Speakers Bureau

Sons & Daughters of Italy Speakers Bureau

Need a speaker for your club meeting or a special event? Contact these experts directly. Some may require travel expenses and/or honorariums. For a complete list of speakers, visit www.osia.org and click “Speakers Bureau” under the tab labeled “Programs.” To apply as a speaker, contact Miles Fisher at mfisher@osia.org

Don’t forget: You can host speakers over Zoom!

• ALABAMA Author Barbara Barcellona Smith speaks about writing, Italian culture, and her children’s book,

Let’s Eat Snails! She has worked in radio, television, and corporate marketing, and also worked in the public school system, teaching English as a Second Language.

She incorporates a fun and engaging 30-minute author video into her speaking engagements. Book signing.

Contact: (334) 477-3735 Email: barbara.barcellona. smith@gmail.comWebsite: barbarabarcellonasmith.com

Will also travel to: Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South

Carolina, and Tennessee • CALIFORNIA History and Italian teacher Mark Nemetz

Tedesco speaks about the magic of the city of Rome—its stories, people, and history—and his recent book—She

Seduced Me: A Love Affair in Rome. Book signing.

Contact: (760) 773-7259 Email: markfnemetz@ gmail.com Website: https://www.marktedesco.com

• CONNECTICUT Lecturer, Instructor, and Genealogist Toni Anastasio McKeen speaks about various cities and areas in Italy (such as Matera, Pisa, Rome,

Venice, Amalfi Coast, Sicily), history of the Renaissance and the great masters (writers, sculptors, painters, architects), and many Italian and Italian-American men and women who have made long lasting contributions to the world in science, music, banking, and inventions. She plans and leads small groups to Italy every year, giving personalized tours rich in the culture and history of the country. Contact: (203) 431-9973

Email: tonimckeen47@hotmail.com

Will also travel to: West Chester County • NEW YORK Author and College Writing Instructor

Maria Giura, Ph.D. speaks about “Writing the Italian in Your Memories” and conducts an hour-long teaching workshop. She is the author of the awardwinning memoir Celibate and the award-winning poetry collection What My Father Taught Me. She has more than a decade of teaching experience. Workshop and Book Signing. Contact: (718) 979-1272

Email: mariagiura1@gmail.com

Website: https://www.mariagiura.com

• OHIO Author Gerardo Perrotta speaks about Italian themes on U.S. Postage

Stamps and conducts a travelogue called

Calabria by Stamps. He has published a book, Phila-Italy Americana: Italian

Themes on United States Postage Stamps, and has given several live audience presentations on Italian-related themes at the University of Cincinnati OLLI (Learning in Retirement) Program. He is also an instructor of

Italian at the Amici School of Languages in Cincinnati.

Contact: (513)451-8701 Email: perrotg@yahoo.com • PENNSYLVANIA Managing Director of Little Italy

Productions Joseph Puglisi speaks about topics related to the creation of a feature film—such as writing a script, hiring a cast and crew, acting in a film, and marketing a film. He is Executive Producer, writer, and actor for the recent feature film That’s Amore.

Contact: (724) 316-5635 Email: j.puglisi@comcast.net

Website: Facebook-Joe Puglisi

Will also travel to: Anywhere • WASHINGTON Clergyman and Professor Rutherford

Johnson speaks about numerous topics, including Italians as the Forgotten Minority, Italy before the Savoy

Kingdom and Republic, the Pontifical States, Ancient

Roman Society, Italy as an ancient cultural melting pot, the Renaissance and Baroque, and more. He has a

Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in Agricultural

Economics and a Master of Liberal Arts from Harvard

University Extension School. Email for a complete list of topics with full descriptions.

Email: AulaSMW@aol.com

Website: www.rutherfordjohnson.com

Will also travel to: Anywhere • ITALY Italian and Italian History Teacher Virna

Chessari speaks about literature and her bilingual

Italian/English poetry collection entitled The Ulysses

Butterfly (La farfalle di Ulisse).

Email: ulyssesbutterfly447@gmail.com

Website: https://www.facebook.com/virna.chessari.5

BY CARLA GAMBRESCIA

No portrayal of the Italy that we have in our collective imagination is complete without a scene of older men playing bocce in a town square. Bocce has long been a part of Italian life, dating back to the early days of the Roman Republic. But despite our reflexive association of bocce with Italy, its lineage can actually be traced back to Ancient Egypt, thousands of years earlier. Tossing balls toward a target is the oldest game known to man.

An Egyptian tomb painting circa 5200 B.C. depicts two boys playing a game with rocks that looks remarkably like bocce. The game’s popularity likely spread throughout Palestine and Asia Minor and, by 800 B.C., into Greece. The illustrious physician, Hippocrates, noted in his writings that the game’s athleticism and spirit of competition rejuvenated both the mind and body. And, as with so much else, the sport was adopted by the Romans from the Greeks.

During the Punic Wars, circa 246 B.C., Roman soldiers used fruits or coconuts to play games of bocce, an entertaining way for them to pass the time. Later, hard olive wood was used to carve out balls of uniform size. The rules of the game as we play it today

Representations of bocce can be found in ancient artwork.

A bocce court built in former times.

A family playing bocce in Buenos Aires, Argentina (circa 1902), where many Italians immigrated

are thought to have been established back then. Easy and versatile, the game caught on, spread throughout the Empire, and was enjoyed as a “democratic sport” that could be played anywhere and everywhere by everyone from all walks of life—the young and the old, men and women, peasants and patricians. It was embraced by Emperor Augustus and other Roman statesmen. But the times were changing. During the late Middle Ages, Europe was governed by the feudal system, and the popularity of bocce among the peasants became a matter of concern for the ruling class—so much so that in 1319 A.D. Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV issued a decree restricting the game to landowners and nobility, exclusively. The reasoning behind the ban was that bocce represented a distraction for the workers, and its popularity was also thought to interfere with local security. The ban also made it mandatory for able-bodied men to instead practice archery in their free time so that they would be prepared to defend the territories of the landowner in the event of an armed conflict. This also applied to craftsmen like bow-makers and arrow-makers. In a futile attempt to discredit these bans, several doctors from France’s University in Montpellier claimed that playing bocce had a therapeutic benefit in treating rheumatism (and they were probably right!). During the Renaissance the sport flourished as a favorite pastime of Italian courts and among the privileged classes up and down the peninsula. It was enjoyed by poets, scholars, and the cognoscenti (persons having superior knowledge in a particular field). Both Leonardo and Galileo were known to be bocce enthusiasts.

Its popularity continued to grow among the privileged classes throughout Europe and was particularly embraced by French and English nobility—Henry VIII and, later, his daughter, Elizabeth I, were avid players. In 1511, Henry VIII even levied a tax on bowling greens to ensure that the game could only be played by the landowners. Bocce was not, however, the only sport to face such embar-

A typical recreational bocce court with a flat surface and wooden sides. (photostocklight)

An outdoor bocce park in Milan. (Paolo Bona)

goes, as other classist prohibitions on sports such as tennis and soccer were common throughout the continent at this time.

But the popularity of bocce continued to flourish. Sir Francis Drake, best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, was even said to have refused to interrupt his bocce game despite a threatening naval advance by the Spanish. “First we finish the game, then we’ll deal with the Armada,” he said to those trying to hurry him along.

In addition to the prohibitive taxes, there was also a strong denunciation issued by the Catholic Church to discourage the laity and to officially prohibit clergyman from playing the game, proclaiming bocce an instrument of gambling and therefore a tool of the devil. Even the Venetians, with their famous laissez-faire attitude toward almost all pleasurable pursuits, ended up condemning bocce publicly on December 11, 1576. Violators were punished with fines and imprisonment. It is generally believed that this official condemnation was likely a consequence of the difficulty in taxing an activity that could pop up spontaneously in any square.

In spite of all these bans, the seemingly innocuous act of tossing balls toward a target endured. Up to the time of the Risorgimento, Italians

U.S. Postal Service Introduces Bocce Stamp

On August 12, 2021, the United States Postal Service introduced a set of stamps celebrating the recreational backyard games that Americans play. The Backyard Games Forever stamps consist of eight games—including badminton, cornhole, croquet, flying disc, horseshoes, tetherball, and pickup baseball, in addition to bocce. The stamps were dedicated during a ceremony at the Great American Stamp Show 2021 that took place at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. “Stamp collecting has become a great American tradition, just as the backyard games we’re celebrating today have become American traditions,” said Judy de Torok, USPS Corporate Affairs Vice President.

in remote rural regions still played bocce, often competing clandestinely in underground bocce courts to evade the attention of the law.

It was the great man of the people, Giuseppe Garibaldi, also an enthusiast and avid proponent of the sport, who lifted bocce out of the shadows while he was unifying Italy. In 1896, during a broader resurgence of popularity, the first Bocce Olympiad was held in Athens, and the game has been a part of international sports ever since. Shortly afterward, bocce leagues were formed throughout Europe, first in France and then in Italy (specifically northern Italy). These two countries paved the way for international interest in bocce as a formal sport, and today, Italy and France are the most prominent competitors in the annual World Bocce Championship.

Bocce got a further boost in global exposure by the great wave of Italian immigrants that brought the game with them to America at the turn of the 20th century. Eager to hold onto touchstones and traditions from the life they left behind and to establish new social and community bonds, they continued to play bocce in their new neighborhoods.

Even serious American history buffs may not be aware that George Washington enjoyed playing bocce so much that he built his own court at Mount Vernon in the 1780s; or that an early American playing field was Bowling Green at the southern tip of Manhattan; or that the oldest bocce membership organization in the United States is San Francisco’s Aquatic Park Bocce Club.

Today, there are hundreds of other clubs and leagues in the United States, with well over a hundred thousand active members. The United States Bocce Federation says interest in the sport is on rise, with more than 25 million Americans playing it casually. It is second only to soccer as the world’s biggest participant sport.

So one can say that bocce in the United States, and worldwide, is on a roll.

Carla Gambescia (Carla@LaDolceVitaU.com) is a lecturer, photographer and author of La Dolce Vita University. Visit her websites: ladolcevdu.com and postcardsfromtheboot.com.

Bocce for Beginners!

The traditional game of bocce is played on clay, natural soil, or asphalt courts that are approximately 70-90 feet long and 8-14 feet wide. The walls of the court are typically made of wood or stone. Bocce balls are traditionally made of wood as well, though some are made of metal, baked clay, or plastic. The game is between two teams of one to four players (typically the same amount of players on each team). Each team has four bocce balls. A small white ball called the pallino, or jack, is placed at one end of the court. Both teams bowl their balls from the other end of the court. The objective of the game is for the team to get its bocce balls closer to the pallino. One team starts the game with one of its players bowling a ball with the intention of getting it as close to the pallino as possible. A player on the other team then bowls a ball. The following turn is determined by which team has the ball that is closest to the pallino, with the team that does not taking the next turn. Each ensuing turn continues in this fashion—going to whichever team does not have the ball that is closest to the pallino—until one team has used up all their balls. At that time, the other team then bowls all of its remaining balls. Players may try to strategically strike other balls on the court, including the pallino. The team with the ball closest to the pallino receives one point per each ball they have that is closer to the pallino than that of the other team’s closest ball. The team that scores then begins the next round with the first bowl. Games are played up to a set point total—typically 12, 15, or 21. Of course, there are many variations to the game of bocce, like the surface of play, the alternating of turns, the distance to the pallino, or the final set point total. But whether it’s played on a court, in the backyard, or on the beach, it’s important to remember the reason that the game of bocce has survived for thousands of years—simply because people love to play it!