Culture

Dear Readers, June jottings with an Italian Connection: Domenico Ghirlandaio (c. 1449-1494) was a Florentine painter of the early Renaissance, whose birth name was Domenico di Tommaso Bigordi. His father was a silk merchant and goldsmith – which likely gave …

As Italian immigrants arrived in the United States circa 1850s, (before Italy was officially a nation-state) one of the first neighborhoods that many settled in was a notorious ghetto called the Five Points.  The Five Points located in Lower Manhattan …

È la notte tra il 9 e il 10 luglio del 1943. Prima l’effetto a sorpresa ottenuto con un’operazione di depistaggio messa in atto dagli inglesi che sguarnisce le difese tedesche, poi l’attacco all’Europa nazifascista: in appena 39 giorni la …

Bologna: la grassa, la dotta, la rossa. Apt nicknames for the capital of Emilia-Romagna, which boasts a rich culinary tradition (grassa meaning fat), the oldest university in the Western world (hence dotta: learned), red roofs and left-leaning politics (as in …

  While driving on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in New York City, I was listening to a local radio station playing Alice Cooper’s hit song, School’s Out written in 1972. Although most students today are removed from the song, I imagined …

The Declaration of Independence was a bold statement of human rights, based on the then radical principle that government derives its power from the consent of the governed, an idea that was even more radical when it was put forth …

Durante la seconda decade del 1900, l’Italia fu coinvolta nella Prima Guerra Mondiale quando l’Austria, che aveva impellente necessità d’uno sfocio sull’Adriatico, continuava ad esercitare con violenza la sua oppressione sulla italianissima città di Trieste.   Per cinque secoli Trieste …

Dear Readers, On July 4th let me refresh your memory and mine on the Declaration of Independence, signed July 4, 1776 (in Philadelphia) and learn about Italian and Italian American contributions to the American Revolutionary War.   Although the colonists …

  Dear Readers, My mailbag has been the source of many Italian Connections through the years. “Grazie” to Signor J.M. (John Mancini, Executive Director of the Italic Institute of America, PO Box 818, Floral Park, NY 11002) and other Readers …

  Before Americans knew what a caffé macchiato or a cappuccino with its delicate froth was or had the pleasure of experiencing a true espresso, we cared little about our coffee and thought of it only in terms of that …