Dear Readers,
April (Aprile) comes from the Latin word aperire, which means to open.
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St. Francis of Paola was born in Paola, Calabria, Italy, in April 1416. He cured the sick, prophesized the future, and was a major influence on five kings and seven popes. He was educated by the Franciscans at San Marco and, at the age of 15, he went to live as a hermit in a cave. He eventually founded nearly 500 monasteries and was canonized just 12 years after his death at age 91.
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Herb Caen, long-time columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle (he began in 1935), was born on April 3, 1916. He wrote thousands of words a week and vacationed in Italy often.
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Umberto Nobile, a pioneer in Arctic aviation, was born at Lauro, near Salerno. In 1926, with Amundsen of Norway and Ellsworth of the USA, he was the first to fly over the North Pole in the dirigible “Norge,” from the North of Norway (Spitzbergen) to Alaska.
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The S.S. Titanic sank on April 14, 1912. The Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic and cost 1,517 passengers their lives. However, Guglielmo Marconi‘s invention, the ship-to-shore radio, helped save lives after the supposedly “unsinkable” luxury liner sank. Of the 2,340 passengers and crew, more than 1,500 perished. Many were women and children immigrants on cheap “steerage” passages. Especially heroic was the ship’s band, which played hymns as the ship sank.
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Ed Sullivan discovered Topo Gigio (which means Little Louis Mouse in Italian) in London. He was preparing a program that starred Judy Garland and when British talent agent Lew Grade showed him a tape of the little mouse, Ed immediately added him to the performance. The show was broadcast on April 14, 1963, and marked Topo Gigio’s American television debut.
Topo Gigio was the brainchild of Maria Perego of Italy, who operated her creation with the assistance of two other people. A third supplied the voice. The quartet did not speak English and communicated with the program staff through an interpreter.
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Sicily declared itself independent from Naples on April 13, 1848, but in May 1849, Neapolitan troops entered Palermo, completing their reconquest of the island.
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Shirley Temple, a bright spot in the dim days of the Depression, was born on April 23, 1928. Shirley at three years old did a one-reeler Baby Take a Bow. By the time she was five, she was a star. Her huge doll collection began with a large Lenci doll — made of pressed felt in Torino, and beautifully gowned in pink organdy — named “Pinkie.” It was given to her in 1934 when she co-starred with Jane Winters in the Fox Film “Bright Eyes;” her collection grew to include over a thousand pieces, as people kept sending her dolls which she later loaned to children’s hospitals for display and fundraisers.
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St. Mark is the patron of Venice and his relics are preserved in the Cathedral of St. Mark. April 25 is his feast day. St. Mark is a man who might be called a “secretary” to Saint Peter, a raconteur of wonderful stories about things that happened when Jesus was on Earth, traveling around with his Apostles. Mark wrote down the things Peter said, and he is the author of one of the Gospels.
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Turandot, the opera by Giacomo Puccini, was first performed in April 1926 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy. Turandot, due to many painstaking revisions, became Puccini’s most fussed-over opera. He, in fact, did not receive a libretto for the final duet that suited him until mid-1924, which explains Puccini’s inability to complete the score before his death, in late 1924. Turandot was then completed by Franco Alfano.
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The parachute was first sketched by Leonardo da Vinci in his notebooks in the 1490s. A compatriot, Fausto Veranzio, published a description of a workable parachute in 1595 and, in the late 1790s, two men descended from air balloons via parachutes, breaking a leg upon landing. On April 28, 1919, a brave fellow leaped out of an airplane, testing the very first parachute that actually worked. He floated down through the sky and landed safely back on the ground.
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The Piemontesi nel Mondo Bulletin, edited by Andrew M. Canepa, informs that the Bagna Cauda event will be held at the Galileo Club of Richmond, California. This event may be sold out, but all my Piemontesi readers will certainly enjoy belonging to this group. For more information, you can contact the group at adnot@yahoo.com, or you can write to:
Piemontesi nel Mondo
c/o Italian Community Services
678 Green St. #3
San Francisco, CA 94133
Even if you do not get around much anymore, you can enjoy their Piemontese classes online!
Donate 