looks to spread their messages and recommendations to the women served.

So how often and from what age should women start getting tested for breast cancer? “Usually at age 40 and older is when you start testing once a year,” says Ruth Vega. “Not before, unless you have a family history. When a woman is younger, different tests are usually recommended for her, not a mammogram.”

We followed Ruth inside the mobile van and had the chance to meet some of the women who were tested that day. We spoke with one of them, who communicated with us in Spanish, which Ruth kindly translated. “Last year, I had come to the clinic [The Ryan Center] because my kids get seen here, and I saw the van. I wanted to get a mammogram, but I was always fearful–fear of the unknown. I was always afraid to do it at the hospital because I found it to be a very cold environment. But I knew I had to go, so today I came, and I got it done.”Another woman who had taken the test the year before told us, “I like that it’s right here. When you make an appointment with a hospital, you have to wait a long time to be seen. Here, since they already know me from last year, they called me saying that I’m due, and ww I could come here.”

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Watch the video now

ww From the Director of Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, NYU

Parole, Parole, Parole...

Featuring Italian words—funny, strange, unusual, common, ancient, brand new, impossible to translate, misleading. A series shot, edited, and distributed for free on Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò’s social media

by Stefano Albertini

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Parole, parole. No, we are not talking of freeing a convict after the trial of the century.

“Parola” (plural parole) in Italian means word.

And Parole Parole is also the title of an Italian song from the 70’s made famous by the popular star Mina, and Alberto Lupo, an actor with the most impossibly deep and sexy voice. Mina sang and Lupo responded, almost in a whisper, a series of flattering compliments and daring metaphors to which Mina replied, disenchanted, that they were just... words: Parole Parole, Parole....

Now I can tell you a bit more about the series of short videos (around a minute each) conceived, shot, and edited entirely at Casa Italiana ZerilliMarimò and distributed and promoted for free on our social media. Despite the fact that we feature hundreds of video recordings of our events, this is the first time we’ve produced original web-based content not connected to a specific event. The idea of presenting an Italian word, explaining its origin, usage, and different meanings was born in part as a way of responding to a need that emerged in the last survey of our members and friends. About one third of them are native or fluent speakers of Italian, one third are somewhat conversationally fluent and one third have no proficiency at all. But an overwhelming majority of people would still like to see more events in Italian and improve their knowledge of the language.

So our series was born. Taking advantage of the presence on our staff of Eugenio Pizzorno, a young videographer, we started our adventure. We bought a green screen, and with a few

ingenious technical solutions Eugenio turned a classroom into a makeshift TV studio. I started an aggressive recruitment of speakers, typically by asking “ci regali una parola?” (Would you donate a word?). The words could be funny, strange, unusual, common, ancient, brand new, impossible to translate, misleading. Our guests naturally include the usual suspects: professors, teachers, and and students of Italian, and translators, but also tour operators, musicians, writers, film critics, and businesspeople both Italian and American. The pilot episode, featuring the word “Ciao”, reached more than 20,000 people and was seen by 7,000 in just a few days. But what my staff and I liked more than the numbers was the wave of excited participation we got from our viewers. They suggested words, volunteered to come and record, planned to use the series in the classes they taught.

The series is first a lot of fun for all involved and I can say that there is always something I learn from these short videos. In future episodes you’ll find the same mix of the high and the low, and the funny and the serious. Words ranging from ‘sprezzatura’ to ‘mutande’. Not only can English speakers broaden their vocabulary and deepen their knowledge of Italian but even native Italian speakers can also learn to use their language better. For example did you know that there is an Italian verb that perfectly translate the English ‘to scan’ and no, it’s not the Italianized form of the English verb, the horrible ‘scannerizzare.’ Want to know the answer to these and many more questions, doubts and curiosities? Stay tuned to Parole Parole. And help us make it even more fun and ww rewarding. www.i-Italy.org

eve n t s

Italian Calendar October 17 Adventures in Italian Opera with Fred Plotkin: A Conversation with Joeph Calleja

6:30 pm Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, NYU 24 West 12th Street ww

casaitaliananyu.org

n The first Adventure in Italian Opera with Fred Plotkin of this season features Joseph Calleja, from Malta, who is one of the world’s leading tenors.

He sings Pollione in the Met’s new opening night production of Norma and will appear in the role through December. Calleja sings all the major roles of the Italian tenor repertoire in all the top theaters of the world.

October 18 Writers Read Series.

With Marianne Leone and Helene Stapinski 6:O0 pm J.D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College / CUNY 25 W. 43rd Street, 17th floor ww

qc.edu/calandra

n This evening presents two books that explore the experiences of two indomitable immigrant women, as seen through the eyes of their younger female relatives. Marianne Leone’s mother moved to the United States under tragic circumstances, and when

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she was suddenly widowed with three young children, she had few options. Her Ma Speaks Up (Beacon Press, 2017) is the daughter’s record of growing up feeling she was on the wrong side of the tracks, with the wrong family, in the wrong religion.

Although Marianne endured shame during her childhood, she now appreciates also the love, great cooking, and humor that she experienced.

Since the age of four, Helene Stapinski heard lurid yet exciting tales about her great-great-grandmother, a strong and unconventional woman who, after committing murder, fled Southern Italy with her three children for the United States in 1892. Murder in Matera (Dey Street Books, 2017) chronicles Stapinski’s efforts to excavate the facts around this family mystery. Deeply researched and reported, the book details the author’s increased understanding of and respect for her spirited ancestor’s particular struggle. Discussion led

by Edvige Giunta, New Jersey City University

October 19 Italy on Screen Today Screenings: Tribute to Dario Fo / MigrArti

6:00 pm Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, NYU 24 West 12th Street ww

casaitaliananyu.org

n 6:00pm - Tribute to Dario Fo” “Sweet Democracy” Screening of the Docu-fiction “Sweet

Democracy” (Italy, 2016) directed

by Michele Diomà. Starring Dario Fo, Renato Scarpa, Antonello Pascale.

Followed by a Q&A with director Michele Diomà in conversation with Francesco Andolfi.

Adam Coretti is an Anglo-Italian, worldwide famous journalist. The pillars of his career are inflexibility and integrity. For these reasons people in power fear him and his interviews. But the Italian Prime Minister who Adam Coretti wants to interview is living a very delicate moment. He is losing people’s support and all the surveys on him are quite negative. Therefore, he is forced to accept the interview.

n 8:00pm - MigrArti Projct 7 short films by Luca Cusani, Guido Lombardi, Paolo Mancinelli, Paolo Civati, Roberto Malfatto, Fausto Romano, and Amin Nour and Paolo Negro.

The MigrArti Project promoted by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism is a series of short movies with the aim to foster intercultural dialogue through film projects featuring immigrant communities already established in Italy; it is a selection of the best ones screened during the 74th Venice Film Festival. We will have the pleasure of hosting Paolo Masini, creator and coordinator of MigrArti - who will introduce the project - and Andrea Bartoli, the representative of the Sant’Egidio Community at the U.N. and the U.S., who will discuss this subject and share the work experience of this Community around the world. Coordinated by Francesco Andolfi.

October 20 & 21 Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

8:00 pm Carnegie Hall 881 7th Avenue ww

carnegiehall.org

n The Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia will perform two concerts at the Carnegie Hall. On Friday, October 20, the rarely performed Sinfonia from Aida that Verdi wrote for the La Scala premiere of Aida—a fullfledged overture that reflects themes from the opera. This will be followed by Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and

by Ottorino Respighi’s “Fountains of Rome” and “Pines of Rome,” two spectacularly orchestrated tone poems that evoke the beauty of the Eternal City. Sir Antonio Pappano, Music Director and Conductor; Martha Argerich, Piano.

The second concert, on Saturday October 21, presents the New York Premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s “La nuova Euridice secondo Rilke,” and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6.

Tragedy and rapture are the essence of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. The stormtossed finale’s three titanic hammer blows presaged personal tragedies in Mahler’s life, including his own mortal illness. But the symphony overflows with life-affirming joys as well, from peaceful memories of mountain pastures—listen for the cowbells—to the ecstatic portrait of his wife, Alma, that fills the first movement. Sir Antonio Pappano, Music Director and Conductor; Barbara Hannigan, Soprano.

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Italy in the City

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Italy in the City

E V E N T S ww From October 17 to October 21

Settimana della lingua italiana nel mondo (XVII edizione).

Nanni Moretti, indefatigable torchbearer of Italian cinema On Tuesday, October 17 at 6:30pm, the Italian Cultural Institute (686 Park Avenue) will host a conversation between Italian Director Nanni Moretti and professor Giuseppe Antonelli. They will discuss about the importance of linguistic choices in Moretti’s films.

Nanni Moretti is an Italian film-maker and actor, living in Rome. His long and successful career started in 1973, when he directed his first film, and since then he has been the recipient of several Film Awards. His latest film, Mia Madre, had great success in US movie theaters.

Giuseppe Antonelli teaches Italian Linguistics at the University of Cassino, Italy. He writes for a number of newspapers and websites such as Corriere della Sera and Treccani.it From Wednesday, October 18 to Saturday, October 21, the prestigious Manhattan venue for cinema d’essai Metrograph (7 Ludlow Street) will present a retrospective of Nanni Moretti’s cinema. Screenings will be followed by Q&A with the Director.

One of the great international film traditions, the Italian cinema weathered hard years through the

October 25

Organized in collaboration with ICI and Europa Edition, this vent is part of La Settimana della lingua italiana nel mondo, held under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.

RICHARD GERE Reads ITALO CALVINO

6:30 pm Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, NYU 24 West 12th Street ww

November 2-4

casaitaliananyu.org

International Conference: “The Challenge of Migration in Europe and the United States”

n Golden Globe-winning actor Richard Gere reads from the new translation of Italo Calvino’s Baron in the Trees (1957, 2017 translation by Ann Goldstein). Richard Gere will be in conversation with Giovanna Calvino and Stefano Albertini.

Cosimo di Rondó, a young Italian nobleman of the eighteenth century, rebels against his parents by climbing into the trees and remaining there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an existence in the forest canopy—he hunts, sows crops, plays games with earth-bound friends, fights forest fires, solves engineering problems, and even manages to have love affairs.

From his perch in the trees, Cosimo sees the Age of Enlightenment pass by and a new century dawn.

The Baron in the Trees exemplifies Calvino’s peerless ability to weave tales that sparkle with enchantment. This new English rendering by acclaimed translator Ann Goldstein breathes new life into one of Calvino’s most beloved works.

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late 1980s and 90s, but in the person of Nanni Moretti it has had its great and indefatigable torchbearer.

Anxiety over decline—of a leftist resistance, of a non-commercial cinema, of plain old aging and human frailty—is essential to Moretti’s films.

Documentary and fiction form, ideological seriousness and absolute irreverence—all mix and mingle in these remarkable movies that can only be labelled as “Moretti.”

These events are part of the Settimana della lingua italiana nel mondo (17th edition), held under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.

October 27 Ferocity: Nicola Lagioia in conversation with Michael Reynolds 6:00 pm The Center for Fiction 17 East 47th Street ww

folkartmuseum.org

n On the occasion of the publication of the English translation of La Ferocia/Ferocity by acclaimed writer and editor Nicola Lagioia, the author will be in conversation with Michael Reynolds at the Center for Fiction. Described as “a mesmerizing exploration of failure, resilience, and profound, multifaceted loss” (Kirkus), Ferocity won

Italy’s most prestigious literary prize Strega (2016) and makes its debut in English this October from Europa Editions.

The complex story of a brother seeking to get to the bottom of his sister’s death, Ferocity is a mix of noir, gothic horror story and family saga set in Lagioia’s native Puglia.

In her correspondence with Lagioia, catalogued in Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey, Elena Ferrante described reading Ferocity with “great enthusiasm,” finding on each page “confirmation of your great, truthful passion for literature”.

Lagioia will discuss this ambitious and vivid work of fiction with Michael Reynolds, Editor-in-Chief of Europa Editions.

Center for Italian Studies at Stony Brook University 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook, NY Thursday, 7:00 pm in the Center for Italian Studies in the Frank Melville Memorial Library, Room E4340; Friday & Saturday (8:30 am – 5:00 pm) in the Simons Center for Geometry & Physics. ww

stonybrook.edu/italianstudies

n The U.S. component of an International Conference on Migration. The first part, held in Agrigento, Sicily, focused on migration to Europe. The Stony Brook counterpart will focus on the United States’ efforts to understand the political and economic forces of expulsion at play as we attempt to deal with this phenomenon, unequal in human history. Please consult the Center for Italian Studies website for additional program information and event updates.

www.i-Italy.org

n For the first time in her career, internationally acclaimed and awardwining director Emma Dante will visit the United States presenting her work Le sorelle Macaluso (The Macaluso Sisters) and meeting the audience in a conversation moderated by Teresa Fiore, Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies. The event is a unique opportunity to learn about Dante’s artistic trajectory, a versatile blend of theater, opera, cinema and literature.

November 9 After Identity: Migration, Critique, Italian American Culture

6:O0 pm J.D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College / CUNY 25 W. 43rd Street, 17th floor ww

qc.edu/calandra

Identity (Bordighera Press, 2017). The study proposes a fundamental shift in approaching social and cultural history from the viewpoint of migrations as opposed to employing the nation-state paradigm. It argues that a migration focus allows for a more nuanced and politically and existentially flexible notion of identity. Carravetta’s discussions of selected literary works illuminate his argument. After Identity also posits that ethnic/national identity, typically attributed on the basis of name, language, or provenance, is instead the result of continuous struggles between an inner sense of self and an outer imposition that varies over time and place. The challenge, therefore, is to negotiate this dialectic in view of ever greater flows of capital, technologies, and power structures that are already post-national and trans-ethnic.

November 15 Sicily as a Theater of the World: A Conversation with Playwright and Director Emma Dante

6:30 pm Montclair State University Feliciano School of Business, Lecture Hall 101, 1 Normal Avenue, Montclair, NJ ww

montclair.edu/chss/inserra-chair

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Italian Contemporary Art in New York’s Cultural Landscape and the Art Market

November 16 The Routledge History of Italian Americans

6:00 pm Center for Italian Studies at Stony Brook University Frank Melville Memorial Library, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook ww

stonybrook.edu/italianstudies

n Professor Stanislao Pugliese n Peter Carravetta presents his After

ww October 31 | Italian Cultural Institute

of Hofstra University presents The Routledge History of Italian Americans, edited by William J. Connell and Stanislao G. Pugliese.

Books will be available for purchase and autographing by the editors.

The Routledge History of Italian Americans weaves a narrative of the trials and triumphs of one of the nation’s largest ethnic groups. This history, comprising original essays by leading scholars and critics, addresses themes that include the Columbian legacy, immigration, the labor movement, discrimination, anarchism, Fascism, World War II patriotism, assimilation, gender identity and popular culture. This landmark volume offers a clear and accessible overview of work in the growing academic field of Italian American Studies.

November 16 Magdalena Baczewksa: Piano performance at the Italian Academy

7:00 pm The Italian Academy, Columbia University 1161 Amsterdam Avenue ww

italianacademy.columbia.edu

n Pianist Magdalena SternBaczewska, Director of the Music

Italian Cultural Institute 686 Park Avenue 6:00 pm

The opening of CIMA (Center for Italian modern art) first, followed by Magazzino Italian Art (to which is dedicated the photo exhibition currently on view at the Institute) ww iicnewyork.esteri.it/iic_newyork shows confidence about the interest for Italian art from early 1900s to contemporary art. In this respect, the extensive exhibition dedicated to Burri at the Guggenheim Museum in 2015 has given an important positive signal. But has contemporary Italian art, in reality, a considerable weight and importance in the panorama of the most important international biennials, on the market, and among art’s collectors of New York?

The presence of a large community of Italian artists in the city, to which the ICI has several times contributed to shed a light on, and the role that many Italian scholars and curators have in New York Institutions and in Art Galleries have an impact on the relevance of and the consideration for our artistic production?

The question is not rhetorical and the IIC will submit it to a panel compring Giorgio Spanu and Nancy Olnick, the masterminds behind the Magazzino’s extraordinary project, a protagonist of the art market and former director of Gagosian Valentina Castellani, art curator of Met Museum Ian Alteveer, and Susan Hapgood, Executive Director of ISCP, The International Studio & Curatorial Program, a Brooklyn-based residency organization for artists.

Performance Program and Lecturer in Music at Columbia University, will give a recital at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies. The program includes: Baldassare Galuppi: Sonata No. 7 in D major; Domenico Scarlatti: Sonatas; Nino Rota: Suite del Casanova di Federico Fellini; Arcangelo Corelli: Pastorale (Angelus) from the Renaissance Book; Karol Szymanowski: Preludes; Fryderyk Chopin: Mazurkas and Polonaise fantasie. Born in Poland, Magdalena Baczewska has enjoyed a multifaceted career as a pianist, harpsichordist, educator, recording

artist, producer, and an administrator.

Her performances have been hailed as “eloquent and technically flawless” (The Washington Post), and praised for ‘high musicianship and refined musical taste” (Polish Daily News), and the ability to “create a mysterious ritual on stage” (Aura Cultural Magazine).

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Counterclockwise from opposite page: Nanni Moretti, Richard Gere, Nicola Lagioia, Peter Carravetta. Below: Giulio Paolini’s Amore e Psiche, 1981 (courtesy of Magazzino).

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Italy in the City

dining out ww Strolling around the Big (Italian) Apple

Simply Italian: Panini, Dolci, Gelati, and Espresso Coffee Italians are never “quick and easy” when it comes to food. Discover the big difference between a sandwich and a panino, an ice-cream and a gelato... and never confuse espresso with coffee!

by T. C.

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For those of you who can’t take a vacation to Italy, or for all the tourists who want take advantage of their free time to enjoy the Big Apple’s amusements, there’s a chance to soak up the spices and the aromas of the Italian Mediterranean tradition!

New York is simply one of the best cities in the US, possibly in the world, for experiencing authentic Italian cuisine. But what about an Italian sandwich, a sweet, an ice cream, or a coffee? You can find plenty of those in New York City, of course—but if they are to be Italian you will call them a gourmet panino, a perfect pasta (a common name for sweets too), a savory gelato, and a strong espresso…

In this issue we’ll show you that Italians are never “quick and easy” when it comes to anything related to food and beverage. There’s a big difference between a sandwich and a panino, and if you feel like a gelato you don’t want”just” an ice-cream.

Not to speak of... coffee! So, as the Fall is still warm and you are enjoying you weekend in town, grab a real Italian gelato or a multi-layered panino and enjoy them at the park.

And please, save some room for some yummy cannoli and an authentic Italian espresso, so that you can keep on strolling around the Big (Italian) Apple! Buon appetito! ww

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Our Picks For This Season ww WEST VILLAGE La Panineria Italiana 410 West 36th Street % (917) 639-3441 ww

www.lapanineria.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Friendly price $$

n La Panineria, with locations both in the Village and on the Upper West Side, is your trendy spot to experience a real Italian panino in New York. Owner “Super” Mario Pesce exudes the kind of Neapolitan warmth that immediately puts you at ease. You feel like he’s a pal you could chew the fat with over a panino. And this young, driven guy is definitely equipped with super powers.

He moved to New York when he was just 22–on a dream and a prayer. Like something out of a movie, one day, while he was enjoying a panino in a park, he had an epiphany. A panino with high-quality Parma prosciutto and a great cheese, he reasoned, is always a pleasure for the senses, and it could be a winning formula in a city like New York where eateries always tend to pile on the ingredients rather than keep it simple. Therein lies the secret of La Panineria.It serves high quality

products in freshly baked bread. Easy but tasty. The way a panino should be.

Their panino with burrata cheese is a specialty you can’t find elsewhere in New York. A brand new panino, which has been popular and highly requested among the panineria clients, is the prosciutto crudo–double robiola cheese and fresh white truffle. Big on take-out, La Panineria also provides a useful app for delivery.

ww UPPER WEST SIDE Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto 283 Amsterdam Avenue % (212) 877-4800 ww

www.salumeriarosi.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Rustic $$ price

n Antica Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto was founded in Parma in the early thirties by Cesare Bocchi, an enterprising businessman who had the idea to open a trattoria with an adjoining salumeria

next to it. It was an immediate and long-lasting success. During the sixties, Bocchi sold his business to Faimali, a pork butcher who helped make the trattoria a compulsory stop for anyone passionate about good cooking and traditional products from Parma. Later the Picchi sisters arrived, and in 2008 Parmacotto bought the business, transforming it into a trendy global brand.

Now the best in Parma’s cuisine is just a train ride away. Super fresh ingredients are the simple but massive trend of this salumeria, offering a selection of panini assembled right in front of your eyes to preserve their “just-cut” quality. Their signature sandwiches are made with homemade focaccia. Along with the famous Prosciutto di Parma, you certainly don’t want to miss their exquisite bresaola panini. Another signature dish and a client favorite is the Roman traditional Cacio e Pepe. With the patio area still open and a favorable weather forecast for the Fall, the Salumeria will be your spot of choice for this season too.

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new york

Emiliano Pllumai Master Barista at Zibetto

ww STATEN ISLAND Pasticceria Bruno 1650 Hylan Blvd % (718) 987-5859 ww

ww CHELSEA MARKET L’Arte del Gelato 75 9th Avenue % (212) 366-0570 ww

www.lartedelgelato.com

cuisine Gelato ambience Friendly price $

n Gelato-making is definitely a craft that’s not easy to master—some even say it’s an art. For years it was hard to find real Italian gelato in the city, that is… until Francesco Realmuto ventured to the US from his little town in Sicily, Baucina, which is close to Palermo. He was driven by his passion for Italian food and fueled by the American Dream in the tradition of the Sicilian immigrants who have made history in New York. In fact, Sicilian immigrants have developed one of the most florid Italian communities in town.

Many in Italy believe that gelato was born in Sicily, and the 100% artisanal product you can find at L’Arte del Gelato preserves indeed a distinct Sicilian aroma by using only fresh, organic products. Realmuto is also careful to make the distinction between a “true” (meaning: Italian!)gelato and a “mere” (meaning: American!) ice cream: an artisanal gelato is meant to be made and consumed right away, with no additives and preservatives. Ice cream, on the other hand, is intended to be stored. The traditional Italian flavors, from milk chocolate to panna are, of course, available, but you should also taste their true Sicilian pistachio, or the exotic freshness of their Sicilian agrumi sorbet with orange and lemon. If you feel like having a drink… bottoms up with the new alcoholic sorbets! New flavors include the Lime Mojito, the Bloody Mary or the Aperol Spritz! L’Arte del Gelato has become an Italian Landmark in New York, and in addition to its location inside the Chelsea Market, you will soon find Realmuto’s gelati at Whole Foods and in other cities across the US.

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www.pasticceriabruno.com

cuisine Traditional/Patisserie ambience Rustic price $$

n The history of Pasticceria Bruno dates back to 1973, when Bruno Bakery opened on LaGuardia Place.

When the Settepani family took over the business in 2004, they maintained the essence and the atmosphere of a bakery, adding a top stellar patisserie and a refined Italian dining menu. A bakery seems to have been written in the family’s destiny–their last name, Settepani, literally means “seven breads.”Co-owner and Executive Pastry Chef Biagio Settepani, a Certified Master Baker, had moved from Sicily to New York at age 13, and he was 21 when he opened the Pasticceria, starting a brand and a career as pastry chef and food industry entrepreneur.

Biagio became famous for the Pasticceria’s elaborate multi-layered cakes along with chocolate tarts and many other artisanal sweets. He has won many prizes, including Food Network’s “Sugar Adventures” challenge (Gold Medal winner); and the Cannoli Throwdown with Bobby Flay (winner).

In 2008, Pasticceria was named Retail Bakery of the Year by Modern Baking Magazine.

Biagio is not the only pastry artist of the family; his son Salvatore, thanks to the influence of his father, bloomed to become the excellent pastry chef that he is today.

But the success of the Pasticceria relies not only on its pastries, but also on its exquisite menu of authentic Italian food. Chef Gianfranco Franzese is the key player who brought his culinary tradition to the restaurant.

Originally from Bari, where he graduated in Culinary Arts, Gianfranco is another awarded chef recognized all over America. From typical Italian appetizers to panini, pasta, fish, meat, and pizza, Pasticceria Bruno is a great place for a breakfast, a quick bite, or a big dinner. They also offer a great catering services for your most special occasions, from birthdays to weddings.

ww Neighborhood Gems

Espresso as Art With its four locations and a future plan of expanding throughout the city, Zibetto is the answer to all espresso lovers in New York City.

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Espresso—one of the things Italians miss the most when they are abroad. It is something about the blend, the grinder, the machine, and the artisanal hand of the barista that makes it a unique treat in the world. In New York, true Italian espresso is really hard to find–it’s also very hard to find what Italians commonly call a “bar,” which isn’t a typical place for drinks like here in the US—or at least it is, but to drink coffee! Espresso and a brioche is the standard Italian breakfast, the perfect boost for the day.

New Yorkers got accustomed to this ritual thanks to Zibetto Espresso Bar, one of the very few spots in the city where you can have a “real” espresso or a “true” cappuccino and many different types of fresh brioches and pastries, plus tasty panini for lunch—all of it strictly Italian style of course.

Zibetto is a small place, tiny but rich in flavor, and it is intended to be like that, a friendly and familiar bar “sotto casa.” General Manager Mikail Olsson is so very proud of Zibetto’s signature coffee: “We take great pride in making the perfect Italian

espresso,” he says. “You can hardly find the same flavor and the same roasting here in the US. These beans come from from Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and Columbia, and it is our own brand–the ‘Zibetto’ press. It tastes like the coffee from Southern Italy!” The machine to make coffee is of course very important, and they work with an Italian machine, La Cimballi, which is commonly found in Italian bars. With its four locations between uptown and midtown and a future plan of expanding throughout the city, Zibetto is the answer to all of the espresso lovers in New York.

Zibetto Espresso Bar ww

www.zibettoespresso.com

cuisine Traditional/Coffee ambience Friendly price $$ ■ 1385

6th Avenue

% (646) 707-0505 ■ 501

5th Avenue

% (646) 383-6364 ■

1221 6th Avenue

% (212) 332-2648 ■

1 Park Avenue

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Italy in the City

OVERVIEW ww Boston’s North End

“A State of Mind Surrounded By Waters” The process of change from a slum Oyster House in a ritual cup of clam chowder. Although running late, I allowed myself a stop at the to the desirable area the North End Holocaust Monument for another personal ritual is today, was slow and Italianness of respect. It was Saturday morning and therefore Haymarket was crowded with people shopping certainly played a role. Indeed, eth- for fruit and seafood, but I found my way through nicity has become an economic val- the multitude and reached my destination: I was entering the Boston’s North End. ue, introducing the necessity for local businesses to be, or at least to Ethnicity Historically speaking, Boston’s North End present themselves and the neigh- changed from a desirable place in colonial times to a slum suitable only for the city’s social outborhood as Italian.

by Augusto Ferraiuolo*

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The perception of the North End as an ‘Italian’ neighborhood began in the early 20th C. even though the neighborhood was, and is, far from homogeneous. The Italian settlements in the North End feature ethnic enclaves based on the Italian village of origin and on chain migration based on kinship and friendship. Back then, familial strategies were modeled on an almost endogamous pattern, seeming to encourage the notion of inner separations. A symbolic way to claim for local identities was and still is the celebration of the patron saint of the original Italian village. Thus, several religious festivals occur weekly in Boston’s North End during the summer and are organized by voluntary religious societies venerating various Madonnas (delle Grazie, del Soccorso, etc.) and other Catholic saints.

The North End

The first time I went to the North End I followed the Freedom Trial, a tiny red line painted on streets through downtown Boston to make the tourist enterprise of visiting the historical sites of the city easier. Exiting the subway, I followed the red line all the way to Downtown Crossing, not lingering at the Old State House. I gave a quick look at the window of the Old Corner Bookstore, rapidly crossed Faneuil Hall, but stopped long enough to pay due homage to Sam Adams’ statue.

(I am not a proper nor even improper Bostonian, I am not even an American, but I do like a good beer.) For consistency, I also indulged at the Union 96 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

casts, particularly Irish immigrants, was certainly slow, heterogeneous, traumatic--and yet expected. The process was aided by various economic factors. A new industrialism caused the economic crisis of the area’s small artisan and craftsman alike. The persistence of a sea-based mercantile economy turned the North End into an increasingly crowded and noisy place where sailors and transients could live, even if only temporarily. The neighborhood’s decay can be seen therefore as a function of the transformation of a society from pre-industrial to capitalist. The need for unskilled and cheap workers should be considered a fundamental pull factor for the impressive waves of immigrants beginning in the 19th C. The creation of a slum for immigrants therefore, the only suitable settlement close to the industrial area--marginalizing them by social if not territorial boundaries--was an urban necessity.

The 1880’s were an important turning point in the ethnic fabric of the North End. For the first time after years of Irish mass migration in the 19th C., their population began declining. The departure of the Irish was combined with the arrival of new immigrants from Eastern Europe (Russian Jews) and, finally, Southern Europe (Southern Italians).

First, a Genoese community settled in the Ferry Court area and North Bennett Street, until the first decade of the 20th C. When they left, they were replaced not by other Northern Italians, who by this time preferred emigration to South America, but by Southern Italians.

Another ethnic enclave can be seen in the area bounded by Prince, Salem, Tileston, and Hanover Streets, inhabited by Abruzzesi and a few Neapolitans. The area bounded by Hanover Street,

North Square and Fulton Street saw the growth of Avellinesi, who came from the towns of Taurasi, Chiusano San Domenico, Mirabella Eclano, Lapio, Montemarano, and Montefalcione. The Sicilians, with a large community from Sciacca, came to Boston during a second phase, populating the area around North Street, also taking the place of the Genoese group in Ferry Court.

The settlement pattern is well-known and selfevident: the Italians tended to cluster together based on the village of origin, in relatively small enclaves. A village-based campanilismo (the sense of belonging symbolized by the bell tower of the local church) is the cultural reference point carried from the country of origin, and chain migration became the principal engine for constituting micro-ethnic enclaves in the receiving country, separated even by different dialects. The importance of dialect as a social boundary is often underestimated by scholars but is fundamental.

It is a strong identifying and unifying tool, as well as a marker of regional divisions.

In the 1930’s a new trend became evident which later—and today—can be considered one of the fundamental characteristics of the neighborhood: www.i-Italy.org

wwA primary pull factor for the North End is the appreciation for a community lifestyle, modeled on the Italian village, now evident even to outsiders. the food business. Nowadays the importance of ethnic food business in the North End is easily demonstrated by the concentration of restaurants in an area of not even 100 acres. It is impressive: at the end of February 2008 86 restaurants, 8 bar and pubs, 4 coffee shops, 7 home delivery, 2 catering and 8 bakeries, all proposing ‘Italian’ food, were active in the neighborhood.

The process of change from a slum to the desirable area it is today, was slow. Even if the neighwww.i-Italy.org

borhood was recognized as poor, other variables determined the increase of a now-continuous centripetal movement of new settlers, mainly young urban professionals. A first pull factor: the appreciation for a community lifestyle, modeled on the Italian village, now evident even to outsiders. For the first time in the history of the North End ethnicity became an economic value, introducing the necessity for local businesses to be, or at least to present themselves and the neighborhood as Italian.

Claiming Ephemeral Identity

Above I have mentioned a specific symbol of Boston’s North End Italianità: the religious festivals.

These festivals, venerating different Madonnas and various other Catholic patron saints, occur with weekly regularity in Boston’s North End during the summertime and are organized by voluntary religious societies. The North End festivals celebrate a variety of local town origins: the Madonna del Soccorso, celebrated by the Sicilians of Sciacca; Saint Anthony of Padua, celebrated by the Montefalcionesi; San Domenico, protector of Augusta, Sicily; and so on.

The general pattern the festivals proposes are a blend of religion (and the processions are the climax of this aspect) and entertainment (food and music seems to be the most important commodities). In general, the festivals start with a short procession on Friday. Saturday is almost completely dedicated to entertainment. On Sunday, the statue of the saint is taken through the streets in a grand solemn procession. During all three days of the festival the entire area is full of stalls for economic transactions, most of which involve the manipulation of symbols such as ethnic foods (Italian and/or Italian American).

The ritual of the feast reaffirms the compact ethnic enclave through the procession, even if the times of rigidly bounded communities are definitively past and the procession traces symbolic borders not at all coinciding with the original habitat. The ethnic enclave’s boundaries are now blurred if not completely dissolved. Yet paradoxically, processions strongly reaffirm the boundaries of the neighborhood and claim for an authentic identity, strategically reinforcing or inventing anything that could symbolize Italian ethnicity. This strategic essentialism, vital to the economic prosperity of the North End, is even more necessary now that a supposed Italian identity became a scarce resource.

According to the last census, people claiming for Italian heritage in the North End are less than the 20%. Thus, more than ever, the North End is a ww state of mind surrounded by waters. * Augusto Ferraiuolo is Visiting Researcher and Lecturer at Boston University

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The North End at sunset. Below: Poster of the documentary film Boston’s North End

boston

Italy in the City

even t s

Italian Calendar

ww At the Center for Europen Studies, Harvard University

Harvey Sachs on Arturo Toscanini

October 16

October 19

Writer and music historian Harvey Sachs explores the legacy of Arturo Toscanini — the man who was, arguably, the most influential 5:30 pm classical performing musician of the Center for European Studies, Harvard twentieth century. This lecture will be University (Lower Level Conf. Room) based on Sachs’ recently published 27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA book, Toscanini: Musician of ww https://ces.fas.harvard.edu Conscience, a new biography that replaces his 1978 biography of the famed Italian conductor. It is an account not only of Toscanini’s work and its impact, but also of his turbulent personal life and his principled stand against Fascism.

The lecture is presented by the Salvemini Colloquium in Italian History and Culture. Named in honor of the Italian anti-fascist historian Gaetano Salvemini, who spent much of his career as a professor in the Harvard department of history, this annual lecture is co-sponsored with the Consulate General of Italy in Boston and aims to foster a spirit of intellectual inquiry into Italian history within the Harvard community and beyond. This year marks the 60th anniversary of Gaetano Salvemini’s death. Sponsored by the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, and the Consulate General of Italy.

Italy Calls Africa: Rhymes and Images Across the Mediterranean

Toscanini: Musician of Conscience

7:00 pm Deparment of African and AfroAmerican Studies, Brandeis University Mandel Center for the Humanities, 415 South Street, Waltham wwwww.brandeis.edu

n The arrival in Italy of migrants from Africa, while sparking controversy and igniting a heated debate on migration to the EU, has urged Italians to reconsider their historical connections with the African continent and assess new cultural relationships. Among the first communities who crossed the Mediterranean and found a new home in Italy are Nigerians. In the newly-published poetry anthology Migrazioni/Migrations, curated by Alessandra Di Maio, of the University of Palermo, renowned Italian and Nigerian poets headed by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka tell the choral story of how Africa and Italy have always been united by a common sea and a shared experience of migration.

Cosponsors:

October 19 Nancy Harrowitz presents “Primo Levi & the Identity of a Survivor” 6:00 pm I AM Books 189 North Street ww

iambooksboston.com

n Primo Levi (1919–1987) was an Italian chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor who used a combination of testimony, essays, and creative writing to explore crucial themes related to the Shoah. His voice is among the most important to emerge from this dark chapter in human history.

In Primo Levi and the Identity of a Survivor, Nancy Harrowitz, associate professor of Italian and Jewish Studies at Boston University, examines the complex role that Levi’s Jewish

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identity played in his choices of how to portray his survival, as well as in his exposition of topics such as bystander complicity. Her analysis uncovers a survivor’s shame that deeply influenced the personas he created to recount his experiences.

Exploring a range of Levi’s works, including Survival at Auschwitz and lesser-known works of fiction and poetry, she illustrates key issues within his development as a writer.

At the heart of Levi’s discourse, Harrowitz argues, lies a complex interplay of narrative modes that reveals his brilliance as a theorist of testimony.

October 22 Pappano/Argerich and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

5:00 pm Symphony Hall 301 Massachusetts Ave, Boston ww

www.consboston.esteri.it

n Legendary pianist Martha Argerich returns to the Celebrity Series of Boston to perform Prokofiev’s third piano concerto with the renowned Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and their charismatic music director, Sir Antonio Pappano. The

program includes: Verdi, Sinfonia from Aida; Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 3; Respighi, Fountains of Rome; Respighi, Pines of Rome. Sponsored by Zachary Haroutunian and The Garbis & Arminé Barsoumian Charitable Foundation in loving memory of Garbis Barsoumian.

www.i-Italy.org

Donna Franca Franzaroli presents “Pride and Perseverance” 6:30 pm Consulate General of Italy 600 Atlantic Avenue, 17th Floor ww

www.consboston.esteri.it

n Longtime travel operator Donna Franca Franzaroli, founder of Donna Franca Tours and an iconic presence in the Italian American community of Boston, presents her book Pride and Perseverance: A Story of Love and Courage. My Recipe for Success.

Refreshments will be offered.

and hand painted Italian harpsichord by master craftsman Andrea di Maio, the performance will feature dramatic madrigals, high energy dances, popular songs and improvisations in Renaissance style.

The performers will also discuss Renaissance humanism and how it influenced musical performance and composition.

October 27 Utopia and Memory: Women Poets of the Italian Renaissance

8:00 pm Dante Alighieri Society 41 Hampshire Street, Cambridge ww

www.dantemass.org

n Poems by Isabella Andreini, Gaspara Stampa, Sara Copio Sullam; Adaptation and Dramaturgy: Walter Valeri; Directed by: Robert Scanlan with Chiara Durazzini and Music by Dan Meyers, Alexandra Stoica (Violin) Nikole Stoica (Violin). Sponsored

by The Poets’ Theatre and Pazzi Lazzi. Light refreshments will be offered. ($20.00 per person). .

October 27

Renaissance Madrigals, Dance Music and Improvisations in Renaissance Style

6:00 pm I AM Books 189 North Street ww

October 27 An Evening with Aldo Tambellini

6:00 pm I AM Books 189 North Street ww

performers and recording artists John Tyson and Miyuki Tsurutani, who met in Italy, offer a concert of elegant virtuosity celebrating the beauty, vitality and variety of Italian Renaissance music.

Playing on seven sizes of handmade recorders (‘Il Flauto Italiano’) by master craftsman Francesco LiVirghi and an exquisite handmade

www.i-Italy.org

How We Fell in Love with Abruzzo and Why You Should, Too! November 16

A presentation by Linda Dini-Jenkins and Vicky Sirianni. The two Italian-American women will talk about how they decided to buy one, then 6:00 pm two, apartments in Sulmona and how the region I AM Books has stolen their hearts. They will talk about 189 North Street landscape, food, wine, traditions, tourist ww iambooksboston.com destinations, the people… and how being “adopted” by an Italian family there has changed their lives. How do two intelligent Italian-American women decide to buy not one, but two, apartments in Abruzzo within two years? And why? Vicky knew it as the region from which both her father and her mother’s family immigrated. Linda knew it because a villa-renting friend of hers decided to send her there in 2010 “because none of my other clients would understand it.” Thus, an adventure of a lifetime was born.

Join Salemites Linda Dini Jenkins and Vicky Sirianni as they present a talk and slide show which captures their love for this gorgeous region of South-Central Italy that is oft ignored by American travelers. Find out how they first arrived, a year after the terrible earthquake in L’Aquila in 2009. Hear how they were “adopted” by a local family in Sulmona, where they have their apartments.

Take in the scenery in this armchair tour of Abruzzo, which will include a few Abruzzese goodies, as well. Victoria Sirianni is a retired Chief Facilities Officer from MIT and is now a consultant to colleges and universities. Linda Dini Jenkins is the author of Up at the Villa: Travels with my Husband and blogs about travel and travel writing at travelthewriteway.com. Linda takes small groups of travelers to Italy twice each year, and she and Vicky will also rent their apartments in Sulmona if you ask nicely!

Let’s Talk Abruzzo

iambooksboston.com

n A presentation of “Listen: Selected Poems of Aldo Tambellini 1946-2016” and a short selection of projected works. Aldo Tambellini (born in Syracuse, 1930) is an Italian American artist. He pioneered electronic intermedia, and is a painter, sculptor, and poet.

Refreshments will be served.

November 5 Carmen Sottile: Piano Concerto

iambooksboston.com

n Internationally acclaimed

ww Rediscovering a region oft ignored by American travelers

3:30 pm Dante Alighieri Society 41 Hampshire Street, Cambridge ww

www.dantemass.org

n 14-year-old pianist Carmen Sottile from Palermo, Sicily, winner of a national and international competition and recently returning from a concert performance at Carnegie Hall will perform classical favorites

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October 25

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Italy in the City

d inin g o u t ww North End’s Culture and Tradition

From the Old World to Modern Boston With a blooming Italian food culture, Boston proves to be a primary culinary destination for gourmet travelers

by Francesca Maltauro

you’ll want every last bite of the rich pastas, such as the pappardelle Bolognese, Bucatini all’Amatriciana, and fettuccine alla Carbonara.

However, there are main courses, too, including plenty of chicken and veal, either Marsala, Calabrisella, Cacciatora, or Sorrentina.

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When landing in Boston, you immediately experience an old-time feel: the beautiful cobblestone streets, the harbor, and the architecture. Then visit the historic North End neighborhood, where the influence of 19th century immigration waves has left an indelible mark. When Italians immigrants came to the city, they brought their culture with them, letting it bloom into what today is one of the most popular Little Italies in the US. Walking in North End, you are overwhelmed by wonderful aromas too.

From the freshly baked goods at Maria’s Pastry Shop to the fragrance of Sicilian pizza coming from Galleria Umberto, you will immediately fall for this lively neighborhood.

During the year, North End is colored by several traditional Italian feasts when the streets are filled with people, and street carts and vendors propose the best of North End’s Italian and Italian-American food—meatballs, calzoni, arancini, cannoli... and much more!

North End’s Italian food culture bloomed so much that its cuisine was eventually recorded in one of the most popular cookbooks, The North End Italian Cookbook by Marguerite DiMino Buonopane, published for the first time in 1975.

The book is filled with Italian family recipes that are truly part of North End’s history and that perfectly reflect the culinary soul of the neighborhood and its people. If you happen to be in town this fall, check out our selection of some of North End’s best Italian spots. ww

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Ristorante Saraceno

Our Picks For This Season Strega

379 Hanover Street % (617) 523-8481 ww

www.stregaristorante.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Trendy price $$

n Sicilian-born Chef Salvatore Firicano helms the kitchen at the Varano Group’s North End restaurant, Strega. Known for his authentic take on Italian cuisine and heavy portions, locals, tourists, and their celebrity clientele make for a packed house on the daily. That’s right, this small and charming spot is a go-to destination among the stars when they find themselves in Boston. With an illuminated yellow wall that boasts six widescreen televisions that play different mobster movies on repeat, impressive chandeliers, and a marble countertop bar, the gangster-inspired décor creates a glitzy, old-world Italian feel. The appetizers feature upgraded classics, like Caprese, gamberi in padella, and roasted beet salad.

But don’t fill up too much because

286 Hanover Street % (617) 227-5888 ww

www.saracenos.com

cuisine Neapolitan ambience Friendly price $$

n Ristorante Saraceno transports you back in time to Naples. With four dining rooms, including a glassed-in rooftop, each floor has a distinct ambiance. The downstairs dining room boasts a wall mural, ancient statues, and vinery, while the main dining room is suffused with warmer tones and features a fireplace and chandeliers. As the space is so grand, you’re guaranteed a seat, but it still feels intimate with its oldworld charm. Family run since 1984, it has grown to be a go-to place for authentic Italian fare, whether you’re with family, friends, or on a date. The extensive menu sports plenty of Neapolitan classics. If you want homemade pasta, the rigatoni all’arrabbiata always gets rave reviews, but if you’re in the mood for seafood, the sogliola meuniere—filet of sole sautéed with lemon and butter—will melt in your mouth. With even more meat dishes and assorted desserts, you definitely won’t leave hungry.

Prezza

24 Fleet Street % (617) 227-1577 ww

www.prezza.com

cuisine Mediterranean ambience Cozy price $$$

n Chef Anthony Caturano named Prezza after the ancient Italian village in Abruzzo where his grandmother was born. Hidden away in the mountains, the town’s diet revolved around pork, polenta, and vegetables.

Therefore, the residents had to be innovative to make new dishes with the food of their homeland. Determined to channel his ancestors’ creativity, Caturano always uses seasonal ingredients that result in an ever-changing menu to accompany the go-to house favorites. With handmade pastas, served either in appetizer or dinner portions, like squid ink spaghetti and pea ravioli, and items from the oven, such as sea scallops, crispy pork chop, and roasted halibut, it’s a perfect blend of popular faves and fresh plates. Enjoy the meal of your liking with any wine you can think of, as the collection boasts over 8,000 bottles, in the effortlessly chic, intimate environs, which Includes suede booths, contemporary artwork, and a separate, upscale bar scene.

www.i-Italy.org

boston

Renowned chef and food entrepreneur Barbara Lynch

ww Meet Barbara Lynch

A Guru of Italian Cuisine Carmelina’s

307 Hanover Street % (617) 742-0020 ww

www.carmelinasboston.com

cuisine Sicilian ambience Friendly, cozy price $$

World-acclaimed chef Barbara Lynch has been taking Boston’s Italian dining scene by storm. Recently, she has also partnered with Eataly in running Il Pesce restaurant.

by Tommaso Cartia

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Born and raised in Boston in a big New England family, Barbara is a self-taught prodigy. Though she never graduated from a cooking school, her love for food and cooking brought her to a luminous career. In 1996 she won her first award, Food & Wine’s best chef in the Northeast, but then many others came.

n Since 2012 Carmelina’s has grown to be a North End favorite. With floor-to-ceiling windows that open to the street on warmer days, the airy restaurant offers modern Italian cooking served in generous portions.

And it’s not just any Italian fare, it’s traditional Sicilian comfort food with a Mediterranean twist. Using generations-old family recipes, Executive Chef DiPaolo creates contemporary dishes that are a perfect balance of fresh pasta and seafood. From the menu to the space, where family photos bring life to the brick walls, it definitely has the Italian stamp of approval. If you’re a fan of il mare, start with ahi tuna arrabiata, sautéed spicy shrimp, or mussels marinara.

Alternatively, for the meat lovers, go for the brasato or lamb lollipop. And those are just the appetizers! With endless pasta options, like Palermitana, spaghetti with littleneck clams, and gnocchi al forno, and other main courses, such as pesce pistachio and pan roasted filet mignon, you definitely won’t leave hungry.

www.i-Italy.org

In Love With Italy

The first trip Barbara ever took was to Italy. She was in her early twenties, and it was during that trip that Italian food and culture struck her. “I had never been out of Boston in general,” she told i-Italy in a recent interview.

“And boy, was I surprised! It was amazing. What happened was, I fell in love with that book The Food of Italy

by Waverly Root, and I ended up loving Italy because of what Italians are and who they are. The culture, first of all, the regions, and that there’s usually a nonna in the kitchen.”

Her first experience in Italy changed her life and her perspective. “It was just this really wonderful, cultural lifestyle that I absorbed. I was like a sponge. It was just an eye-opener for me, and I ended up coming back and mastering Italian for the last ten years. At 32 I opened my first restaurant—No. 9 Park, which was FrenchItalian.” That was just the start of the legacy of restaurants that Lynch would create around her name and that eventually would become part of the Barbara Lynch Group.

The Barbara Lynch Group

She opened The Butcher Shop, inspired by her visit to Cortona, in Tuscany, where she would go to the local bottega to have wild boar. After that, she founded B&G Oysters, a kind of New England fish shack with a fancy twist, serving great wines and classics like fried calamari and chowder.

Close to The Butcher Shop, Barbara then opened Stir, which has a demonstration kitchen where they have cooking classes seven days a week.

After that, her drive proved unstoppable. “I then opened Sportello,” she

Thought: Stories You Can Taste, an interactive platform that allows the audience to share their own food-related stories. Barbara Lynch’s memoir Out of Line: A Life of Playing with Fire is also available. The book outlines Barbara’s life journey from a hard-knock childhood to her glorious success.

Working with Eataly Boston

One of Barbara Lynch’s latest efforts is her collaboration with Eataly Boston, where she has become the mind and soul behind their Il Pesce restaurant.

This happened almost by chance.

ww I ended up loving Italy because of what Italians are and who they are. The culture, first of all, the regions, and that there’s usually a nonna in the kitchen. tells us, “which has diner-style counter seating but all homemade pasta, salads, and entrees. Underneath that is Drink, which has the most incredible bartenders and mixologists and has won Best Bar in the World. Next to Sportello is Menton, which is Relais & Châteaux.”

So the Barbara Lynch Group is a little dining empire employing over 200 people and has an affectionate clientele that enjoys both the food and the culinary culture that the group delivers. It is a lively resource for all Bostonians in so many different ways. The Group also has a magazine Food for

During one of her trips to Italy she happened to be in Turin when Eataly first opened, and she immediately felt a connection with their educational philosophy and amazing artisanal slow-food products. “I fell in love with the store’s concept. So when Mario Batali came to me and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to open an Eataly in Boston, would you be interested in coming on board and running my seafood restaurant?’ I said, ‘Absolutely!’ I felt that Eataly was going to be the best thing that ever happened to Boston, period. And it is, actually. It’s doing ww phenomenal numbers.”

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Italy in the City

OVERVIEW ww Amelia Antonucci, unbattled film lover

Championing Classic Italian Cinema in The Bay Upon retiring as the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in San Francisco, Amelia Antonucci found that her energy had not declined while her love of film persisted.

Thus Cinema Italia SF was born, and it’s now in its fifth year.

by Tommaso Cartia

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As a young girl, growing up in Salerno, Amelia Antonucci used to spend almost every night at the movies. She likely had no idea then that part of her life would end up being dedicated to this great passion of hers--and that she would have the chance to share it with so many.

After graduating with a degree in modern literature, Antonucci began a career as a cultural attaché at the most important Italian Cultural Institutes in the US. First in New York, where she would become the assistant to the director of the Italian Cultural Institute, then in San Francisco, where she moved in 1996. Eventually she would establish herself in the City by the Bay. From 2008 to 2011 she was the director of San Francisco’s Italian Cultural Institute where, among the other important initiatives aimed at celebrating the Italian culture, she played a key role as an “ambassador” of Italian cinema. “I was always involved in cinema,” Antonucci told us, “in New York, in San Francisco, but also in Rome in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Cinema Department. I always maintained contacts within Luce Cinecittà and other entities that were fundamental in my work as a cultural director in America.” Antonucci recalls her early years working at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York. Her first experience was a collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and its late film curator, Stephen Harvey. “It was dedicated to Anna Magnani,” she says, “and at the end I was mentioned in the MoMA catalog… What an incredible feeling!”

Cinema Italia San Francisco

Even after her retirement as director of the Italian Cultural Institute in San Francisco, Antonucci’s 102 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

energy did not decline while her love of film persisted. Pushed by the desire to try something new, she decided to… go back to the classics! She realized that a lot of attention in San Francisco was being given to contemporary cinema, while great classic Italian cinema was slowly disappearing from the big theaters. “I had already brought to the city the New Italian Cinema Events (NICE),” she recounts. “It’s an interesting show of young directors’ first films. However, I missed the golden age when I had brought Alberto Sordi, Marcello Mastroianni, and Michelangelo Antonioni to the city. I wanted to recreate that atmosphere.”

Thus Cinema Italia San Francisco was born. It consisted of one full day of showings from morning till night; four or five films from the same director with a themed party to follow. The location was the Castro Theater, San Francisco’s historic art-deco palace. The first exhibition was in 2013, with a retrospective dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini. The guest of honor from Italy was Giovanni “Ninetto” Davoli, a notable protagonist in such Pasolini films as Uccellacci e Uccellini (The Hawks and the Sparrows) and Il vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew).

The public was enthusiastic, and the program caught on in San Francisco, becoming an essential event for cinema lovers. In 2014 Cinema Italia San Francisco presented the works of Bernardo

ww I was always involved in cinema; in New York, in San Francisco, but also in Rome in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Cinema Department. And today the support of Luce Cinecittà, and the collaboration of the Italian Consulate and Italian Cultural Institute, are fundamental in the success of Cinema Italia San Francisco. www.i-Italy.org

ww We’ve become part of something that goes beyond the reaches of the Italian and Italian American communities.

Actually, the biggest boost comes from the general American public.

Bertolucci; in 2015, Vittorio De Sica’s; in 2016, Anna Magnani’s; and in 2017, Dino Risi and Lina Wertmüller’s.

Antonucci speaks enthusiastically about her creation. “When we presented Bertolucci, we had Joan Chen as a guest of honor. She was one of the main characters in L’Ultimo Imperatore (The Last Emperor), which we presented in the exclusive 3D version. Then in 2015, we presented Vittorio De Sica. It was a great success; we had 1,700 people in just one day. Among the films presented was a restored version of Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis). We try to offer the best that we can to the public, showing restored 35mm films.”

The support of Luce Cinecittà, and the collaboration of the Italian Consulate and Italian Cultural Institute, are fundamental in the success of the event. The program graphics are by publisher, designer, and curator Colpa Press. The biggest challenge that Antonucci faces is certainly the budget.

“It’s a project that needs financing because the box office covers only a small portion of the expenses.

We are constantly looking for public or private sponsors.” On the last day of the 2017 edition earlier this Fall, Antonucci was able to involve sponsors like the eyeglass company Zenni Optical—a natural choice since one of the films presented was Behind White Glasses, a documentary on Lina www.i-Italy.org

Wertmüller by Valerio Ruiz . Wertmüller was the first woman in the history of cinema to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Director. Antonucci was able to get four of Wertmüller’s films and a documentary in a restored format from New York film distributor Kino Lorber.

Passion and a lot of hard work carry Amelia through her ambitious project: to be able one day to transform Cinema Italia San Francisco into a true Italian film festival in America. She is convinced of the project’s great potential thanks to the encouraging response that is coming not only from the Italian and Italian-American public, but also from the general American audience.

The San Francisco Audience

Amelia Antonucci is very active in the Italian community in SF. She is the president of the non-profit Leonardo Da Vinci Society, and of group called DIVE (Donne Italiane che Vivono all’Estero).

However, although Cinema Italia San Francisco is primarily geared towards the Italian community, its audience is mixed. “Actually, the biggest boost comes from the general public. Americans who love films in their original languages are the ones buying tickets. These are the same people who go to see films in German and French. We’ve become part of something that goes beyond the reaches of the Italian and Italian American communities.”

Antonucci finds that the San Franciscan audience has always been very open to Italian culture, even more than the public of other cities like New York, where there is a lot more competition. “For example, in 2010,” Antonucci recalls, “alongside the Italian Cultural Institute in San Francisco, I did a show of Maria Callas’s costumes, and it was incredibly successful. The San Francisco Opera also helped us. Another event was Teatro San Carlo’s trip here with Verdi’s Requiem. It was the event of the year, not just an Italian event.”

Contagious optimism

Antonucci is aware that hers is an uphill battle, as Italian cinema lacks industrial investments and a consistent policy of promotion and distribution.

“At the San Francisco International Film Festival,” she says, “France is able to present an average of 30 films a year. We Italians need to jump through hoops to be able to present even one! We still have a lot of work to do in terms of both investments and promotion.” Neverthess, she is optimistic. She notes that Luce Cinecittà is now being restructured along lines similar to UniFrance—the French agency for cinema promotion. “Soon we too will be able to show our cinema abroad with greater strength—both classic and contemporary cinema!”

One thing is certain: Amelia Antonucci is a force of nature. And her optimis is contagious. ww Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 103

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From the left: Vittorio Gassman and Jean-Louis Trintignant in Dino Risi’s Il sorpasso (1962); Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato in Lina Wertmüller’s Swept Away (1974). Below: Amelia Antonucci at a presentation of Cinema Italia SF; Italian screenwriter and film director Lina Wertmüller.

san francisco

Italy in the City

even t s

Italian Calendar October 13 Nicola Lagioia - Longform Fiction from Europe

7:00pm Odin Room, Swedish American Hall 2174 Market Street ww

https://litquake2017.sched.com/

n Novelist Nicola Lagioia takes part the San Francisco Literary Festival’s, international evening Longform Fiction from Europe, which features readings and discussion from some of Europe’s top novelists currently on book tour. With Dominique Fabre (France), Nicola Lagioia (Italy), Karolina Ramqvist (Sweden), and Nina Weijers (Netherlands). Moderated by San Francisco Chronicle book editor John McMurtrie. Nicola Lagioia is currently on a book tour of the United States and Canada to promote the newly published translation of his novel Ferocity (Europa Editions). Copresented by the Consulate Generals of France, Italy, Netherlands, and Sweden, and by the Italian Cultural Institute.

October 14 Nicola Lagioia reads and signs “Ferocity”

5:30pm Libreria Pino 1412 Grant Avenue ww

www.libreriapino.com

ww Through January 7, 2018 | Museo Italo Americano

Baccari: Tale Padre Tale Figlio. An Exhibit on the Photographic Artistry of Alessandro Baccari Sr. and His Son Museo Italo Americano Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Blvd.

Building C ww

The exhibit features works by two generations of San Francisco photographers: Alessandro Baccari Sr. (1888 – 1966) and his son Alessandro Baccari Jr. (1928 – ). The exhibit has been designed to explore the development of the creative process and how drama and excitement comes into focus through planned use of light.

Each of the photographic images is dramatically unique and reflects the photographers’ insights into composition and design. For Baccari Sr. and his son, creativity is a survival skill and the cutting edge is within one’s mind. As photographers they made up their own laws of composition and in so doing brought originality to their work.

Alessandro Baccari Sr. was born in Casacalenda, Molise, Italy on

Girl and Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, filtered through the fierce Mediterranean vision of Elena Ferrante.

October 16 & 17 Silvia Tarozzi & Deborah Walker Duo

n Libreria Pino welcomes Italian author Nicola Lagioia to read and sign his novel, Ferocity. Nicola Lagioia, born in Bari in 1973, is an editor for the Italian publisher Minimum Fax. He is the author of three novels and a collection of short stories. His books have been awarded the Strega Prize, the Premio Volponi, and the Premio Viareggio, among others. He lives in Rome.

Ferocity, translated and published by Europa Editions, is his English-language debut.

Winner of the 2015 Strega Prize, Italy’s preeminent prize for fiction, Ferocity is a cinematic suspense novel that also addresses vital social questions, a combination of Gillian Flynn’s Gone

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museoitaloamericano.org

November 20, 1888 and grew up in Naples. He immigrated to the United States with his family, later attending Harvard University. While at Harvard, he began writing plays and musicals.

He also worked as a musical composer and conductor and made paintings and ecclesiastical decorations in a number of churches throughout New England.

Encouraged by his friends Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, two major contributors in establishing photography as art, Baccari Sr. focused on his photographic talents as well. It was not long before his images attracted the attention of the Eastman Kodak Company. Each year for 30 years they would select a collection of his portraits for a traveling exhibit to promote the company and their products. Among those he photographed in the early days were President Theodore Roosevelt, playwright Eugene O’Neill, actor Will Rogers, Florenz Ziegfeld, and the

(October 16) 7:30pm Mills College – Ensemble Roome 5000 MacArthur Blvd, Oakland ww

https://musicnow.mills.edu

(October 17) – 7:30pm Center for New Music 55 Taylor Street, San Francisco ww

http://centerfornewmusic.com

n Silvia Tarozzi (violin) and Deborah Walker (cello) are actively involved in the fields of contemporary experimental music and free improvisation. Together with French composer Pascale Criton they have been exploring microtonal extended techniques and gestural processes on a violin and a cello tuned

in 1/16 of a tone. The compositions that have resulted from this process challenge the sense of form and the attitude of interpretation, transforming it into a creative process. This concert is made possible with the support of SACEM, SPEDIDAM, and Istituto Italiano di Cultura of SF in collaboration with Luciano Chessa.

Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker have been working together since 2003.

They have played at venues and Festivals across Europe, and they are now

Barrymores. In 1925, Baccari Sr. settled in San Francisco when he married Edith Fantozzi, and focused on portrait painting and photography.

Among his clientele were such notables as A.P. Giannini, Gaetano Merola, William Randolph Hearst, and inventor Guglielmo Marconi. He went on to become the official photographer of the San Francisco Opera Company, Ballet, and Symphony. He also composed and organized many A Night in Italy musical events held at the Fairmont Hotel to raise money for worthy causes in the Italian American community. In 1941, he opened the Baccari Mona Lisa Art Gallery at 525 Sutter Street in San Francisco,

in the course of their first West Coast tour. Their recordings include works by Pascale Criton, released by the French label POTLATCH, as well as works

by Philip Corner, to be released soon (http://www.silviatarozzi.it) Composer Pascale Criton (1954) studied composition with Ivan Wyschnegradsky, Gérard Grisey and Jean-Etienne Marie. She received electro-acoustic training at the CIRM (International Centre for Musical Research, Nice), from 1980 to 1982, as well as in a musical computing course for composers at the IRCAM (Paris, 1986)

October 18 A Taste of Italian - Istituto Scuola’s Open House & Language Fair

5:00 Pm Italian Cultural Institute 601 Van Ness Ave F ww

iicsanfrancisco.esteri.it

www.i-Italy.org

showcasing for sale art objects, paintings, tapestries, furniture pieces, statues, and vases. The gallery also exhibited the art of up-and-coming young artists. In 1945, he published the Eyes of the Woman magazine, which

appeared three times a year with a circulation of 30,000.

Alessandro Baccari Jr. has also enjoyed a versatile career. Over the years he has been described as an educator, businessman, museum curator,

same-day course enrollment Travel to Italy information Workshop on Umbria’s olive oil presented by “La Lingua La Vita” cultural center from Todi.

The Istituto Italiano Scuola (IIS) is the only school affiliated with the San Francisco Italian Cultural Institute, with the task of fulfilling their shared mission of providing the highest quality Italian language instruction in the Bay Area.

n On the occasion of the Settimana della Lingua Italiana nel Mondo, the Istituto Italiano Scuola and the Italian Cultural Institute open their doors to all who may be interested in or curious about our beautiful language. From 5:00pm to 8:00 pm visitors will have a chance to explore language classes, learn about scholarships, take advantage of special discounts, and taste true Italian products from Umbria.

Course information & free Italian trial classes. Enjoy a 10% discount on

www.i-Italy.org

October 20 Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Cinematic Life

17th Italian Language Week in the World 6:30 Pm Italian Cultural Institute 601 Van Ness Ave F ww

iicsanfrancisco.esteri.it

n Following the publication of the revised edition of Pasolini Requiem,

musician, broadcaster, author, journalist, poet, artist, and photographer. Born and raised in San Francisco, Baccari Jr is a graduate of the University of Santa Clara and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Political Science. In 1958, he became an executive with Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, producing award-winning programs, such as PM East/PM West with Mike Wallace. In 1965, he established Alessandro Baccari and Associates, specializing in public affairs research, advertising, public relations, and graphic design. In 1984, along with his company activities, he served as Associate Dean of the College of Business and Director of the Center for the Study of Enterprise at San Francisco State University. His love of California history compelled him to serve as curator and director of the Eureka Foundation where he built 18 museums dedicated to preserving regional history. In 1985 he was knighted by the Italian Government for his book The Chronicles of The Italian Cathedral of The West, a four hundred page illustrated volume on the history of Italian immigrants. Two awards that he is very proud to have received are: the Benemerenti Medal in recognition for

his charitable endeavors in 1997 from Pope John Paul II, and the prestigious Silver Cable Car Award in 2001 presented by the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau for his significant contributions to the San Francisco visitors industry.

Photography has long been his passion, and his photographic images have been published in numerous publications and have been exhibited around the world.

He is the recipient of many awards as well as of two Fulbright Grants and the Distinguished American Scholars Grant.

He was the 2002 recipient of the American Society of Photographers International Award. Over the years, he has served as the executive director of the Professional Photographers of California Association, a trustee of the Brooks Institute of Professional Photography in Santa Barbara, and as a director of the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in Oklahoma.

For Baccari Jr. the greatest gift the camera can offer the serious photographer is “that of seeing, and through seeing, understanding a little bit more about humanity, the significant details of life and the world around us.

In the hands of this perceptive person, photographic images become art.”

called by the New York Times Book Review “the standard Pasolini biography,” author Barth David Schwartz returns to the Italian Cultural Institute for a conversation with film scholar Noa Steimatsky.

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–75) was one of the most important Italian intellectuals of the post–World War II era. An astonishing polymath—poet, novelist, literary critic, political polemicist, screenwriter, and film director—he exerted profound influence on Italian culture up to his untimely death. Based on extensive interviews with those who knew Pasolini, both friends and enemies, admirers and detractors, Pasolini Requiem chronicles his growth from poet in the provinces to Italy’s leading “civil poet”; the scandalous success of his two novels and political writing; and his transition to film, where he started as a contributor to the golden age of Italian cinema and ended with the shocking Salò, or the 120

Days of Sodom. Pasolini’s tragic and still unsolved murder has remained a subject of contentious debate for four decades. The enduring fascination with who committed the crime—and why—reflects his vital stature in Italy’s political and social history.

Barth David Schwartz, a Rhodes Scholar who earned degrees from Harvard College and Yale Law School, is a writer based in Baltimore, Maryland.

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Alessandro Baccari Jr. and some of his works.

For more see www.museoitaloamericano.org

san francisco

Italy in the City

dinin g o u t ww i-Italy lands in the Golden City

Italian Bites in a Beat Generation Vibe From chic and luxurious to friendly and casual, San Francisco’s Italian dining scene has something.

by Tommaso Cartia

mers. Mamma Stefania and the rest of the Gambaccini family will win you over with their Italian hospitality and kindness while filling your bellies with the most exquisite Tuscan delights.

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Did you ever dream of enjoying a typical Italian espresso, or a perfectly cooked pizza in the same spot where Jack Kerouac, Francis Ford Coppola, or Lawrence Ferlinghetti spent their time? If you did, San Francisco’s North Bach is the place for you.

The city’s Italian dining scene today is spread throughout all the neighborhoods, but both the Italian immigrants and the beatniks found their cradle in North Beach, which remains one of the top-ten places to visit in town.

What at first was actually a beach, during the centuries became a hotbed for old and new cultures.

But this lively neighborhood— also called San Francisco’s “Little Italy”—owes its popularity to the Italian immigration of the past century. It was here where bearers of Italian traditions met Beat Generation artists. Caffe Trieste, opened in 1956 by Giovanni Giotta, became one of their preferred meetings places.

As beat poet David Meltzer once stated, “North Beach had much more of a European atmosphere because most of the real estate was managed primarily by Italians–often first-generation Italians. And the Italians never felt uncomfortable with the idea of somebody being an artist or a poet.” Come enjoy some of North Beach’s historic and modern Italian joints to feel the “beat” of that era! You’ll find our suggestions right here in our special Fall seww lection!

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Vicoletto

550 Green Street % (415) 433-5800 ww

Our Picks For This Season Baonecci

16 Green Street % (415) 989-1806 ww

www.caffebaonecci.com

cuisine ambience price

Regional (Tuscan) Casual $$

n If you are looking for an authentic Tuscan culinary experience, look no further than Baonecci. This restaurant offers typical dishes that can otherwise only be found within the city walls of Lucca, a tiny town in Tuscany with tons of charm. The chef, affectionately called Mamma Stefania, offers only the best with homemade pasta prepared daily topped with her own special sauces. Her goal is to make others feel like they were in Italy, and she does just that. She transforms the simplest of ingredients into something truly extraordinary. Even the most common plates pack an unexpected punch that leave foodies stunned and coming back for more. Not only do the freshness and quality of her products entice customers but it’s also the warmth of the restaurant that really attracts custo-

www.vicolettosf.com

cuisine ambience price

Regional (Calabrese) Cozy $$

n A delightful, charming spot in North Beach, Vicoletto (Italian for alley) is an exquisite joint that offers all of the best of the cuisine from Calabria in a warm environment.

Owners Francesco Covucci and Peter Fazio, two Calabrians at heart, know how to treat their clients with an authentic Mediterranean menu cooked with local and organic ingredients.

Start your meal with the tasty burrata with roasted butternut squash, imported weekly from Puglia. As for the main courses, try the Tagliolini al Nero di Seppia–homemade squid ink pasta, clams, Monterrey squid, prawns, and cherry tomato sauce.

Or perhaps try the gnocchi with Calabrian sausage and broccoli in a cream sauce. Vicoletto has refined selection of wines as well, mostly

Italian of course, and the special Vicoletto Private Collection that boasts among others two regal wines such as the “Super Tuscan, Sassicaia, Tenuta San Guido” from Tuscany, and the “Nebbiolo, Angelo Gaja, Sperss, Langhe” from Piedmont.

Tony’s Pizza Napoletana 1570 Stockton Street % (415) 835-9888 ww

www.tonyspizzanapoletana.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Casual price $$

n Chef Tony Germignani grew up spending his free time cooking with his mother, who used the organic products they collected at their family farm. After his very first experience as a pizza runner at his brother’s pizzeria, Pyzaro in Castro Valley, Tony became a pizza throwing star, winning his first competition in Las Vegas to then become president of the World Pizza Championship. Germignani is the only Triple Crown winner for baking at the International Pizza Championships in Lecce, Apulia, and he was even the first American (and non-Neapolitan) to win the coveted World Pizza Cup in Naples in 2007. When Tony started his own business in San Francisco, he set the bar high in order to eliminate all competition. Ever since it opened its doors, Tony’s Pizza Napoletana has received nothing but high praise from locals and critics alike for its tasty Margherita and several other styles of pizza. The chef prides himself on continuing the tradition he grew up with, using only the freshest ingredients he grows on the rooftop garden in addition to supporting local organic farmers and artisan cheese makers.

www.i-Italy.org

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Left: one of Bill Weber’s murals in North Beach. Counterclockwise: Baonecci Cafè; Vicoletto (photo by Stephanie W. Hession); Cafè Trieste.

Left: Tommaso’s legendary oven

ww Neighborhood Gems

A San Francisco Landmark Cafe Trieste

609 Vallejo Street % (415) 392-6739 ww

http://coffee.caffetrieste.com

cuisine ambience price

Typical (Italian Caffè) Rustic $$$

n The legend of Caffè Trieste dates back to 1956 when Giovanni “Gianni” Giotta, “Papà Gianni,” opened the joint after migrating from his hometown of Rovigno D’Istria–which is now part of Croatia–to San Francisco with his wife, Ida. At that time, Italian espresso wasn’t that popular in the US. In fact, it was almost unknown on the West Coast. To this day, many say that Giotta and his Caffè are responsible for introducing the philosophy of a classic Italian espresso bar to the city of San Francisco.The success of the Caffè really starts with the quality of its coffee. Papà Gianni had an old-fashioned approach to brewing techniques. He used to say that the secret of his success was to “buy the best beans, roast them yourself, then brew each cup like it’s for you.” The shop also has exquisite Italian pastries and delicacies, such as Sicilian cannoli.

But it who sipped on that coffee that truly made the difference. The mythical Francis Ford Coppola, for example, wrote the screenplay for his masterpiece The Godfather at Caffè Trieste.

Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a regular, and so were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Kaufman, Gregory Corso, Jack Hirschman. On saturday don’t miss the Caffè Trieste Saturday Concert, considered to be the longestrunning show in the all city. It started with the Giotta family performing there, and then it expanded to present the best of SF’s local music scene.

www.i-Italy.org

Home to the oldest wood-fired brick oven on the West Coast, this family-run Neapolitan style restaurant recently cselebrated its 80th birthday.

by T. C.

ww

A Tommaso’s Ristorante Italiano truly represents a piece of San Francisco’s history. Home to the very first wood-fired brick pizza oven of the West Coast, this classic Italian joint, which opened in 1935, celebrated its incredible 80-year history in 2015. The restaurant was opened by the Cantalupo family from Naples who named the place “Lupo” at first.

Then the business was passed down to chef Tommy Chin, who italianized the name of the place according to his own. Later on, the Crotti family joined Chin to shape the modern face of this sumptuous Italian restaurant, which managed to stay relevant among the Italian dining scene in San Francisco thanks to its authentic old-fashioned Italian cooking, rooted in the Neapolitan style.

Tommaso’s remains successful today due to its family-run concept, which makes the dining experience rustic, cozy, and friendly. It’s the perfect environment for an evening with friends or for a date. The warmth of the Crotti family really makes all the difference. In 1973, Agostino was working as a server for Caffe Trieste– the historic Italian coffee house that has been frequented by artists and musicians since 1956–and he stayed true to his artisan way of running a restaurant. Till this day, he makes his own pizza dough at Tommaso’s. His sister, Lidia, serves as the executive chef, and his other sister, Carmen, is the perfect host. His wife Anna

puts a sweet note on the restaurants menu with her exquisite desserts. In an interview, Agostino was proud to say that Tommaso’s is North Beach’s oldest Italian restaurant. “We’ve been here 77 years, I mean the place,” said Crotti, “Everything around us has changed. Places opening up, places closing. The neighborhood has changed so much, and we are the only true anchor in this section. A little bit of the red light district ambiance as you can tell. That came, everything came after this place.”

Pizza at Tommaso’s is legendary. It’s 100% real Italian pizza, with a thin-crust and super fresh ingredients. The best seller is the burrata pizza with cherry tomatoes and basil. On the pasta front, their lasagna is mouth-watering, and the oven-baked specialties, particularly the appetizers, embraces the pal-

ate with a warm savory sensation.

Try the veal saltimbocca–prosciutto and fresh mozzarella in a white wine sauce–or the parmigiana with melted cheese. Regarding the rich wine list, Tommaso’s sports an original wine, a Tommaso’s Private Label Table Red, produced in conjunction with Pedroncelli Family Estate. This original wine is an exquisite blend of Zinfandel, Merlot and Syrah that shows fruity flavors of ripe berry, plum, and warm spice. Some of the restaurant’s seasonal specials add magic to the regular menu. The tortellini con burro, salvia e parmigiano, for example, is a tasty delight–homemade tortellini, with browned butter, parmesan and sage. Another special treat is the pizza pesto con pomodori secchi, aglio soffritto e erba cipollina– sundried tomato pesto, roasted garlic, and chives.

The restaurant is also one of the pit-stops of Avital Tours, a sightseeing tour agency that organizes 4-course fabulous dining experiences. Each course is served in a different restaurant, and, of course, paired with great wines. Tommaso’s is part of the North Beach tour of course. So, check out the agency website (www. avitaltours.com) and come and visit Tommaso’s Ristorante Italiano! ww Tommaso’s Ristorante Italiano 1042 Kearny Street % (415) 398-9696 ww

www.tommasos.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Rustic price $$

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Italy in the City

OVERVIEW

Director Mario Martone on the set of Il giovane favoloso with Elio Germano (Giacomo Leopardi) and Isabella Ragonese (Leopardi’s sister Paolina). Below: Valeria Rumori, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, LA.

ww The 17th Edition of the Italian Language Week in the World Takes Off This Fall

Italian Cinema in the “Mecca of Cinema” Every year a different cultural theme is chosen to spotlight the week’s promotion of language; in 2017, it’s cinema. Located in the capital of American cinema, the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles is naturally very actively involved. The Institute’s director, Valeria Rumori tells i-Italy how they are approaching the task.

by Tommaso Cartia

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The Italian Language Week in the World is an event of foremost importance for Italians. Now in its seventeenth year, and run under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic of Italy, its theme for 2017 is the Italian language in Italian cinema—and the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles is naturally very actively involved.

One of the major screenings during Italian Language Week will be Il Giovane Favoloso

by Italian director Mario Martone, on October 17th. The film chronicles the tormented life of a giant of Italian literature, Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837). We asked the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute, Valeria Rumori, the reason behind the choice of Martone’s film. “Il Giovane Favoloso was suggested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an iconic movie about the Italian language,” Rumori says. “It narrates the intellectual and human story of one of the greatest Italian authors of all times. Besides, it is a movie for which Mario Martone has won so many awards, including one dedicated to Italian creativity here at our Institute.”

Martone’s work is in very good company..

The Instituteis also presenting Raffaello, Master of Arts, a 3D documentary about the famous Renaissance painter, produced by Sky in collaboration with the Vatican Museums and Magnitudo Films. Host of the event is Davide Gasparotto, Senior Curator of Paintings at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

ww We bring to Los Angeles the best that Italian cinema produces every year. The fact is, for LA, Italian cinema has always been relevant—even cool!

A complex, multifaceted job

But the work of the Week is much more complex than “just” showing movies to the public.

Rumori, who has a long experience in the field and came to Los Angeles after serving several years as the director of the Italian Cultural Institute in San Francisco, explains the rationale.

“When I started working at this Institute,” she points out, “I got to understand how culturally complex and varied the city of Los Angeles is, as well as the whole area we serve, covering the whole of Southern California, Nevada, Ari108 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

zona, and New Mexico. Therefore, I chose to emphasize the collaboration between different institutions, not only Italian, such as the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles, but also American and those representing other countries.”

An example of this international collaboration is the inclusion of the Italian romantic

comedy Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips)

by Silvio Soldini. This award-winning movie is an Italian-Swiss co-production and was selected by the Institute together with the Consulate General of Switzerland. The rationale was to emphasize that Italy and Switzerland share a long border, and in the Swiss canton of Ticino, where Italian is one of the official www.i-Italy.org

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Scenes from: Pane e Tulipani, by Silvio Soldini; Pizza e l’arte di arrangiarsi, by Matteo Troncone; Enrico IV, by Marco Bellocchio; Tutto quello che vuoi, by Francesco Bruni; Fuocoammare, by Gianfranco Rosi.

languages, it is spoken by almost everyone.

There, Italian works as a bridge between two different cultures.

Another example—this one beyond cinema—is the Italian-Mexican collaboration for the Year of Mexico 2017 celebration in Los Angeles. In fact, when the Institute had to decide on its participation to the Day of Contemporary Art, it chose an exhibit by Italian writer and illustrator Andrea Ferraris, author of Churubusco—a graphic novel telling the story of an Italian immigrant in Mexico. The event was created in collaboration with the Consulate General of Mexico, and it served as a reminder that Italy—today a country of destination for immigrants from Africa and Asia—has long been a country of departure for millions of Italian emigrants to North and South America as well as to Australia, Europe, and virtually everywhere else in the world.

Promoting Italy through cinema

Another example of cinematic collaboration, this time among Italian institutions, is the screening of Enrico IV, directed by Marco Bellocchio and inspired by the play by Luigi Pirandello, the Nobel Prize-winning Sicilian playwright and novelist. In 2017 Italy celebrates the 150th anniversary of Pirandello’s birth, and the Italian Cultural Institute, in collaboration with ENIT (the Italian National Tourist Board) paid homage to his memory in a series of events called Viaggi in Italia (Voyages to Italy), in which they promoted Pirandello’s Sicily, specifically the city of Agrigento, where he was born.

The connection between Italian cinema and Italian society and culture is very strong indeed. A telling example is the program Filming in Italy, that promotes Italy as a location for foreign movie productions. The program was created in collaboration with Tiziana Rocca, former director of the Taormina Film Festival, and was co-presented at the Institute during the Voyages to Italy series with the Italian Trade Commission.

On November 15, another chapter of the series Viaggi in Italia will focus on the city of Naples with a screening of Pizza & the Art of Living (Pizza & l’arte di arrangiarsi) by Italian-American director Matteo Troncone.

The event is co-hosted by ENIT and falls in the Week of Italian Cuisine in the World—in a year when pizza is a candidate for inclusion in UNESCO’s World Heritage.

Then, starting on November 16, the exhibit Cinema Italian Style will showcase the best of Italian cinema in Los Angeles, with the opportunity to meet the filmmakers and actors for www.i-Italy.org

ww The city of Los Angeles is culturally complex and varied, and we also serve the whole of Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Therefore, you have to emphasize the collaboration between different institutions, not only Italian, but also American and those representing other countries.

Q&A sessions. This year the exhibit will pay homage to one of the most influential Italian directors of all times, Michelangelo Antonioni.

Roberto Ciccutto, President and CEO of Luce Cinecittà, the italian agency for the promotion of cinema, will participate in a pre-opening on November 15

“Italian Cinema is cool in LA”

In the golden age of Italian Neorealism—after WWII—Italian cinema was a strong presence in Hollywood. Today, however, contemporary Italian films in the US face a much more difficult market. That’s why the work of agencies like the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles is so important. Valeria Rumori is positive about the future, noting the increased interest of the American public in the new Italian cinema. “We bring to LA the best that Italian cinema produces every year, including movies from the Turin Social World Film Festival, for example. And the winner of the Milan International Film Festival 2017, Tutto quello che vuoi, directed by Francesco Bruni, will have its US premiere here in LA.” The fact is, Rumori says, that “for LA, Italian cinema has always been relevant—even cool. Gianfranco Rosi’s Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea), Oscar nominated last year, confirms this. Rosi missed winning his Oscar, but two other Italians didn’t: The Best Make-up and Hairstyling Award went to Alessandro Bertolazzi and Giorgio Gregorini ww for Suicide Squad.”

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Italy in the City

E V E N T S

Italian Calendar October 14 “The Day of Contemporary Art” at Italian Cultural Institute in LA

10:00 am Italian Cultural Institute 1023 Hilgard Avenue ww

iiclosangeles.esteri.it

n The Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles will participate in “The Day of Contemporary Art” on October 14, 2017 organized by AMACI (Association of Contemporary Art Museums in Italy) with the support of MIBACT (Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism) and MAECI (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation).

The “Day” features free entrance to all associated museums and activities in the contemporary art sector.

On October 14 the IIC Los Angeles will open its doors to the public to visit the exhibit of original drawings by the famous writer and illustrator Andrea Ferraris, from his most recent graphic novel entitled, Churubusco.

October 16

Maestro Riccardo Muti & The Chicago Symphony Orchestra

8:00 pm Renée & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa ww

www.philharmonicsociety.org

n The multi-Grammy Award-winning Chicago Symphony Orchestra makes its first Orange County appearance in five years under the baton of music director Riccardo Muti to open the Philharmonic Society’s 2017-18 season. This performance features principal clarinetist Stephen Williamson in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and also includes Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 and Schumann’s Symphony No. 2.

Named 2010 Musician of the Year by Musical America, Riccardo Muti has enjoyed an extraordinary career. He first came to international attention in 1967, when he was unanimously awarded first place at the Guido Cantelli Competition for conductors

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in Milan. Since then, he has served as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra as well as music director of the Teatro alla Scala. His numerous accolades include France’s Officer of the Legion of Honor, Russia’s Order of Friendship, the Birgit Nilsson Prize, and Spain’s prestigious Prince of Asturias Prize for the Arts. In May 2012, he was awarded the highest Papal honor: he was made a Knight of the Grand Cross of the First Class of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Benedict XVI.

October 16 Italian Cocktail Night Unconventional Italian Aperitivo: from Amaro to Spritz

6:00 pm Italian Cultural Institute 1023 Hilgard Avenue ww

iiclosangeles.esteri.it

n Wine in contemporary Italy: Exploring the unique wines of each region.

There are around 350 common wine grape varieties in Italy, so there is so much to taste! Discover a favorite new bottle and learn something new about the wine culture of the Italian

Alps in this interactive wine tasting party organized with a Vinomatica. com Wine Agency and its Founder and CEO, Master Taster and Wine Educator, Giammario Villa. We all know that wine is meant to be enjoyed with good company and food, so the party will also feature an array of salads and crostini, prepared by one of the top Italian eateries in Los Angeles.

It will be a perfect addition for your tasting pleasure! The October 16th event will focus on Italian cocktails made with wine and grappa. Join us for an evening of great fun and learning! Space is limited, RSVP required.

Fee: $55.00 (IIC members)/$60.00 (non-members).

October 17 Leopardi - Il Giovane Favoloso (2014) by Mario Martone

6:30 pm Italian Cultural Institute 1023 Hilgard Avenue ww

iiclosangeles.esteri.it

n On the occasion of the 17th Week of The Italian Language in the World a screening og the film Leopardi (2014, 2h 25m) by Mario Martone. Based upon the short but fruitful life of illness-racked Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi, the film was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. (In Italian with English subtitles). Organized by the IIC with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation as part of the 17th Week of the Italian Language in the World and under the high patronage of the of the President of the Republic of Italy.

October 18 Giovanni Bellini: The Poetry of Landscape

6:30 pm Italian Cultural Institute 1023 Hilgard Avenue ww

iiclosangeles.esteri.it

n Davide Gasparotto, Senior Curator of Paintings at the Getty Museum, will give his insight on the Giovanni Bellini exhibition Landscapes of Faith which he curated. The exhibition will be on display at the Getty Center through January 14, 2018.

Gasparotto is a native of Bassano del Grappa, Italy. He studied Art History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Pisa. He then went on to study the History of Art Criticism at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Gasparotto spent 12 years as a curator and art historian at the National Gallery of Parma. He was a Paul Mellon Visiting Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. (2007), and an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art(2011-2012)

www.i-Italy.org

researching sixteenth-century Italian decorative arts before being appointed director of the Galleria Estense in Modena in September 2012.

He has published extensively on Tuscan, Venetian, Emilian and Lombard art from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. (By invitation only and members).

October 19 Ludovico Einaudi in concerto

6:30pmm Royce Hall - UCLA 340 Royce Drive ww

ludovicoeinaudi.com

n Back by popular demand, UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance again welcomes the incomparable Ludovico Einaudi to Royce Hall for two unforgettable evenings. A classically trained pianist and composer, Einaudi is best known for his unique, genredefying musical style that blends elements of classical, avant-garde, rock, jazz, electronica and world music in an effortlessly lyrical and unexpected way. The Adelaide Review described his compositions as “rolling waves” and said that while “some describe it as nostalgic and liken its patterned harmonies to pop music… in truth, this Milanese musician has invented a solitary musical path of his own, one where genre distinctions cease to matter and establishment practices are left far behind.” (For tickets or more information, Visit www.ticketmaster.com or call the UCLA box office at 310-825-2101).

October 24 Silvio Soldini: Bread and Tulips (2000)

6:30 pm Italian Cultural Institute 1023 Hilgard Avenue ww

iiclosangeles.esteri.it

n A screening of the Italian-Swiss production and romantic comedy, Bread and Tulips (2000, 1h 56m) directed by Silvio Soldini. After being forgotten in a highway café’ during a bus trip, a housewife decides to start a new life in Venice. (In Italian with English

www.i-Italy.org

subtitles.) Organized by the Consulate General of Switzerland and the IIC on the occasion of the 17th Week of the Italian Language in the World and under the high patronage of the of the President of the Republic of Italy.

October 24 Sounding Limits: The Music of Pascale Criton

8:30 pm REDCAT 631 W 2nd Street ww

redcat.org

n The expressive Italian duo composed of Silvia Tarozzi (violin) and Deborah Walker (cello) join CalArts composer and violist Eyvind Kang to present the US premiere of recent works by the innovative French composer Pascale Criton.

Tarozzi and Walker will hold masterclasses at CalArts and a workshop and performacne on October 23 at UC Santa Barbara.

October 26 Tina Modotti: Dogma and Passion (2013)

by Laura Martínez Díaz

6:30 pm Consulate General of Mexico in LA 2401 W 6th Street ww

consulmex.sre.gob.mx/losangeles

n The connection between art, activism, love and tragedy is the subject of Tina Modotti: Dogma and Passion

by Laura Martínez Díaz (2013, 52 min), a documentary dedicated to the Italian photographer, model, actress, and revolutionary political activist.

(In Spanish with English subtitles.)

ww Through November 19

Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco at the LA Opera, directed by James Conlon On September 26, only a few weeks before the opening of the LA Opera production of Nabucco, the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles dedicated a special evening of opera to Verdi with a renowned guest of honor. M° James Conlon, Richard Seaver Music Director of the LA Opera. A guided listening of Verdi’s Nabucco was presented alongside highlights of the upcoming season including Verdi’s Rigoletto in Spring 2018. The evening closed with a live opera performance—a very pleasant anticipation of what was to come starting on October 14, when Nabucco opens to run through November 19 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Downtown Los Angeles. A monumental opera that made Verdi a national hero, Nabucco boasts a bold score that goes straight to the heart, highlighted by the immortal chorus of the Hebrew slaves.

In Thaddeus Strassberger’s production, the towering biblical drama is exquisitely presented as it might have been staged at its 1842 premiere at Teatro alla Scala. Plácido Domingo continues his astonishing exploration of the Verdi baritone repertory with his portrayal of the title role, with one of today’s brightest stars, Liudmyla Monastyrska, making her company debut as the king’s power-hungry daughter, Abigaille.

M° Conlon is one of today’s most versatile and respected conductors. A graduate from the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, he has directed some of the most important orchestras all over the world, including Italy. In 2011 he directed the Orchestra of Maggio Musicale in Florence and in 2016 was appointed Music Director of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai in Turin.

He has been the Music Director of LA Opera since 2007.

Organized by the Consulate General of Mexico in L.A. in collaboration with the IIC, on the occasion of 2017 Year of Mexico in Los Angeles and on the occasion of the 17th Week of the Italian Language in the World and under the high patronage of the of the President of the Republic of Italy.

November 4 Corso di cucina: Cooking DOP & IGP

10:30 am Italian Cultural Institute 1023 Hilgard Avenue ww

iiclosangeles.esteri.it

n In anticipation of the Second Week of Italian Cuisine in the World, Alessandra “Ale” Gambini will host a cooking class focused on Italian

DOP and IGP denominations. She is a LA-based Italian food blogger, recipe developer, host home chef in web series and author of the cookbook “A Queen in the Kitchen”.

Born and raised in Northern Italy, beautiful Milan, she learned how to cook and love good food from her beloved grandmother Nonna Fernanda. Ale Gambini was nominated in four categories for the 2017 The Taste Awards – Best New Series, Best Single Topic Series, Best Food Program – Online Streaming, & Best Home Chef in a Series.

Menu’: - Cialda di Parmigiano con Spuma di Mortadella - Medaglioni di Polenta Concia - Lasagne Zucca Speck Taleggio - Ciambellone Evoo e Limone Fee: $60.00 (IIC members)/ $65.00

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 111

los angeles

Clockwise from the right page: The MAXXI Museum in Rome; Director Riccardo Muti; Ludovico Einaudi in concert; Thaddeus Strassberger’s Nabucco; Silvio Soldini’s Bread and Tulips; Mario Martone’s Leopardi

los angeles

Italy in the City

DININGOUT ww Healthy Eats and More

The Angelenos’ Italian Way of Living Home to juice-cleansers, detox tea drinkers, and gluten-free vegans, this health-conscious city has much to offer in terms of Italian food too.

by Joelle Grosso

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It may seem paradoxical to think that the glamorous Californians, who are constantly creating the latest wellness trends, are also the ones changing the game when it comes to a cuisine that often uses carbs and cheese. Many of the restaurants featured in our selection are working with local farmers to stock their kitchens in order to provide only the freshest high quality ingredients for their customers, an element that is crucial in authentic Italian cooking. Instead of relying heavily on imported goods, chefs in Los Angeles are using the abundance of organic ingredients available in the Golden State and continuously refining their menus to accommodate for seasonal harvest changes. The result is always a delicious meal that leaves diners in awe at how simple products

112 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

can contain such rich and intense flavors, turning the ordinary into something truly extraordinary.

Some restaurants go the extra mile to satisfy their guests by customizing their gastronomic experiences to perfection and designing innovative dishes that cater to individual health needs.

Those who maintain a strictly gluten-free diet but still want to get their pasta fix now have the option of ordering alternative meals that are just as tasty. As opposed to your typical flour or egg based pastas, homemade specialities can include fettuccine and pappardelle made entirely out of corn, quinoa, and flaxseed. The beauty of contemporary cooking is that there are no limits as to what can be achieved in the kitchen. California and Italy may seem worlds apart, but the thing that binds the two together is their passion for authenticity when it ww comes to eating right.

Our Picks For This Season ww Pico-Robertson Sotto 9575 West Pico Boulevard % (310) 277-0210 ww

www.sottorestaurant.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Friendly price $$$

n Born in LA but raised in Bologna during the summers, head chef Steve Samson goes back to his roots when compiling the ever-changing menu for his acclaimed restaurant Sotto. With an extensive wine list, a menu stacked with flavorful dishes, and wonderful fixed-price options, no wonder that magazines, websites, and customers rave about their dining experiences at Sotto. Their spicy clams served with chickpeas, sausage, and garlic crostone are the perfect way to start your meal.

If you’re looking for some exceptional flavor, try the casarecce; it’s a heaping plate of fresh housemade noodles prepared al dente with braised lamb, egg, pecorino cheese, and a creamy meat sauce. The pizza guanciale with housecured pork cheek, ricotta, scallions, and fennel pollen earned this restaurant a spot on Food Network!

The wine list is controlled by wine director Jeremy Parzen, Ph.D. Its core is devoted to the red grapes of southern Italy–Aglianico, Palagrello Nero, Casavecchia, and Gaglioppo, among others– but it is now starting to feature some of the unsung winemaking regions of Italy (beyond Piedmont and Tuscany).

ww Downtown Bottega Louie 700 South Grand Avenue % (213) 802-1470 ww

www.bottegalouie.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Modern price $$$

n From phenomenal appetizers to delectable desserts, Bottega Louie is sure to please. Signature pizzas, pastas, salads, lattes, and sweets are all decadently plated to absolute perfection providing a satisfying feast for your eyes and your stomach. The menu consists of traditional Italian recipes with fun twists such as the battered and fried portobello mushrooms with panko chips. Be sure to also try the truffle pizza, which is a crowd pleaser. For dessert, the consider the cremeux or the butterscotch budino.

The restaurant’s interior is elegant and modern with gold and silver tones. The massive restaurant seats over 250 guests; however, no matter how busy it is, the service is never lacking. Overall, Bottega Louie offers a chic dining experience that you’re sure to enjoy.

www.i-Italy.org

los angeles

Opposite page: The LA City Hall with the colors of the Italian Flag

Diners rave about the aragosta, a healthy serving of cold lobster on a bed of baby greens, artichokes, mushrooms, and crispy apples–all finished with a decadent citrus dressing. Also be sure to try the Bucatini all’Amatriciana: bucatini pasta in a sauce of reduced cherry tomatoes and bits of pancetta.

ww Los Feliz

ww Hancock Park

Little Dom’s 2128 Hillhurst Avenue % (323) 661-0055

Osteria Mozza 6602 Melrose Avenue % (323) 297-0100

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Littledoms.com

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www.la.osteriamozza.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Cozy price $$

cuisine Traditional ambience Casual price $$

n This bustling little pizza joint has

n For an upscale and sophisticated

become one of LA’s best and has locals raving. Although Little Dom’s was completely renovated, it maintains the vibe of a neighborhood pizzeria that has been around for years. Chef Brandon Boudet was born and raised in the New Orleans with a passion for Italian culinary methods. The sweet nutella panino and savory smoked salmon flatbread make for charming brunch options while the constantly revolving menu includes the perfect Italian staples such as creamy spaghetti carbonara, fresh gnocchi fritto, and wood oven baked piadine. This little brick restaurant found on the corner will surely brighten up anyone’s day.

dining experience with superb service and melt in your mouth food, Osteria Mozza is the perfect place. This brainchild of Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich and Nancy Silverton has Naples as its muse—there is an entire bar dedicated to mozzarella and an area of the menu that explains the various mozzarella offerings. Burrata & artichoke–braised artichokes, pine nuts, currants & mint pesto–is one of the many fresh cheeses, which come straight from Italy. Start off the evening with grilled octopus antipasto served with potatoes, celery, green onion & lemon. For an entree, the gnocchi with duck ragù is a great choice; the duck flavoring compliments the potato dumpling to perfection.

ww Brentwood Vincenti Ristorante 11930 San Vicente Boulevard % (310) 207-0127 ww

www.vincentiristorante.com

cuisine Modern ambience Elegant price $$$

n Upon entering Vincenti Ristorante you will be greeted with a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Complete with mahogany tables and chairs and a stylish marble bar stocked with top shelf liquors, the restaurant’s interior feels sleek and modern. The skilled and attentive staff will aid you in pairing the perfect Italian or Californian wine from their extensive cellar, or a refreshing cocktail from their own mixologist, with a perfectly prepared and beautifully plated Italian dish.

www.i-Italy.org

ww Neighborhood Gems

Dining in Venice, LA Discover Your Posh Go-To Spot in Venice Beach. Los Angeles

by Samantha Janazzo

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You may think you have a favorite Italian restaurant in LA, but if it isn’t Scopa Italian Roots, then you simply must give it a try. Venice Beach’s Washington Blvd. is a typical LA street with its many strip malls and eateries. Sleek and unassuming on the outside, Scopa’s dark building with large square windows stands alone near a marina. But as you walk in, you will quickly realize why it’s your new favorite. The gorgeous massive bar has bottles that stack up to the highest part of the ceiling. They’re illuminated by gold light and stand out against the charcoal colored walls. The waiting room is quaint and comfortable, but you may rather want to wait at the bar. Reservations fill up quickly, so dropping-in on a Friday after LA traffic could mean you’ll be waiting at the bar for a while. A little patience goes a long way because the food here is exquisite. Not only do the floor to ceiling windows provide stunning views of colorful sunsets, the way the chefs plate the food is almost as eye catching, if not more.

Executive Chef Antonia Lofaso provides her customers with motherly affection along with a fresh interpretation of old-school Italian food. She is an expert on finding the balance between fine dining and homey comfort food. She takes

a classic Italian antipasto, for instance–fried zucchini flowers–and makes crisped-to-perfection fried squash blossoms, and you’re lucky she did!

Not only do the simplicity of fresh ingredients compliment each other perfectly, but this neighborhood gem also brings people together with its timeless dishes. From the classics, like eggplant parmesan and rice balls, to more refined dishes, like linguine topped with braised pork cheek and ricotta salata, Scopa tries to satisfy every palate. While much of their influence is Italian, one dessert is based on a classic American school lunch–the fluffernutter. It’s a sweet rich blend of toasted marshmallow and peanut butter that will bring back nostalgic feelings of the easy days of elementary school.

The trendy spot also offers a wide range of beverages from imported wines to creative cocktails and is currently featuring the Louis XIII De Remy Martin. Put the prosecco aside ( just for tonight) and enjoy this Grand Champagne Cognac-80 proof that was created in 1874 and contains a blend of up to 1,200 eaux de vie, the youngest of which is 40 years old. So come to Scopa and enjoy the Italian American food that has pushed the limits of the LA dinww ing scene for years.

Scopa Italian Roots

2905 Washington Boulevard % (310) 821-1100 ww

www.scopaitalianroots.com

cuisine Traditional ambience Trendy price $$$

Fall 2017 | i-Italy Magazine | 113

LABuStINA

Judith Harris and, below, a view of Trevignano Romano, where she lives with her partner David Willey.

Both are journalists and expats.

ww The Italy I Love

Loving Italy: It’s Easy as Pizza Pie There are hundreds of reasons why an American expat may fall in love with Italy and live there for half a century. Nature, art, food, the people... and national health care!

by Judith Harris ww Meet Judith

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Let’s face it. If I’ve lived in Italy half a century, there must be a reason. In fact, not one, but hundreds of reasons.

First, this is the most beautiful country in the world, from the gifts of mother nature—Alpine slopes, islands, seashores, gently rolling hills—to the creations of mankind. Wherever the gaze falls, one sees beauty, and not only inside the famous museums. There is the country church whose windows reveal its 16th century origin.

The user-friendly piazza (no, not a “shopping plaza”) where people sit together and converse about the events of the day. The pub on Rome’s outskirts whose construction shows that, before the automobile and the building’s recent, thoughtful conversion, it had been an inn with horse stalls, still visible and carefully preserved.

On the more obvious aesthetic level, one learns to look: in a bold Baroque divertissement, the stone window frames of the building next to Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome were carved to look as if gushing forth waves of mud. Before noticing them I had, unobservant, walked past those windows a hundred times.

But just look, and everywhere historic levels are visible. Tire of the Baroque, like those windows, and go visit ancient Roman ruins: mosaics, temples or statues, like those in the elegant museum at Ostia Antica. Weary of antiquity? Okay, trot back into the Bronze Age, push forward into the Renaissance or drift back into the Middle Ages—say, in the medieval quarter of Viterbo in North Lazio.

Speaking of Viterbo, it illustrates 114 | i-Italy Magazine | Fall 2017

Judith Harris writes primarily about conservation of the Italian cultural heritage. Her most recent book is a biography, Evelina, A Victorian Heroine in Venice. She is also the author of Pompeii Awakened: A Story of Rediscovery and The Monster in the Closet. As a freelance American journalist based in Rome, she has been a regular contributor to ARTnews, Current Archaeology, Time, Wall Street Journal and the online magazine i-italy. org. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, she is a graduate of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and is a former diplomat.

how townships are taking it upon themselves to be creative. Horrendous photos of rubbish piled up in the big cities are everywhere. Viterbo, pop. 67,000, has launched a campaign to avoid this. With help from citizens taking photos with cell phones, the city has just issued 375 tickets to individuals caught dumping rubbish onto the streets instead of into the bins provided.

These smaller ancient towns, like Asolo, where Wyatt Rockefeller, descendant of the U.S. banking family, just married the Italian-American

Julie Fabrizio, remain Italy’s great treasure and resource. All over Italy the borghi are a delight to explore— for instance, in the Abruzzo, Santo Stefano di Sessanio, which has an innovative albergo diffuso, or scattered hotel rooms inside the old houses.

Needless to say, Italian foods triumph. In our own little village of Trevignano Romano a brilliant young chef just served us a compote of pureed potato and fennel, laced Jwith raisins, of all things, baked under a topping of grated cheese

and breadcrumbs. I was so taken with this invention that I made it myself for lunch (admittedly less perfectly than his). The wines speak for themselves, as do those popular sommelier courses on offer.

Not least, for those who love family, this is still a country where grandparents remain close to their grandchildren, and where the grown children appreciate and even enjoy their elderly parents and aunts and uncles.

Among the most important elements of Italian life—and this is deeply serious—is its socialized health system. I sometimes suspect the Italians do not appreciate all they have, beginning with this.

When I had the misfortune to have a serious infection, I was hospitalized three times and successfully operated by a brilliant, youthful surgeon. Thanks to the national health service, the cost was minimal.

Thank you, Italy—thanks for so much, and I hope I can repay you, if only with words of gratitude. ww www.i-Italy.org

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