Dear Readers,
An August assortment of Italian Connections for you: Amadeus W. Mozart (1756-1791) was born in Salzburg, Austria. He was a musical child prodigy (learning to play harpsichord at three years old and by five had written pieces for that instrument). Mozart had many Italian connections, among them “Così fan tutte”, and “La scuola degli amanti” (The School for Lovers).
“Così fan tutte,” first performed in 1790, was the fourth opera composed by Mozart since moving to Vienna, and his third major collaboration with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1938). “Le nozze di Figaro” (1786) and “Don Giovanni” (1787) were Mozart’s earlier collaborations with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte and two operas where Mozart began transferring some of his musically symphonic styles to the stage. Mozart’s career as an opera composer spanned over two decades, from “Apollo and Hycinthus” in 1767 to “La Clemenza di Tito” in 1771.
Mozart was also a master dramatist, balancing ensemble, voice, orchestra, sectional form, through composed rhetoric and melodic inventiveness. In 1770, Mozart directing performances of his work in Milano, was elected to the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna and made a knight of the Golden Spur by the Pope.
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Books or printed matter acknowledging Antonio Meucci, as the inventor of the telephone are rarely published outside of Italian American circles, therefore it was with great joy I discovered a children’s book, Hooray for Inventors!, by Marcia Williams, that noted not one but two Italians (Meucci and Marconi) among the more than 100 brilliant inventions that changed the world. Furthermore, they illustrated Meucci and Marconi on the front cover and Leonardo da Vinci on the back.
Readers, please order a copy of Hooray for Inventors! and share it with all the “bambini” in your life. This is especially important today when the media has made Italian synonymous not with science, but with “Mafioso” and meatballs. Even in days gone by we Italian American kids did not know what to believe. My father would extol men like Italo Balbo, Umberto Nobile, Guglielmo Marconi and Antonio Meucci.
He would tell me about Italian accomplishments in music, architecture, motor cars, medicine, photography, steam engines, astronomy, chemistry, banking, physics, sailing, aviation and many other fields, but because we never saw it confirmed in our books at school, we thought that the history books our parents studied in Italy must have lost something in translation.
I cannot stress enough how important it is that our young children see in print some confirmation of what their adult family members may have told them about the many Italian contributions to a better world, otherwise they will have no intellectual ammunition with which to shoot down the innocent but stereotypical projectiles aimed their way by their little friends.
Please go to Amazon.com and order a copy of Hooray for Inventors! by Marcia Williams, price is $16.95, but this morning I saw many used copies available, in excellent condition, for as low as $8.95. If you are not computer savvy, ask someone in your family to order it for you or write Candlewick Press, 2067 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140.
Even if you are buying the book for the “bambini” in your life, I know you will enjoy it too. Here is the book jacket blurb: Did you know that Antonio Meucci developed the idea for the telephone years before Alexander Graham Bell began work on it? Did you know that before Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type, the only book he had ever seen was the Bible, which could take a person years and years to copy by hand? The pages of this fabulous book take you from Kill Devil Hill, where the Wright brothers launched their first power flight, to the home of Guglielmo Marconi, where he invented the radio. From toilet paper on a roll to ice cream to zippers, Hooray for Inventors!
Gives you the facts and inside stories on how some of the world’s greatest inventions came to be. With details on more than 100 of them, this book could inspire the inventor in you. Now, that’s something to cheer about!
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Casamassima, Bari is the ancestral hometown of the late Beatrice Criscione. Beatrice and her husband Fred owned and operated Federico’s Bakeries in Arcadia, Pasadena, Monrovia and Duarte for over four decades. Shortly before her passing, Fred Criscione promised his wife Beatrice that he would visit Casamassima with their daughter Carolyn, to meet numerous cousins during the month they hold a three day Festa in honor of San Rocco, patron saint of Casamassima, Bari.
I was surprised to learn that the history of Casamassima goes back to the days when Hannibal (circa 247-183 B.C.), the Carthaginian general considered one of the greatest military leaders of the ancient world, became at age 26 the commander of the Army of Carthage and took the offensive against Rome. Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants, ended up as far south as Bari and settled in for nearly 20 years. Rome sent General Maximus to battle Hannibal.
The battles lasted nearly 20 years and General Maximus built his home in the town (now known as Casamassima) where he rested between battles with Hannibal over a century before the birth of Christ.
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Devotees of San Rocco are many. St. Rocco’s Feast Day, August 16, is celebrated with great enthusiasm in many small towns of southern Italy. Visiting bands are hired by the “Comitato della Festa di San Rocco” and special foods baked, like ex-voto of pane tostato, spicy bread shaped like parts of the body that need San Rocco’s blessed intervention for healing. For a unique variation on pleas to St. Rocco for healing and ex-voto promises made, I will share Vincenzo Ancona’s (1915-2000) poem: Santu Roccu e lu picuraru Saint Rocco and the shepherd A certain shepherd of an antique stamp happened to pass in front of an old church, A holy shrine, in fact, and he observed numerous people who were there to pray.
The shepherd, out of curiosity, decided to go in to take a look, and in a niche he saw to his surprise hands, feet and heads all fashioned out of wax. Astounded, he approached a monk and asked: “Excuse me, Brother, can you please explain What those things are? And how did they get there? Why did they put them there to hang and sway?” The brother looked at him and understood, and thought that he should satisfy this man. “You want to know the meaning of these relics? They represent the grace of Saint Roch! For every time Saint Roch vouchsafes a grace, According to the body part affected the sufferers hang heads or feet of wax here in this niche along with many prayers.
This is the way they show their gratitude for their miraculous recoveries. That, my dear friend, is the entire truth. Pray to the saint and put your trust in God!” The shepherd who was ailing down below, that is in that part I can’t mention here, dropped to his knees as though he were a sinner and he began to pray with all his heart: “Holy Saint Roch, oh, can you hear my voice? I, too, need you to grant a miracle, and if you cure me from this wretched pain, I’ll make you a wax behind big as a train!”
This poem can be found in the Vincenzo Ancona “Malidittu la lingua/Damned Language and Other Poems” printed in a bilingual Sicilian-English edition by Legas Publishing, PO Box 149, Mineola, New York 11501.
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