Dear Readers,
A February potpourri of Italian Connections continues:
February 1, 1905 – The birthday of Emilio Segre, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959, and also Henry Tonti (Feb. 1, 1707) once the governor of Fort St. Louis and Fort Charles, Illinois. In Tontitown, Arkansas there is a large statue dedicated to the “Italian Immigrants” who first settled in Arkansas and were befriended by Henry Tonti.
February 2 – Birthday of Luigi M. Crocco, physicist. Received the James W. Wyld Propulsion Award in 1971 for achievements in the development of rocket propulsion systems.
February 3 – Feast day of St. Blase, patron saint of all evils of the throat. In many parishes throats are blessed on this day. Blase was martyred during the persecution of Licinius, by Agricolaus, Governor of Cappadocia and Lower Armenia, in 316. According to tradition, Blase retreated to a cave during the persecution. He befriended wild animals when they were wounded or sick. One day hunters found Blase in the woods.
They captured him with the intention of putting him in prison. On the way Blase encountered a woman whose little boy was choking to death on a fishbone. Blase healed him and the blessing of the throat on this day derives from that story. Blase was then delivered to Governor Agricolaus and beheaded.
February 4, 1571 – Br. Pietro Megozzi, Italian martyr, was killed by Indians in Virginia.
February 7, 1855 – Birthday of Charles Siringo (1855-1928), a famous cowboy and Pinkerton detective, he helped capture Billy the Kid. Siringo also wrote episodes about the old west including “A Texas Cowboy” which sold over a million copies.
February 13, 1972 – The new Casa Italiana of Los Angeles was inaugurated by Father Luigi Donanzan. February 14, 1965 – The State of Arizona dedicated a statue of Father Eusebio Chino in the hall of columns in the House of Representatives.
February 19, 1843 – Birthday of Adelina Patti, one of opera’s greatest singers to ever perform in America. At 16, she gave her debut with “Lucia” on November 24, 1859.
February 22 – A feast day called “The Chair of Saint Peter.” The chair? In the early days of the Church, each Christian would celebrate a “spiritual birthday” – the day he or she was baptized into the Church. A Bishop celebrated the day he became bishop and took over the bishop’s chair in his cathedral. Today, we celebrate the occasion of Saint Peter taking over the “chair” as head of the Church on earth. St. Peter, the fisherman, was chosen by the Lord himself to be the first pope.
February 25, 1873 – Birthday of Enrico Caruso (1873-1921), most famous tenor of all times. Made his Metropolitan debut in “Rigoletto” on November 13, 1903. He died January 31, 1921.
February 26, 1696 – Tomaso Crisafi, commander of Fort Onodaga in New York who prevented an invasion by the Iroquois, died. On February 20, 1962 astronaut John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the earth. His space capsule was named Friendship 7. Emilio Pucci once designed a banner that the crew on a later flight (the Apollo-Saturn XV) brought to the moon.
Marchese Emilio Pucci di Barsento was born in Naples of a noble Florentine family whose members still live in a thousand-year-old palazzo. Mr. Pucci perfected his American English while earning a social science degree at Reed College in Oregon. In Italy, his studies in Milan for the diplomatic corps were short-circuited by World War II. He joined the Italian air force, became the pilot of a torpedo bomber, and was decorated for bravery.
After Italy abandoned the Axis and joined the Allies against Nazi Germany in 1943, Mr. Pucci rescued Edda Ciano, the daughter of Benito Mussolini, from her German guards. He smuggled Ciano and her children into Switzerland along with the compromising diaries of her husband, Galeazzo, a former Fascist foreign minister who voted to overthrow Mussolini and was later executed by the Nazis.
Pucci Fashion House is now directed by his children, including daughter Laudomia, herself a well-known designer. It remains a Florence pillar of design. Pucci designed clothes for the rich and the famous. At her request, Marilyn Monroe was buried in a Pucci dress. And he designed for the not-so-rich, transforming bright Italian silks into everyday chic.
A few years ago there was a worldwide revival of the Pucci fashion. Madonna, Monica Seles and Christie Brinkley are among those who have shopped there. The Emilio Pucci boutique is at 701 – Fifth Street, Tel. (212) 230-1135, in case you are in town, New York, N.Y. soon.
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Books, films, music and audio books, many with an Italian Connection may be ordered toll free from Ignatius Press (1-800 651-1531 or www.Ignatius.com). A 3 disc DVD set of Italy’s favorite crime-solving priest “Don Matteo”, with Flavio Insinna and Terence Hill, is currently available: Don Matteo Bondini (Terence Hill) isn’t your everyday parish priest.
The former missionary is blessed with extraordinary intuition and a deep understanding of the human soul - which comes in handy when a crime has been committed. This set of 12 episodes from the most popular series on Italian TV gives us Don Matteo at his best. Always one step ahead of Captain Anceschi (Flavio Insinna) of the police department, Don Matteo uses his gifts to reawaken the consciences of the criminals he encounters.
This well-written series mixes drama, faith, humor, and spiritual lessons with fine acting and great production values. In Italian with English subtitles.
Italian films, with English subtitles in DVD format of interest, and also available from Ignatius press may include: Maria Goretti, Mission to Love (St. John Bosco), Miracle Man (Padre Pio), St. Francis (filmed on location in Assisi), The Cheese Nun (Sr. Noella Marcellino, a scientist who is a champion for artisanal cheese-making, in English), St. Anthony (the first major feature length drama on the life of St. Anthony of Padua, in Italian with English subtitles in VHS or DVD) and many other books and films that are most suitable for viewing during this Lenten season.
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Couture Clothes. Fashion houses as well as cheap-chic clothing line manufacturers in the U.S.A. once hired hundreds of newly arrived Italian immigrants to work in their factories. In the Bay Area, some of the best, usually trained by village nuns from whence they came, in the lace making and embroidery skills, were employed by Lili Ann, maker on fine suits and coats.
In New York, many women worked as crochet beader’s, tediously crocheting beads and sequins on gowns and dresses one bead at a time. Geraldine Ferraro, the three term congress woman from Queens, New York, who in 1984, at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco won the Vice-Presidential Nomination of her party, lost her father when she was eight years old.
Her mother, to make ends meet, worked many years as a crochet beader. Fortunately, we daughters of immigrant parents have no need to sew for our supper but those who like to do a little creative sewing on occasion will enjoy perusing the Nancy’s Notions catalog, of sewing inspirations, sewing education, sewing tools and more. Call 1-800-833-0690 or nancysnotions.com for more information. They are based in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.
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Donations and Memorial Church Furnishings opportunities are still available to readers with “roots” in the Greater Washington, D.C. area, as Holy Rosary Church (595 Third St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20001, Tel. (202) 638-0165) built in 1913, undergoes renovation. Italian immigrants have lived in Washington, D.C. since the birth of our nation. President George Washington selected the site for the District of Columbia in 1791.
The earliest census to note the presence of Italian-born people in Washington, D.C. was that of 1850. After that, Italians began arriving at a quicker rate. Statistics show 2,761 by 1910. The first Italian immigrants came to Washington, D.C. as artists, and helped to create the city’s beautiful federal buildings and monuments. President Thomas Jefferson, who in 1801 became the first president inaugurated in Washington, D.C., was the first to plan for the erection and beautification of buildings.
He consulted a Florentine-born neighbor of his, Philip Mazzei, who had settled near Jefferson in Charlottesville, Virginia. Mazzei suggested two sculptors. They arrived in Washington in 1805. Giovanni Andrei carved the capitals of the columns for the East Central Portico (now Statuary Hall.) Giuseppe Franzoni sculpted the capitals on the first floor, at what was the Supreme Court room before the Supreme Court got its own building.
When Giuseppe died in 1815, his brother Carlo arrived in Washington in 1816 and continued work at the U.S Capitol, sculpting a marble clock for the North Door of Statuary Hall. Carlo died in 1821. His son Charles William Franzoni became a local physician and president of the Washington Medical Society. After the British attacked and burned Washington (1814), Congress hired more Italian sculptors to repair the Capitol Building. Peter Cardelli sculpted ornaments and capitals to replace the damaged ones.
Guglielmo Iardella carved medallions for the Rotunda. Giuseppe Ceracchi sculpted busts of George Washington, Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus and Thomas Jefferson, but his work was destroyed in a second fire in the U.S. Capitol Building, on Christmas Eve 1851. The best known Italian artist to work on Washington’s buildings was Constantino Brumidi. Born in 1805, he came to the United States in 1852.
For the first three years, he worked on churches. He painted murals for Saint Stephen’s on East 29th Street in New York City, the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, Saint Ignatius Loyola in Baltimore, and Saint Aloysius in Washington, D.C. In 1855, he began to work on the walls and ceilings of the U.S. Capitol. His “Apotheosis of Washington” is on the ceiling of the Capitol’s Rotunda. Brumidi died February 19, 1880, after a fall from the scaffolding on which he worked.
Italians continued to contribute their artistic abilities to the nation’s capital. In the 1890s, Italian stone carvers came to Washington to work on the Library of Congress building. Italian immigrants began arriving regularly after 1902, helping to construct buildings that addressed the federal government’s need for office space in a grand and magnificent manner. In 1905, workers broke ground for Union Station which was completed in the 1930s.
Artists were the most visible in Washington, but other Italians rose through professional ranks. The Carusi family appeared in Washington in 1805, when Gaetano Carusi and his son Nathaniel came to organize the United States Marine Band. Nathaniel’s son Eugene was admitted to the bar in Washington, D.C., in 1857. He also founded the National University Law School. Eugene’s son, Charles Francis, was an educated administrator, succeeding his father as president of the aforementioned law school and also serving as president of the district of Columbia Board of Education.
Tullio Suzzara Verdi came to Washington in 1857 to practice medicine. He went on to serve on the District of Columbia Board of Health and to participate in founding both the Homeopathic Hospital in Washington and the Homeopathic Medical Society. As Italian immigration increased it became more of a challenge to provide migrant Catholics with pastoral care in the language they knew and customs they loved.
Also, as the United States became a more important country in the world, the Vatican became interested in establishing proper relations with it. By 1913, the four factors of immigration, Washington’s growth, the provision of pastoral care for immigrants, and the question of U.S.-Vatican relations, all came together, and the result was Holy Rosary Church, under the dedicated leadership of Father De Carlo.
Father Nicholas De Carlo came to Washington in 1913 and spent a half a century shepherding Holy Rosary’s congregation through World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II and the suburban exodus. In 1960, the Society of Saint Charles-Scalabrinians brought its mission of service to migrants to Holy Rosary. Since then, Scalabrinian priests have saved the church from the wrecker’ ball, added to the parish plant, and expanded parish activities. Holy Rosary’s Church and the adjacent Casa Italiana bring Italian architectural and artistic traditions to Washington.
The parish and its people add diversity to the area’s Catholic community, and life to downtown D.C. All Italian Americans are welcome to be part of the Holy Rosary Parish, regardless of where they reside, so drop by on your next visit to Washington, D.C. Holy Rosary Church also has a bilingual monthly newspaper, Voce Italiana, which may be of interest to you or relatives and friends in the D.C. Metropolitan area.
The annual cost is $20. For more information visit their website at www.holyrosarychurchdc.org. Readers with memories may remember former Holy Rosary pastors Fr. Charles Zanoni C.S. and Frs. Caesar Donanzan and Luigi Donanzan, who once served in California. Fr. Silvio Tomasi is the current pastor.
10631 Vinedale Street, Sun Valley, CA 91352 - Phone (818) 767-3413 - Fax: (818) 767-1410
