Dear Readers,
January jottings or “parole veloci”, literally “fast words” or “quickies” with an Italian connection:
Annaeus Lucius Seneca (4 B.C. - A.D. 65) a stoic philosopher and dramatist once said “the comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.”
Seneca was banished by Claudius in A.D. 41, but recalled by Agrippina. A.D. 49, and made tutor to Nero. Seneca was later ordered by his former pupil to end his life.
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Bonaparte, Napoleon (1769-1821) emperor of France could not even speak French until he was nine years old. Napoleon was born in Corsica. His father Carlo, a lawyer, married Letizia Ramolino (1750-1836) when she was only seventeen. Napoleon’s mother, a simple, pious woman came to be much admired at the court of her son, the emperor.
Eight children were born of this union: Joseph, Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline, Jerome and Napoleon. Napoleon’s birthplace, Ajaccio, is the capital of Corsica. The Mediterranean island (west of Italy and north of Sardinia) was originally inhabited by a race of Ligurians.
In later centuries the Genoese conquered it. Corsica was sold to France in 1786 but the French were expelled by the British in 1793. In 1796, France reoccupied it but 1814 the British occupied it again for a few months until they were expelled and Corsica again became French. In World War II Corsica was seized by the Germans, but was retaken by the French in October 1943 and continues to be a French territory today.
Before Napoleon Bonaparte took power in 1799, France had endured a decade of war and instability after the 1789 revolution. Only thirty years old, Napoleon established a firm grip over the unruly, chaotic country, eventually crowning himself emperor in 1804. He seemed an unlikely figure to lead France. The young army officer had sided with the revolutionaries and won the confidence of those who took power after the king’s beheading.
Military victories in Italy and Austria in the 1790s made Napoleon popular among the French public, and his eventual seizure of power was virtually unopposed in France. Once by one, Napoleon’s armies toppled the ancient monarchies of Europe. The French believed in the great ideals of their Republic, liberty, equality, and fraternity. Many European commoners greeted Napoleon’s troops as liberators from the tyranny of their kings and queens.
The composer Ludwig van Beethoven, an early admirer of Napoleon, dedicated his Third Symphony to the young emperor as his troops arrived in the composer’s native Germany. Napoleon remade the legal code in France. The Napoleon Code, which set forth laws governing property and other civil matters, remains the basis for the legal system in much of Western Europe to this day.
The French Empire envisioned by Napoleon began to collapse after his failed invasion of Russia in 1812. In 1813 Napoleon was defeated and forced to resign by an international coalition that included Britain, Russia and Austria. Napoleon made a brief comeback but was defeated for good at the Battle of Waterloo, a village near Brussels, Belgium in 1815.
By that time, most of the idealism surrounding Napoleon had faded. Napoleon’s France had looted much of Europe. In fact, many of the treasures in the Louvre Museum in Paris, including art from the Vatican and Germany, were pillaged by Napoleon’s forces. Across the continent, he left a trail of disillusioned followers. After his disastrous defeat at Waterloo, he retreated to Paris, intending to flee to America, but English ships barred his way.
He surrendered to a British Captain, was taken to England and thence to the Island of St. Helena where he died in 1821. Hence it is often said of people who seem to have an unchecked meteoric rise of good fortune “He finally met his Waterloo.”
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Conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) was born in Parma, Italy and studied there at the Royal Conservatory. After 1886 he conducted orchestras in South America and Europe. He first came to America (New York) in 1908, remained for seven years, then spent World War I conducting orchestras in Italy to benefit injured soldiers.
He later returned to New York and became the principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra in 1928. He died in 1957 as he neared the age of 90. In 1987 the family decided to conserve the collection in the city where the artist worked the last 25 years of his life.
The collection, in the trusteeship of Toscanini’s son Walter, includes recordings of concerts conducted by Toscanini, letters, paintings, music scores, photographs, manuscripts and newspaper clippings - 700 cases of material, estimated at a value of $2 million. The vast personal collection was left to the New York Public Library.
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“Deep Pockets”, the expression often used by attorneys advising litigants to sue where money is, when more than one party is alleged to be culpable, has an Italian connection. Achille Paladini, the “Fish King” of the West Coast began life as a soldier in Garibaldi’s army. The son of a stage driver from Ancona, Italy, he ran way to join the red shirts.
After several battles, he received his honorable discharge and returned home. Restive, he decided to follow the adventuresome calling of the sea. For five or six years he followed the sea as a common sailor. Then one day, on a ship sailing for America around Cape Horn, his ship anchored in the port of San Francisco.
Achille Paladini came ashore with ten dollars in his pockets. The city seized his fancy and he stayed, working jobs on Fisherman’s Wharf. When he died in 1921, Achille Paladini was a legend of the West Coast fishery. He had pioneered the use of powerboats over the early sail rigs, of steam-powered deep-sea trawlers, and of modern refrigeration in his warehouses.
But his renown came from his reputation as the original “deep pockets.” Because he always dealt in cash, he had special pockets made for his trousers that extended to his knees. They could, and apparently did, accommodate as much cash as he needed to transact the days’ business.
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Ernesto Lungavita, 100 years young, was asked by reporters how times had changed. Ernesto replied “In the old days the rich had automobiles and the poor had horses. Now the poor have autos and the rich have horses.”
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