Book Reviews

A TUSCAN

TREASURY: Stories from Italy’s Most Captivating Region

By Paul Salsini

Set in (no-surprise) Tuscany, A Tuscan Treasury is a captivating collection of short stories that span World War I to present day. Through the stories, author Paul Salsini deftly uses fiction as a tool to recreate the past, and in the variety of stories he shares, there is something for every reader.

The opening story, Also Under the Tuscan Sun, sets an entertaining tone for what readers can expect. The plot focuses on four old men in the lesser-known town of Cortana, which would come to prominence through Frances Hayes’s novel, Under the Tuscan Sun. This story serves as an example of how Salsini takes a slice of true events and builds fictitious ones around them in an enjoyable and enriching manner.

DID YOU KNOW?

In the 14th century, flag throwers, known as flag wavers, were used as signalers to communicate between military regiments on the battlefield to coordinate movements and attacks.

Salsini’s stories range from a modern-day take on Romeo & Juliet coming from rival contrade of Siena, the plight of Albanian immigrants who find their way to Florence by way of Bari, the role of women partisans—known as staffette—during World War II, and the tradition of flag-throwing and how it persists in Pienza today. One story, set during World War I, is told solely through letters sent between Florence and the Italian front as it pushes into Trieste.

With well-crafted characterization and fairness to every character, Salsini develops unique individuals, each set in unique times and circumstances, that all have various motives and perspectives. This combination makes every story a fresh new tale and makes it difficult for readers to have a favorite. In the end, the collection’s title accurately reflects what it really is—a treasure of Tuscan stories.

This ugly truth behind the origin of Italian immigration—which not only lined the pockets of swindlers but was also used to undercut American workers—is that they were the victims of human trafficking, a consequence of the impoverished conditions of their homeland. In this, Italians Swindled to New York proffers the heartbreaking reality that many emigrants do not want to leave their homeland unless they have no alternative.

ITALIANS SWINDLED TO

NEW YORK: False Promises at the Dawn of Immigration

By Joe Tucciarone and Ben Lariccia

Italians Swindled to New York is an eye-opening, highly edifying read that focuses on the origin of Italian immigration to the United States. The thorough research by authors Joe Tucciarone and Ben Lariccia reveals very sad and stark circumstances that will enlighten even the most educated of readers.

The book traces the onset of The Great Migration, which arose after Italy’s unification in 1861 and the hardships it brought, particularly on peasants in southern Italy. With the destitution that southern Italians faced, outsiders devised a way to exploit them by misrepresenting the opportunity that existed in the United States. The scheme, which developed as early as 1870, was not solely the work of outside opportunists. It also implicated Italy’s own government.

Charging double the steamship ticket price, swindlers sent peasants to America with the promise of jobs that didn’t exist while pocketing the fee. Many cheated immigrants ended up not just in the United States, but also in Argentina, Venezuela, and Peru. Immigrants who could not afford the ticket prices were forced into indentured servitude to pay back the ticket. Even more unsettling than that were the children sold into veritable slavery, being shipped off to beg and play music on the streets of New York.

DID YOU KNOW?

The first documented lynching of an Italian in the United States was in Coalburg, Ohio—near Youngstown—on July 27, 1873. The victim was a replacement worker for striking coal workers.

BY JOHN DELORENZO

The house of “Big Grandma,” Giuseppa Bellomo. Gianni, ammunini!” Let’s go“ , my aunt called out to me from the bottom of the old stone staircase leading down to the sea.

“There!” my aunt exclaimed, pointing to a wharf-side restaurant. “That’s where Big Grandpa lived.” The original building had long since been demolished, but the site she was referring to was, in days past, essentially a large clapboard shed in the section of town known as “La Marina.” La Marina was where the discarded boys of the town lived, my great-grandfather—Calogero Bellomo—among them. He was a “trovato,” a foundling. One of the many discarded children from all over Italy, born into a system where the odds were stacked against them from birth.

But why? Why were all these children given away like this? What was life like for them as children and later as adults? These were the questions that I hoped to answer during my visit to my family’s hometown of Sciacca, Sicily.

It may be difficult for us to understand in today’s world, but in a society such as post-unification Italy where extreme poverty was the rule, the Catholic Church’s word was law, and the stigma that attached itself to those who violated the Church’s laws could destroy lives and follow families for generations. To an unwed teenage girl getting pregnant or to a family in already dire financial straits, having another mouth to feed could be disastrous.

Pregnancies were hidden, babies were delivered in secret, and children would be brought to the foundling homes that each town was required to have as mandated by the Church since the 1700s.

One unique feature of these institutions was the “foundling wheel,” a lazy Susan-type device used for anonymously giving up your child. Built into the walls of the institution, an exterior panel would slide open, and the child would be placed on the wheel and spun around to the inside. A bell would be rung to alert a nun or midwife, and the child would be taken.

Wanting to learn more about my great-grandfather, I went to the town hall’s Department of Social Affairs to see if I could find any paperwork on him. The clerk at the office seemed less than eager to help me, but after two trips, she finally relented. Once I went into the records room, I realized why she was so apprehensive. It was a room filled to the ceiling with large ledger-style books, some dating back over 200 years, all written in archaic calligraphy that was nearly incomprehensible.

After giving the clerk some rough dates, she was able to locate my great-grandparents’ marriage certificate as well as the record that indicated exactly when my greatgrandfather was given up. It was written in a flowery script that was very difficult to read, but the clerk was able to decipher that on April 7, 1880, a baby boy was left on the foundling wheel at Chiesa San Michele. He was christened at a different church across town—the Basilica di Maria Santissima del Soccorso—known to the locals as La Chiesa Matri, The Mother Church. He was baptized “Calogero Proietto Belluomo.”

Belluomo. Handsome man.

Later in life, he dropped the “Proietto,” and the spelling of his last name was changed to “Bellomo,” but there he was, right in front of me on paper.

The naming of foundlings was left up to the clergy or midwives who baptized or cared for the children, and the names they were given most often marked their standing in the community. In my great-grandfather’s case, the name Proietto means “discarded,” and it was a popular name given to foundlings, as was Belluomo for male children. It wasn’t until the late 1920s that it became illegal to give children names that designated them as foundlings. They were often given names based on their circumstances or the physical attributes they possessed, so someone at some point looked at my great-grandfather and decided that he was a rather handsome fellow!

Calogero and Giuseppa Bellomo.

Other popular names that were given to foundlings were: Esposito (exposed) Ventura (fortune) Salvato (saved) D’Angelo (of an angel)

On the marriage certificate, where the names of the bride’s and groom’s parents were listed, the name listed as my great-grandfather’s guardian was “Maria Montalbano.” This surprised me as neither I nor my family had ever heard of this woman before. The helpful clerk told me that it wasn’t unusual for the midwives or wet nurses to unofficially adopt or act as a guardian to the children they cared for, especially if they were childless themselves. As a thanks to the clerk for all her help, I ran to the café next door to buy her a coffee and a cornetto. I then went to both the Church of San Michele and the Chiesa

Matri to find more answers. I hoped to see the foundling wheel but learned from the caretaker that the wheel was removed when the church was renovated many years ago. The Chiesa Matri gave me no further answers either, as everyone was preparing for the Feast of San Calogero the following day.

Thinking I went as far as I could go with my research, I began walking back toward the steps to get to La Marina. Then my cell phone rang. It was my aunt, saying that since I was taking such an interest in our family history, she had someone she wanted me to talk to.

I met up with my aunt a few blocks away, and she walked me down a narrow, winding street to the apartment of an old family friend, a woman everyone called Zia Carmela. She was a small nut-brown woman with kind eyes. At 104 years old, she did not look a day over 90.

Upon meeting me, Zia Carmela clutched my hands, and as I bent down to kiss her cheek, she roughly pinched my face in the endearing way so typical of elderly Sicilian women. She did not speak standard Italian, but local dialect in an accent so thick that I needed my aunt to translate for me. She was a neighbor and family friend of my greatgrandmother, Giuseppa, whom we called “Big Grandma.” Giuseppa’s mother was Zia Carmela’s godmother. Zia Carmela showed me the door of the house, now a ceramics shop, where Giuseppa lived and recounted what she remembered about them and the times in general.

She remembered my great-grandfather as a hard-working and serious-minded young man, which contrasted with his wife who loved to laugh and made a joke out of almost everything. The differences did not end there. Like most of the men in town, Giuseppa’s father was a fisherman, and he was fairly well-to-do. He owned his own boats, had people that worked for him, and lived in a house that he owned on top of the hill in town.

La Marina, where discarded boys of the town lived and where the author returned to honor his grandfather’s spirit.

According to Zia Carmela, my great-grandparents’ marriage was something of a scandal. In those days, people from town did not even mingle with people from La Marina, most of whom they saw as being below their social standing at best or outright criminals at worst. A marriage between them was unthinkable.

Carmela went on to talk about how many of the foundling boys worked down by the docks. They cleaned boats, unloaded fish, and reloaded them onto buyers’ carts. They were paid a paltry amount, and sometimes they were paid in fish. “The way they worked those boys was a sin!” she exclaimed, nearly spitting out the words. “Some were only six or seven years old!”

She was only a child herself at the time, but she remembered hearing the story from the adults in her neighborhood. How, at the age of 16, Calogero declared to Giuseppa’s father his intention to marry his daughter.

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The town of Sciacca, Sicily, where the author’s family came from. (essevu)

How he left home and became a merchant mariner and sailed ships to Africa and China and Japan for four years to ensure he had enough money saved to come home and buy a fishing boat of his own. How he returned to Sciacca, went straight to Giuseppa’s father, and boldly asked when the wedding would take place. Giuseppa’s father must have been impressed by the short, strongly built youth because he agreed and welcomed Calogero into his family.

Zia Carmela was a teenager when my grandfather was born, and she vividly remembers them packing up everything they owned and moving to America. That was the last she ever heard of them.

“But here you are now!” Carmela exclaimed, grabbing my hands. “No one ever comes back,” she added sadly.

After saying my goodbyes to her, I told my aunt that I wanted to take a walk. I walked toward the steps that led down to La Marina, thinking about all that Carmela told me. As I descended toward the water, I made my way toward a small cluster of buildings. I thought about how, when I initially came here, it was to learn more about a man in my family that I thought merely had an interesting history. What I didn’t count on was coming away with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for a man that I had never met. A man who was not satisfied with the hand that life and an unfair system had dealt him and decided to push forward and create a better life for himself, and by extension, for me as well.

I knelt and, taking a small coin purse I had on me, scooped a small handful of earth from the ground beneath my feet. I put it into my pocket before making my way back toward the steps leading up to the town that nobody ever comes back to.

The “records department” a Sciacca’s town hall. John Delorenzo is a union carpenter and part-time freelance writer. He lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with his wife, Daniele, 18-month-old daughter, and two stepchildren.