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embrace your inner italiaN ®
ITALY IN
CRISIS!
Complete election coverage inside
Pages 22-29 and 46-49
Adriana Trigiani
8
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VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 2 | FEBRUARY 2013
Mike Rossi
19
Academy Awards 13
Linda Cardellini 11
■ RECIPES FROM CALABRIA
Page 37
■ THE TOAD QUEEN
Page 20
WELCOME Table of Contents
™
Boston’s Italian American Voice®
VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 2 | FEBRUARY 2013
FOUNDER AND REGIONAL REPORTER
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NATIONAL CORRESPONDENTS
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Otto Bruno
Jim Distasio
Mary Ann Esposito
Elena Ferrarin
Fred Gardaphe
Jeannine Guilyard
Lucyann Murray
Dolores Sennebogen
Judith Anne Testa
David Witter
ILLUSTRATOR
Jean Parisi
7
Fierce
Fashion
PROOFREADER
Jim Distasio
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Mary Racila
31
EDITOR
Paul Basile
PUBLISHER
Anthony Fornelli
BOSTONIANO
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STARTERS
PEOPLE
FOOD
24 In Italy
28 Italy Abroad
4
5
11 Newsmakers
13 Legends
19 Sports
36 Ciao Italia™
37 Recipes
ELEZIONI
LOCAL
46 In Italia
48 Italia All’Estero
FEATURES
41 Highlights
44 Calendar
45 Artbeat
PARTING SHOTS
Italia
Cool Stuff
REVIEWS
7
8
9
Fashion
Books
Music
20 Folktale
31 History
50 Sardinia
Italia STARTERS
▼
BACK FROM THE DEAD
WHAT A GEM!
Hollywood star power might have rescued a Roman tomb
from being buried back underground forever. Due to lack of
funds, a majestic mausoleum that is believed to have held
the remains of General Marco Nonio Macrino seemed
doomed by the advance of modern construction projects.
The archaeological wonder discovered in 2007 on the Via
Flaminia was to be covered over by several feet of concrete,
but an online petition signed by more than 5,000 people and
supported vociferously by actor Russell Crowe threw a monkey wrench into the plans. Crowe’s involvement stems from
his role as a fictionalized version of the very same general in
the 2000 blockbuster “Gladiator.” Now that the ruins have
been spared, one question still looms over the general’s burial grounds: Who will pay for the site’s maintenance?
▼
STARTERS Cool Stuff
Since 1919, Buccellati has celebrated a rich
tradition of fine handmade jewelry for
both royalty and celebrities. This rare Buccellati ring is currently available at auction
at Christie’s. A cushion-cut ruby is flanked
on each side by old mine-cut diamonds and
set in 18-carat gold. Circa 1935, this museum piece is signed “M. Buccellati” for
Mario Buccellati, Italy.
$194,500 | www.christies.com
▼
Collectors hoping to own an authentic work by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino finally
had their chance in December, when a drawing by the Renaissance maestro was
put up for auction at London’s Sotheby’s. Titled “Head of an Apostle,” the piece
was fought over by four contenders in a telephonic bidding war and ultimately
sold for $47.8 million — three times the pre-sale estimate. The sum also set a new
record for any work on paper sold at auction. The black-chalk drawing was presumably created in 1519 or 1520, in preparation for Raphael’s biblically themed
painting “The Transfiguration,” which hangs in the Vatican Museum in Rome. The
piece was part of the collection at the Duke of Devonshire’s home in central England since the 1700s. Who owns it now is being kept secret … for now.
▼
▼
SECOND THOUGHTS
Three-time Olympic medalist Roberto Cammarelle recently changed his
mind on leaving professional boxing. The super-heavyweight champion
won his ninth Italian title in December, establishing a national record. Cammarelle was seriously considering retiring at the end of 2012, after a disappointing verdict by judges at the London Olympics that favored his British
opponent, Anthony Joshua, leaving the 32-year-old Italian boxer with the
silver medal. Cammarelle had won gold at Beijing 2008 and bronze at
Athens 2004. Now Cammarelle says he wants to stay in the ring for at least
another two years, although he rules out another Olympic run. Hopefully,
there will be another change of heart as 2016 approaches.
SNAKE CHARMER
Founded in 1884, Bulgari is one of the
largest jewelry designers in the
world, with more than 209 boutiques.
Each piece is handcrafted at their
headquarters in Rome, including
their new Serpenti line. The Serpenti
Necklace is set in 18-carat pink gold
and features rubellite, moon quartz
and pave diamonds.
$73,000 | www.bulgari.com
▼
BRACE FOR IT
▼
HOLY TWEET!
The Twitter-sphere went ballistic on Dec. 12 when Pope Benedict
XVI sent out his first official tweet. Registered under the username
@Pontifex and featuring a stunningly beautiful panoramic image
over St. Peter’s as a background, His Holiness scooped up more than
1 million followers in less than three days. “Dear friends, I am
pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter,” he wrote in his
first message, tapping his fingers on the screen of an electronic
tablet. “Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from
my heart.” Several tweets are scheduled to go out every week and
will be available in several languages through dedicated accounts in
English, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic.
4
February 2013
RUBY TUESDAY
Believing that “Nature is Art,”
Favero has designed subtly beautiful
jewelry since 1973. Each piece is
crafted in Bassano del Grappa, Italy,
including the Spring Collection. The
Spring Ring features a solitaire ruby
surrounded by diamonds and set in
18-carat white gold.
$4,160 | www.michaelcfina.com
BOSTONIANO
BOSTONIANO
SWAN SONG
Established in the 1970s in
Valenza, Italy, Palmiero is
known for high-end fashion
jewels such as the Passione
Ring. A pear-shaped ruby
serves as the backdrop for a
swan created with pave diamonds and rubies. The entire
piece is encircled with black
diamonds. Price available
upon request.
www.palmierogioielli.com
▼
ART BUYERS GONE WILD!
▼
▼
Italian jeweler Damiani is one of the
few brands to win the Robb Report
Best of the Best Award in 2012. One
reason is the Burlesque Bracelet, a
masterpiece in white gold, with white
and black diamonds, and rubies. This
gem is handcrafted in Valenza, Italy.
Price available upon request.
www.damiani.com
February 2013
5
REVIEWS Fashion
Let it
Fear not, fashionistas, you can still look
fabulous, be fierce and, yes, even have
fun in whatever inhospitable weather this
winter dishes out. So let it snow, sleet,
rain, blow and freeze. Bring it on, Mother
Nature, we’re ready!
snow!
by Mary Racila
▼
FABULOUS
Fashions so bold they’re fabulous. Take, for example, this fur coat — ordinary in every way except that it’s bright purple. For that alone, Ferretti
is fabulous! Likewise, if there were a category for
sitting there and looking pretty, Berluti would win,
hands down. This denim-and-leather-trimmed
jacket paired with a handsome guy make for one
good-looking package. While Cavalli’s unthinkable mix-and-match of styles — random rider’s
cap, fur jacket, reptile skirt and leopard booties —
may sound like a mess, this unorthodox look
makes one cool collection. Dark and dangerous,
Diesel sticks to black-on-black in a fur hide coat,
leather hoodie and trendy military boots.
▼
FIERCE
Fierce fashions trump wild weather any day. Pop
singing sensation Gwen Stefani’s line, L.A.M.B.,
features a double-breasted wool coat with a whole
lotta ’tude. Speaking of attitude, check out Chado
Ralph Rucci’s belted fur jacket and slim-line
leather slacks. Looks like she’s about to whip that
weather front. Take a softer stance in Gianfranco
Ferre’s belted fur wrap. Paired with matching
suede-and-kid-leather gloves and boots, this outerwear is super fly. Too cool for school, Bottega
Veneta’s fitted lambs wool jacket lined in leather
is complimented with a woven wool scarf, dark
jeans and stylin’ suede boots.
▼
FUN
What’s not to love about a puffy coat? Starting us
off on two good feet, Blumarine pays homage to
the lovely Snow White in an all-white ensemble
complete with ’80s-awesome moon boots direct
from Italy. Dsquared2 goes for the gold in a metallic jacket with fur-lined hood, a pair of great jeans
and luxurious leather boots. Puff Daddy would
wear it proudly. Peter Piloto is patterned to perfection in a puffy zip-up jacket and matching skinny
jeans. Also keeping warm this winter, Angelo Mariani covers up in a silky bright blue down-filled
coat complete with huge hand-warming pockets,
a generous fur-lined hood and, let’s not forget, the
leopard-patterned silk lining.
BOSTONIANO
February 2013
7
REVIEWS Music
Books REVIEWS
On eagle’s
American tale
by Fred Gardaphe
▲ ADRIANA TRIGIANI
EXCERPT From the Book
This is my Italy, she thought. The
power and beauty of the antiquities, the detailed frescoes, the imposing statuaries carved of milk
white granite, Don Martinelli’s
hammered gold chalice, the glorious tones of the music, the Italy
of Puccini and Verdi, Caruso and
Toscanini, not the Italy of shattered spirits in Hoboken and the
drunken, desperate Anna Buffa.
This was the Italy that fed her
soul, where hope was restored
and broken hearts were mended
in the hands of great artists.
For the first time since she had
come to America, Enza felt at
home. In that moment, she suddenly realized how to marry
American ambition to Italian
artistry. Both had nurtured her
and helped her grow. That night,
Puccini’s music stoked the fire of
her ambition, and she felt her determination rise anew.
The Shoemaker’s Wife
by Adriana Trigiani
■ Cost: $15.99, paperback
■ Pages: 496
■ ISBN: 978-0-06-125710-0
■ Visit: www.amazon.com
Want more reviews? Visit www.franoi.com
8
In her latest novel, Adriana Trigiani
applies her master storytelling skills to
an immigrant saga based on her grandparents’ love story. Ciro and Enza,
friends from an Alpine village in Italy,
struggle to make their lives matter in a
world torn by war and abuse. Both protagonists have tough childhoods that
push them into the workforce while most
children are busy learning their ABCs and playing make-believe.
Ciro and his brother
Eduardo are left at a convent just after their father
died overseas in a Minnesota mining disaster.
Their mother knows she
can’t take care of them in
the state she’s in, and
Enza’s father happens to
be the one driving the
carriage that brings the
boys to the convent and
their mother to a refuge
further away. Ciro grows
up to be a strong, handsome young man who has been shaped
by the nuns into a hard worker who is
tough enough to stand up to the local
church authorities when he witnesses
abuse. His punishment for telling the
truth is to be sent to a work farm, a sentence the sisters help him avoid by sending him off to the United States.
The oldest daughter of hard-working
parents, Enza can dress and guide her father’s horse team as well as she can make
clothes and embroider linens. When
tragedy befalls the family, Enza remains
strong and leaves with her father for
America so they can make the money
they need to buy the land they’ve been
renting. Their plans for a short stint in
America are thwarted by hard times, but
their dream is not lost. Her father works
in the mines while Enza finds employ-
February 2013
ment in a garment factory. Her friendship
to a young Irish immigrant proves to be
her salvation, and the two of them end
up working in the costume shop of the
very New York opera company that employs the great Enrico Caruso. The experiences in New York transform Enza into
a strong woman.
Ciro and Enza cross paths a number
of times before they connect to build a life and
love together. It all happens after Ciro serves his
new country in the Great
War and returns to the
shoemaking business that
he had helped to develop
into a highly profitable
trade. Together with a
friend he had met on his
ocean crossing, Ciro brings
his skills to Minnesota to
provide boots for miners
in the very place where
his father was killed.
On their way to becoming Americans, Enza
and Ciro hang on to their Italian values
of hard work, family and friendship,
while they take advantage of the opportunities their new world offers them.
This combination is what makes their
success all the more remarkable, and
their tragedies all the more heartfelt. This
is the kind of story that, while sticking
close to historical facts, becomes mythic,
and thus more powerful, in the hands of
a skilled writer.
The addition of family photos at the
end make this novel more personal than
usual. There even are some discussion
questions at the end for those who might
want to connect the reading to their own
lives. “The Shoemaker’s Wife” is another
great reason to stick with Trigiani as she
writes her Italian ways into American
culture.
BOSTONIANO
wings
In the big band era, it was the star
soloist, backed by as many as 19 other
musicians, who soared above the ensemble like an eagle. Yet despite the legions
of great singers, saxophonists and such,
no instrument soared more dramatically
than the trumpet, and no trumpeter flew
higher and faster than Secondo “Conti”
Candoli.
During a magical career that began at the second flowering of the big
band era, Conti Candoli
served as the lead trumpeter in the Woody Herman and Stan Kenton big
bands, two of the greatest
outfits in jazz history.
Often performing with his
older brother, Pete, Candoli’s mirror-shattering
range and be-bop dexterity allowed composers
and arrangers to take musical risks that changed
the sound of big band jazz.
Other stars took note of his prowess,
and Candoli worked with vocalists the
likes of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Sarah
Vaughan and Sammy Davis Jr., as well as
the Benny Goodman and “Tonight Show”
bands. Yet the greatest nod to his ability
may have come when Dizzy Gillespie,
often acknowledged as the greatest bop
trumpeter ever, employed Candoli to
play in his band.
Candoli’s spectacular career began
modestly enough. Growing up in the
small farm town of Mishawaka, Ind., Secondo was under the watchful eye of his
older brother. It was Pete, best known for
the driving trumpet on Henry Mancini’s
“Peter Gunn Theme,” who inspired Secondo to take up music. A veteran of the
Tommy Dorsey band, Pete convinced
Woody Herman to let the teenager fill in
for an absent member of the Thundering
Herd, a part-time gig that led to full-time
employment upon graduation from high
by David Witter
school. After a stint in the service, Candoli joined the Stan Kenton Band in
1948, where he remained until 1954.
At that time, Kenton’s band was the
most popular in the nation, partly because of Kenton’s brilliance in modernizing the big band sound and partly
because of Candoli’s trumpet.
Tired of the constant travel and yearning for the freedom of a
small-band format, Candoli left Kenton in
1954. Settling in Los
Angeles, he became part
of the cool bop scene,
recording with genre
stalwarts like Howard
Rumsey’s Lighthouse
All-Stars, Stan Getz,
Shelly Mane and Gerry
Mulligan.
Along with his
brother, Conti became a
top session man in L.A.,
recording movie and TV soundtracks, including the theme songs to “Mission: Impossible” and “Mannix.” When “The
Tonight Show” traveled west, the Candoli Brothers joined it. In 1972, Johnny
Carson made a permanent move to Burbank, Calif., bringing Candoli’s horn into
America’s living rooms until Carson retired in 1992. As he told jazz writer Zan
Stewart: “Usually, you never think you’d
do a gig for 20 years, but because of this
job, I was able to raise a family and stay
in one place.”
In his later years, Candoli performed
regularly, both on his own and with his
brother. Perhaps the best example came
when he shared the stage with Stan Getz
and Pete at a tribute to his brother. Graying and in their 60s, the men took to the
stage a bit gingerly. But when the first
downbeat was stuck and the trumpets
tore into “What is This Thing Called
Love …,” the jazz eagle — with white
manes to match — soared once again.
▼
A truly
IN THE SPOTLIGHT ▼
Writing a review of Conti Candoli
without including his brother, Pete, is
like serving a meal without bread. This
classic release, re-mastered in 2011
from a 1978 vinyl record, has the Candoli brothers on trumpet and flugelhorn joining forces with an all-star
back-up band that included Joe DiOrio
on guitar, Lou Levy on piano, Fred Atwood on bass and John Dentz on
drums. The resulting combination offers the listener a sense of the power
and harmony of the big bands along
with the artistic freedom of the smaller
outfit.
The first song, a bluesy rendition of
“Doodlin’,” features the twin trumpets
interlocked like vines, as the brothers
played together like one tap dancer filling the room with sound. “Willow Weep
for Me” is a jazzy, down-home blues
song with overtones of gospel a la
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The cut
gives ample room for DiOrio, one of the
most underrated guitarists in jazz, to
showcase his bluesy licks.
Duke Ellington’s “Take the A
Train” is among the most famous of all
jazz compositions, and the Candolis
swing it like two men who knew, saw
and probably played with members of
Ellington’s band in the wee hours of the
morning. “Blue and Boogie” and “Love
is that Magic Spell” showcase their
chops in a fast, hard-bop format.
“Aleucha” ends the CD with some marvelous drum work by Dentz, evoking
the tempo of great big-band drummers
like Louis Bellson and Barrett Deems.
While you can’t pack a combined
century of work by two master artists
onto one CD, you get a hint here of how
the pair changed the face of big band
music. Visit www.amazon.com
Want more reviews? Visit www.franoi.com
BOSTONIANO
February 2013
9
PEOPLE Newsmakers
Making
her own
breaks
by Jim Distasio
It’s sad to say, but actress Linda
Cardellini seems to do her best work
when almost no one is watching.
This isn’t a knock against the talents
of this beautiful, 37-year-old film and TV
actress. In fact, this Italian American’s
acting skills are formidable and more
than a little underappreciated. She’s one
of those rare performers who easily exudes that killer combo of warmth, intelligence and vulnerability.
But Cardellini’s highest profile
roles to date have been a solid sixyear, later-season run on the hospital drama “ER” as a nurse with
family issues and as the vixen
sleuth Velma in two less-thanstellar live-action “Scooby Doo”
movies, which found the actress
donning horn-rimmed glasses
and a tight orange turtleneck to
speak to a poorly computergenerated talking dog.
These are the kind of roles
that pay the bills and put you
in front of millions of eyeballs
— two goals 98 percent of
working actors rarely achieve — but they
fail to give a full accounting of what a
performer is capable of.
Fortunately for Cardellini, she has
done incredible work in two under-seen
gems any thesp would kill to have on
their resume. The first was as Lindsay
Weir, a 16-year-old high school student
going through an existential crisis in
1980s suburban Michigan on the cult TV
hit “Freaks and Geeks,” a drama/comedy
that aired for just one season on NBC in
1999 and 2000 before finding renewed
life years later on DVD and cable reruns.
The show, produced by director Judd
Apatow (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin”), also
launched several of today’s young
BOSTONIANO
comedic stars, including James Franco,
Seth Rogen and Jason Segel.
Despite lackluster viewership,
“Freaks and Geeks” cemented
Cardellini’s status in Hollywood and
earned plaudits for her funny, human
portrayal of a teen straddling the
line between her former nerd
friends and her new burn-out
buddies. It’s the kind of layered and heartfelt program network TV rarely makes —
probably because people
don’t seem to tune in —
and Cardellini jumped
at this opportunity.
“I had been reading a lot of scripts, and it was the
best script that I had read,”
Cardellini told the A.V.
Club. “There were a few
other shows that I
was strongly in the
running for,
and I said, ‘I
really want to
do this show.
I don’t care if the other shows have better
deals, or if they have a greater shot of
being successful. This show is so good.’”
Cardellini, who hails from Redwood
City, Calif., grew up as the youngest of
four children, and says she used her experiences in that Italian/Irish-American
household to help shape Lindsay Weir —
one of TV’s rare teen characters whose
anxieties and identity issues stem from
the positive relationship she has with her
parents.
“I’m very close to my family,”
Cardellini told the A.V. Club. “And being
that close to your family, I think you also
struggle with how to become your own
person.”
February 2013
▲ LINDA CARDELLINI
Best known for high-profile roles that
haven’t showcased her full range as an
actor, she recently put her money
where her talent is in pursuit of a 2013
Oscar nomination.
Cardellini’s second revelatory performance happened in 2012 in a littleseen independent film from
up-and-coming writer/director Liza Johnson. In the drama “Return,” Cardellini
plays Kelli, an Ohio mother and Army
reservist who returns home after a tour in
an unnamed foreign war zone and finds
herself slowly re-acclimating to civilian
life. The film eschews easy stereotypes
and handles Kelli’s unraveling with quiet
and subtlety, and Cardellini stuns in a
contemplative and unvarnished performance that shows untapped reserves of potential.
“It was the biggest role I’ve been able
to play and just such a phenomenal character,” Cardellini told Interview Magazine. “I’m so excited about the movie.”
The film, unfortunately, flew beneath
the radar when it was released last February. But Cardellini wasn’t ready to let
that be the story’s end. She recently undertook a rare and risky move in Hollywood by funding an awards campaign to
draw attention to this small film as the
movie industry gears up for the Academy
Awards and Screen Actors Guild honors.
“It was an actor’s dream,” Cardellini
Continues on page 12 …
11
… continued from page 11 …
told the Los Angeles Times of the role.
“They don’t come around that often.
They certainly don’t come around that
often for me. I decided it would be a
shame to not even throw our hat into the
ring. For us, it’s just about more people
seeing the movie.”
This wasn’t about winning an Oscar,
Cardellini says. Instead, it was about raising the profile of smaller films that are
frequently overlooked.
To grasp what Cardellini is trying to
accomplish, you have to understand the
bizarre process by which films garner
awards attention. Everyone knows about
the multimillion-dollar campaigns used
to launch films (billboards, commercials
and Web ads, oh my), but there’s an
equally sizable marketing push made annually from November through January
to grab the attention of people who vote
to hand out those precious golden statuettes. Publicists and marketers send out
DVDs, buy ads and even throw lavish
parties just so a film can be nominated
for something.
Along with some help from the film’s
12
PEOPLE Legends
producers, Cardellini funded her own
awards push, which included distributing DVD copies of the film to thousands
of Hollywood bigwigs. Some Hollywood
insiders told the Los Angeles Times that
this type of guerilla awards campaign
can cost upward of $10,000 to start.
The move was admirable —
Cardellini did her best to leverage a system of mixed up priorities in favor of her
little film. Despite its pedigree, “Return”
had a difficult time breaking through
even with a cast that includes a one-time
Oscar-nominee, Michael Shannon
(“Boardwalk Empire,” the upcoming Superman film “Man of Steel”), and an
Emmy-nominated TV actor, John Slattery
(the silver-haired Roger Sterling on “Mad
Men”). The film only grossed $16,000 in
its theatrical run — which is just $6,000
more than what the awards campaign
could cost — but found some success
through its video on-demand home release timed to Veterans Day.
“In the past few years there have
been movies that have been very small
that I never would have seen: ‘Pariah,’ ‘A
February 2013
Better Life,’ ‘A Separation,’ had it not
been for DVD screeners that people got
for free and then talked about because
they were worth talking about,”
Cardellini has said. “It felt like that was
where our movie could be seen and appreciated.”
Cardellini’s gamble has already paid
dividends, netting her a nomination for
an Independent Spirit Award for “Return.” And though she was unsuccessful
in her Oscar campaign, the actress has
plenty to look forward to. Cardellini says
she’s ready to once again make audiences
laugh and maybe even start writing
scripts with starring roles that showcase
her versatility like her “Freaks and
Geeks” costars Jason Segel and Seth
Rogen have done for themselves.
“I’d love to do some comedy again
soon. I haven’t done that in awhile, so
that would be fun,” she told
Collider.com. “One thing I like about trying to write is that I can possibly write
myself a role. Otherwise, you’re at the
mercy of whatever roles are out there that
people are willing to give to you.”
BOSTONIANO
And the
award
goes to ...
by Otto Bruno
It’s that time of the year again when
Hollywood gathers to honor the cinema’s
best acting of the year with the worst acting of the year on live TV as the elite of
Tinsletown try to act humble upon hearing their names called to the winner’s
circle of the annual Academy Awards
ceremony. In the previous 84 Oscar parties, the Italian-American population has
been well represented. In this month’s
installment, I thought it would be fun to
review some of the less-remembered
nominees/losers as well as some of our
more famous winners.
As this year’s ceremony approaches,
I can’t help but think of the legendary
Ernest Borgnine, who passed away this
year at the age of 95. I wrote about Mr.
Borgnine in the April 2011 issue of Fra
Noi. A year later, I obtained an address
for the beloved star and decided to send
him a copy of the magazine with the article I’d written about him.
Not long after sending the magazine,
I was working at the computer one afternoon when the phone rang. My son,
reading the caller ID, ran into my office
and said excitedly, “Dad, it says ‘E. Borgnine.’ Do you think it’s really Ernest
Borgnine?” I should point out my 12year-old son knew who Borgnine was for
two reasons. 1.) He’s my son. 2.) He’s a
huge “SpongeBob SquarePants” fan, and
thereby knew Borgnine as Mermaid Man.
I answered and sure enough heard the familiar voice of Lt. Commander Quinton
McHale ask, “Hello, is this Otto Bruno?”
When I answered in the affirmative, he
said, “This is Ernest Borgnine.” It made
me laugh because I thought to myself,
“Ernest Borgnine certainly doesn’t need
to identify himself. Who else could it be
but Ernest Borgnine?”
BOSTONIANO
We talked briefly as he thanked me
for the article I’d written. He told me he
enjoyed it, and the magazine, very much.
He then asked me if I ever visited California. I told him I’d never been but that I
was thinking of coming in 2013. He then
said, “If you come out, make sure you
drop in and see me.” I thought to myself,
“Just try and stop me!” The only thing
I was really struck by for the very
few minutes that we spoke was
just how vibrant he sounded. I
knew full well he was 95, but I
certainly couldn’t equate that
advanced age with the voice
I heard on the other end of
the receiver. Just a few
weeks later, I was saddened
to learn of Borgnine’s passing on July 8, 2012.
My first memories of
Ernest Borgnine come from my
childhood enjoyment of
“McHale’s Navy.” My own
children will always remember him as Mermaid Man from
“SpongeBob SquarePants.” He
appeared in more than 200 roles
on stage, TV and in films, but I
think the world will always
rightfully remember him as the
shy Italian-American butcher
from the Bronx, Marty Piletti,
from the 1955 film
“Marty.” It was the only
time Borgnine was
ever nominated for an
Oscar and he won. It
was a small independent film. No one expected him to win
the award, but if
you go back and
February 2013
▲ ERNEST BORGNINE
Honored only once in his storied career,
he is one of dozens of Italian Americans
who have attracted the attention of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences.
watch the film you’ll think to yourself,
“How could he not win?” He’s absolutely
brilliant as he breathes life and humanity
into this “ugly little man.” I hate to repeat such standard Hollywood clichés,
but “Marty” is a film that will make
you laugh, will make you cry and,
ultimately, will make you stand up
and cheer. It’s just that good … and
so is Borgnine.
Few people remember that one
of the actors Ernest Borgnine beat out
for the Oscar in 1956 was Frank Sinatra, who had been nominated for his
performance in “The Man With the
Golden Arm.” As drummer and heroin
addict Frankie Machine, Sinatra delivered his only performance in a leading
role to be nominated for the big prize.
Sinatra, of course, won the Oscar for
Best Supporting Actor in 1954 for his
role as Pvt. Angelo Maggio in the WWII
epic “From Here to Eternity.” The award
ignited his stalled career and led to one
of the greatest comebacks in all of show
biz history. Despite his loss a few years
later to Borgnine, Sinatra actually
won two other Oscars during his
career. In 1946, he was part of a
group that included Mervyn
LeRoy, Frank Ross, Earl Robinson,
Albert Maltz and Lewis Allan
which was awarded a special
Oscar for their work on the
Continues on page 15 …
13
… continued from page 13 …
short film titled “The House I Live In,”
which promoted tolerance among America’s youth. Sinatra also took home the
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in
1971, one of the Academy’s most cherished honors.
One of The Rat Pack’s favorite character actors was a gentleman named Victor Buono, who appeared with Frank
Sinatra and Dean Martin in films such as
“Four for Texas,” “Robin and the Seven
Hoods” and “The Silencers.” Buono is
now best remembered for his role as
“King Tut” on the old “Batman” TV series, but few people remember that he
also was nominated in 1963 for his performance as the rather sleazy Edwin
Flagg in the chilling “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” with Bette Davis
PEOPLE Legends
actors/actresses to have won both an
Oscar and a Tony for the same role.
Born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano,
Bancroft was nominated for an Academy
Award four other times for her roles in
“The Pumpkin Eater,” “The Graduate,”
“The Turning Point” and “Agnes of
God.” The incredibly talented Ms. Bancroft was part of yet another select group
of actors/actresses who could boast that
they’d won an Oscar, a Tony and an
Emmy in their career. Anne Bancroft
died in 2005 of uterine cancer at the age
of 73.
Anne Bancroft
and Joan Crawford. Buono enjoyed an
active but all-too-short career in films
and on TV during the 1960s and 1970s.
In addition to his acting, he wrote a book
of poetry called “It Could Be Verse” and
was known to be quite a gourmet cook.
Sadly, his gastronomic passions led him
to a wide girth and an early death at the
age of 43 in 1982.
While Buono lost his bid for Best
Supporting Actor in 1963, another Italian-American actress took home the
prize for Best Actress that evening. Anne
Bancroft won the Oscar that year for her
portrayal of Annie Sullivan in the film
“The Miracle Worker.” Bancroft had initiated the role of Helen Keller’s teacher
in the Broadway play of the same name,
for which she had won a Tony Award in
1959 for Best Performance by a Leading
Actress in a Play. She is one of only nine
BOSTONIANO
visual style and particularly his work
with color film when that was still an innovation in the industry. His first Oscar
nomination came for Best Director of
“An American in Paris” in 1952. He lost
out that year to George Stevens for his
work on “A Place in the Sun.” Minnelli
was nominated for Best Director once
again in 1959 for “Gigi.” This time he
won the big prize. Minnelli never received another Oscar nomination, but his
legacy is secure with a resume of nearly
40 films, many of them some of the bestloved films of MGM’s musical era, including “Cabin in the Sky,” “The Band
Wagon” and “Brigadoon.”
Like her father, Liza also was nominated on two separate occasions for an
Academy Award, and also like dad, lost
Vincente & Liza Minnelli with Judy Garland
Frank Sinatra
As we all know, Italian Americans
cherish family, and while many of our
Oscar nominees and winners had children who followed them into the entertainment business, I can think of only
one Italian-American father and daughter
who both won the Academy Award. It
might be a tough trivia question for some
because the daughter was even more famous than her talented father. In fairness, however, dad spent his entire
career behind the camera, while his little
girl spent her entire career in front of it.
The duo? Liza Minnelli and her dad, Vincente Minnelli.
Vincente Minnelli was one of the
most eclectic directors of the golden age
of the Hollywood studio system. He is
best remembered now for his stunning
February 2013
the first bid in 1971 for “The Sterile
Cuckoo” but won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1973 for her iconic role in
“Cabaret.” Unfortunately, father and
daughter never had the opportunity to
work together on a feature film. Who
knows what might have been!
Recently, I had the opportunity to
view “Captain Newman, MD” for the
very first time. I am a longtime fan of
Bobby Darin, but I’d never seen his
Academy Award-nominated performance
in this movie. It is nothing short of stunning. He plays a highly decorated WWII
pilot who is attempting to douse his battle trauma with alcohol. The film is filled
with memorable scenes but none more
powerful than the one in which Darin’s
character, Jim Tompkins, is given sodium
pentothal and reveals the horrific mem-
Continues on page 16 …
15
… continued from page 15 …
ory of a combat mission that ended in
disaster. Al DiOrio in his biography of
Darin writes, “The … scene would have
been demanding even for a veteran actor.
But when the scene was shot, the crew
was stunned. In a single horrifyingly brilliant take, Darin had recreated Tompkins’
trauma, his last mission.
“Angie Dickinson, playing Newman’s nurse, had been silent during the
take, but when it was over she burst into
tears. [Gregory] Peck was stunned and
speechless.”
As I watched this film, you could actually see the shock in the eyes of Gregory Peck as Tompkins’ doctor, Captain
Newman. There was no question that
Darin’s performance deserved Academy
Award consideration.
Darin, like so many artists who reach
the pinnacle of their respective professional worlds, wanted more than to be
recognized as a great cabaret performer.
He desperately wanted to be accepted
and recognized as a first-rate actor. Unfortunately, the Academy Awards are
often not just about the best performance.
16
PEOPLE Legends
There are numerous political and sympathy votes that occur within these contests. In 1964, Darin was up against
Melvyn Douglas for his role in “Hud.”
Douglas was a fine actor, popular among
his peers, who despite his 30-plus years
in the business had never won an Oscar.
It didn’t hurt his chances that he also fell
ill after completing the filming of “Hud.”
On Oscar night in April of 1964, it was
Douglas’ name that was called to the
winner’s circle. DiOrio writes that
“[Darin] was crestfallen.”
Unfortunately, Darin would never get
another role as substantial as Jim Tompkins in a Hollywood film. He died at the
age of 37 in December 1973.
Another young Italian-American
heartthrob of the 1950s and 1960s was
Sal Mineo. The 17-year-old Mineo was
nominated for Best Supporting Actor in
1956 for his role in “Rebel Without A
Cause.” His reaction to losing the award
to Jack Lemmon for “Mister Roberts” was
one of relief. He was scared to death and
afraid that at his tender age he hadn’t yet
earned the honor. He would be nomi-
February 2013
nated one more time in 1961 for his part
in the film “Exodus,” but he lost again,
this time to Peter Ustinov in “Spartacus.”
Like Darin and the three other young
actors with whom Mineo worked in
“Rebel Without A Cause,” Nick Adams,
Natalie Wood and James Dean, Mineo’s
life would end in premature tragedy
when he was killed, presumably by a
mugger, in February of 1976.
When people think of the Academy
Awards, they naturally think of the actors
and actresses first, the stars in front of
the camera. But as we all know by the
manner in which the annual event drags
on, there are dozens of other behind-thecamera awards that are presented as
well. Of these awards, one of the most
important is for Best Cinematography.
The very “look” of this visual art form is
determined by the cinematographer.
One of the most highly regarded cinematographers of the 1930s and 1940s
was a gentleman named Tony Gaudio.
Born Gaetano Antonio Gaudio in Rome
in 1885, he was trained in a Roman art
school. He shot his first film in 1904. By
BOSTONIANO
the end of his career, he worked on more
than 1,000 films in Europe and the U.S.
Gaudio was nominated for the Academy Award six times for cinematography
between 1930 and 1946 for such films as
“The Letter,” “A Song to Remember” and
“Anthony Adverse,” for which he won
the award in 1937. He was known for his
work in perfecting the use of precision
lighting, lighting the subjects of a scene
with individual and various lights as opposed to general floodlighting of a scene.
Naturally, this technique allowed filmmakers to develop more intimate and
specific moods in their various lighting
schemes.
Finally, there’s the beloved actor of
Italian heritage who nevertheless can’t
truly be thought of as an Italian American — Henry Fonda. The native Nebraskan’s roots go back to Genoa, Italy, in
the 1400s. However, from there his family moved to the Netherlands and subsequently was one of the earliest groups of
settlers in America. In other words,
Henry Fonda didn’t grow up in any Little
Italys of America’s urban centers like so
BOSTONIANO
many of our parents and grandparents.
Nevertheless, his roots go back to
Italy, and I’m certainly more than happy
to claim him for our team because he
was, without a doubt, one of the greatest
Henry Fonda
February 2013
American actors in our history. He was
nominated three times for Best Actor in a
motion picture for “The Grapes of
Wrath,” “12 Angry Men” and “On
Golden Pond.” He finally won the award
in 1982 for his role as Norman Thayer in
“On Golden Pond.” Adapted to the
screen from a play by Ernest Thompson,
“On Golden Pond” was Fonda’s final theatrical release and he co-starred with
Katharine Hepburn and his daughter,
Jane Fonda. Critics and fans alike have
speculated for many years that father and
daughter attempted to work out many of
their real-life issues with one another
through their father-daughter portrayal in
the story. On the night of the Oscar telecast, Fonda was too ill to attend, and
Jane accepted the award on his behalf.
He died less than six months later on
Aug. 12, 1982.
There are dozens more Italian American’s that are indelibly connected to the
history of the Academy Awards. That just
means we’ll have that much more to
cover next year! For now, as the old song
says, “Hooray for Hollywood!”
17
PEOPLE Sports
Aerial
assault
by Elena Ferrarin
Growing up in New Jersey, Mike
Rossi was bored with traditional sports
like lacrosse and soccer, instead feeling a
pull toward extreme sports like skateboarding, rollerblading and snowboarding.
So it wasn’t a big
surprise when Rossi,
now 19, wound up an
aerialist on the U.S.
freestyle ski team,
shooting off ski ramps
to perform twists and
somersaults in the air.
“It’s the adrenaline. I really like the
rush of not knowing if
you’re OK in the
end,” says Rossi,
whose nickname is
“Jersey Mike.”
Rossi has been
living in Park City,
Utah, since spring
2012, about a year
after he joined the
U.S. freestyle ski
team. His coaches are
Joe Davies in summer
and Matt Saunders in
winter.
As a member of
the aerials C team, Rossi gets free coaching and gym time, but has to pay for his
own travel and lodging during competitions. His goal is to move up to the aerials A team by making the podium at this
year’s World Cup, he says.
So what is it like to do aerials? “It’s a
higher level of focus,” Rossi says. “Your
adrenaline is pumping, you’re so focused
on what you have to do. I take a couple
of deep breaths before going down the
ramp, and all the way down I’m thinking
BOSTONIANO
about my good take off. If you don’t have
a good take off, you don’t have a good
jump. Once I’m in the air, I feel out my
rotation and do what I need to do to
bring it to my feet.”
Rossi learned to ski at age 5, and
soon after taught himself to do flips on the
backyard trampoline
his father bought him
when he was 6. “I was
a very hyper kid,”
Rossi says.
In his first year of
performing singles in
aerials, at age 14, he
made the podium five
out of six times.
“I never really
compete to win. I just
kind of compete to
land and see how well
I can do for myself.
That first year I was
just trying out what
jumping was, I was
learning how to land
jumps,” he says. “I
won the competitions
because everyone else
sucked,” he adds, not
entirely joking.
However, Rossi admits he was really
surprised when he took third place at
junior nationals at age 15 in 2008. That’s
when he figured out he had a shot at really doing this, he says.
He won a bronze medal at the U.S.
Freestyle Championships in 2011, and
took silver in 2012. His ultimate goal, he
says, is to make the U.S. team that will
be competing at the 2014 Winter
Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
During the summer, aerialists prac-
February 2013
▲ MIKE ROSSI
Twisting and somersaulting his way to a
string of national medals, his sights are
now set on the 2014 Winter Olympics in
Russia.
tice by skiing down water ramps and
jumping into pools. “On snow, our main
objective is to land. On water, we’re
thinking about perfect takeoff, perfect
form in the air, perfect landing. In the
water it’s a lot lower risk, you can land
on the tails of your skis and you’ll be
fine,” he says.
Rossi also watches a lot of footage of
himself, dissecting every twist and turn
with his coaches. As for injuries, there
was a herniated disk a couple of years
ago, but he’s all healed now, he says.
Rossi graduated in December from
The Keystone School, an online high
school, and plans to study business or a
related field at a local college, probably
starting this summer. “Since we’re not in
one place for very long during winter, it’s
hard to keep up with classes in spring
and fall,” he says.
Aerial skiing was very popular in the
1980s and 1990s, when it became an
Olympic sport, but its popularity has
been eclipsed by slopestyle skiing, Rossi
says. Slopestyle skiing will make its
Olympic debut in 2014.
“Slopestyle has pretty much been
the death of aerials. It’s a lot more popular, the style is more effective, with hard
tricks,” he says. “Everyone thinks that
aerialists are super uptight and have no
style at all, because we’re shooting for
perfect form. But we have our own style.
It’s just less prominent.”
19
FEATURES Folk Tales
The
Toad queen
by Lionel Bottari
Once, there was a woodcutter’s
daughter named Maria. She and her father, Agostino, were very fortunate to live
in the hills at the foot of a well forested
mountain in southern Abruzzo, where
Agostino did not have to travel far to
gather plenty of dry timber to haul home
on his donkey. There was always enough
to have some to burn for heating and
cooking, and some left over to sell. Maria
would help him, and also find and pick
greens and mushrooms that were good to
eat.
One day, she happened on a large
radicchio, one that would furnish her
and her father with enough greens for a
few days at least. She had forgotten her
knife, so she decided to pull the whole
plant out of the ground. She tugged and
tugged on the stalk, and finally, because
she was a strong girl, she managed to
pull it out, roots and all. The roots were
strong, and so the ground came up with
it, as wide as a dinner plate. In the hole,
she noticed something strange. It was a
round door, made of stone, with a brass
latch locking it shut. She unfastened the
lock and pulled the stone door open,
and, to her amazement, a large toad
hopped out.
It was a grayish green hue, with big
luminous yellow eyes that stuck out from
the top of its head.
She had seen many toads in the forest, but never one like this one. Yet she
had no fear, despite the toad’s unusually
large size, for it seemed to be smiling at
her.
“Ciao, bella! What is your name?”
asked the toad.
For a moment, Maria was dumbfounded, for she had never encountered a
toad that could speak! But she recovered
her composure and replied:
“My name is Maria. What is yours?”
“Ripete,” said the toad.
“My name is Maria, what is yours?”
“Ripete is my name! I am the queen
20
of the toads and frogs hereabouts.”
“Why were you under the radicchio?”
“I was cursed by the wicked witch
Zelda, who is probably around here still.
She imprisoned me so she could snatch
up my amphibian children and use them
in her horrid witchcraft recipes, poor
things,” she explained. “She took me
from my happy forest and entombed me
underground, far away from my subjects,
who croak miserably all night long,
mourning my absence.
“Please, please help me,” the toad
implored. “Take me with you and hide
In the hole, she
noticed a round door.
She unfastened the
lock and pulled the
stone door open, and,
to her amazement, a
large toad hopped out.
me from the witch, and you’ll never regret it.”
So it was that Maria took the toad
home, and washed the dirt from the creature in the sink, where it sat happily in
the warm water. Of course, when the father came home, he was amazed when he
went to wash his hands to find a large
toad in the sink. But the queen of the
toads immediately won him over by
causing twice as much firewood to appear in the woodpile than he had been
able to bring back.
For quite a while, things went well,
and the little family even got used to the
added bonus of Queen Ripete’s long
green tongue snatching the flies and mosquitoes out of the air before they could
February 2013
bite anyone. But one day, there was a
sudden rainstorm, and a knocking at the
door. A woman’s voice was begging to be
let in.
Queen Ripete’s eyes bugged out
much larger than normal.
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “It is the
wicked witch Zelda! She has found me!
Quick, Maria, hide me!”
And so, the woodcutter’s daughter
hid the toad in the larder, where they
kept their dried food.
Then Maria let in the woman, who
looked very much like a normal person,
and not at all like a powerful and wicked
witch. No sooner had she closed the door
than another knock could be heard, this
time with a male voice seeking shelter.
Maria opened it and saw a handsome
young man in hunter’s garb, carrying a
gun on his shoulder.
“Please give me shelter from this terrible storm, and I will be very grateful,”
he said.
She welcomed him in, and as they
sat at the table and talked, it was plain
that the young huntsman was very impressed with Maria, who served her
guests bread and coffee.
“Tell me,” said the young man, “are
you married? For I have long sought a
wife, but never have I seen a girl as beautiful as you.”
When she saw Maria smile and
blush, an evil look crossed the face of the
witch.
She was jealous of the attention the
handsome young man was paying to the
beautiful young girl.
When the hunter explained that he
was the son of the king, the witch’s jealousy knew no bounds. Then this young
man, who was indeed a prince, was so
bold as to propose marriage to Maria.
Zelda left in a huff, racing off to her hideout where she schemed and plotted what
she would do to them.
In the meantime, Ripete was beside
BOSTONIANO
herself. The voice of Zelda, just a few
feet away was terrifying enough, and
what she saw in the larder was scarier
still. For these humans had dried innocent fish and hung the preserved legs of
poor pigs up in this place! Why, thought
the toad, couldn’t they just eat insects
like everyone else?
Forgetting her responsibility to
Queen Ripete, Maria instantly accepted
the marriage proposal of the prince, running off with him to the palace so that
she might be presented to the king. Poor
Ripete had to wait in the larder until the
woodcutter discovered her.
When the wedding date was set, it
was announced all over the kingdom and
the real trouble started. Zelda, aided by
evil goblins, managed to kidnap Maria on
her way to the ceremony and imprison
her in the very place where she had held
Ripete. The witch then went screaming
and pounding at the woodcutter’s door,
causing Agostino to flee out the back in
order to hide Ripete in the woods.
This was just what Zelda had been
hoping for. Once inside the house, she
put on the wedding dress the prince had
sent for Maria, covering her hair and face
with veils so that she was unrecognizable. When the prince’s carriage pulled
up to take what he thought was his betrothed to her wedding, Zelda the witch
got in instead.
The ceremony was a wondrous affair, with no expense spared by the king,
who was happy that his son had at last
found the girl of his dreams. Or so he
thought. And when the priest got to the
part of the ceremony where Maria’s name
was uttered, she sneezed out a sound
that sounded very much like “Zelda!”
In the meantime, old Agostino carried Ripete deeper into the forest, where
she encountered her frog and toad subjects, who crowded around, happy to see
her. But their queen begged them to hide,
for she feared that Zelda was looking for
her and would follow the sound to where
the amphibians were congregating. At
last she decided on the perfect hiding
place — where the witch would never
think to look for them — the place where
the queen of the toads had been impris-
oned! Quickly, she ordered the frogs and
toads to disperse and went to the hole
where the giant radicchio had been.
When Agostino opened the door, to
their surprise, out jumped Maria! Weeping with joy, she told them about how
the witch had imprisoned her. They resolved then and there to go straight to the
palace and tell the prince what had happened.
To their amazement, a large wedding
was in progress, and there, at the altar of
the cathedral, stood the prince himself,
standing next to a heavily veiled woman
wearing Maria’s wedding dress!
At first the guards held them back,
but when the sharp-eyed prince saw
Maria, he stared hard at the woman
whose hand he was about to slip a
golden ring onto, and pulled back her
veil. To his horror, he saw that it was not
his betrothed, but the strange woman
he’d met on that same stormy day that he
first encountered Maria!
“That is Zelda, the wicked witch,”
croaked queen Ripete, loudly and clearly.
“She has usurped the place of Maria, the
prince’s intended bride!”
The priest took the cross he was
holding and touched it to the witch, who
disappeared in a cloud of the blackest
smoke, never to be seen again.
And so it was that the frogs and
toads no longer croaked all night in the
mountains of Abruzzo, but only in the
evening to praise their queen, who was
back among them. And the prince was finally able to marry the girl he’d intended
to wed from the moment they had met.
Illustration by Jean Parisi
BOSTONIANO
February 2013
21
ELECTIONS In Italy
In Italy ELECTIONS
Guaranteed
to fail
Anatomy of a
meltdown
by Nicola Orichuia
by Nicola Orichuia
When Prime Minister Mario Monti
officially announced his resignation on
Dec. 21, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano must have had a strong sense of déjà
vu. Just 13 months earlier, the same
scene had taken place at his residence,
the Quirinale Palace in downtown Rome.
But on Nov. 8, 2011, it had been
then-Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi throwing in the towel.
To understand what has happened to the Italian political
landscape since then, it’s important to go back in time to that
point.
After a remarkably durable
three-and-a-half year run, Berlusconi’s government was the equivalent of a boxer on his knees.
Countless blows had been delivered via defections since July 30,
2010, when Gianfranco Fini, cofounder of Partito della Libertà, formed
his own movement. Plagued by scandals
of every kind, the government survived,
despite a razor-thin majority, until it entered the final round.
October and November 2011 were
both devastating and humiliating: The
government lost its majority on a procedural vote on Oct. 10. Two weeks later,
Berlusconi was forced by the European
Union to sign a pledge to change Italy’s
pension system and labor laws. Asked at
a news conference if Berlusconi had reassured them, French President Nicolas
Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela
Merkel could only giggle. But the low
point was yet to come. At the G20 summit in Cannes on Nov. 4, Italy was forced
to accept monitoring from the International Monetary Fund. The country, in
other words, had lost all its credibility. It
was the knockout punch that effectively
24
ended Berlusconi’s government, which
collapsed four days later.
To avoid the ghost of early elections
at such a fragile time for the country,
President Napolitano maneuvered to get
respected economist and two-time European Commissioner Mario Monti to form
President Giorgio Napolitano
a government. Leading a cabinet of technocrats, Monti was ushered in with a
lopsided majority in Parliament, with bipartisan support from Berlusconi’s PdL
and the Partito Democratico, Italy’s second major political force at the time. The
huge majority enabled Monti to quickly
push forward a series of dramatic reforms, such as raising the retirement age
and reintroducing a real estate tax, moving Welfare Minister Elsa Fornero to tears
as she pronounced the word “sacrifice”
during a Dec. 4 news conference.
Thirteen months later, the unique
parliamentary supermajority backing
Monti caved in on Dec. 6, 2012. In a
quick turn of events, Berlusconi (who
had all but disappeared from the political scene) ordered his PdL party to withdraw support on some of the
government’s key economic plans. Two
days later, sensing a loss of trust in his
February 2013
▲ MARIO MONTI
When the Italian prime minister tendered his resignation in December, the
Italian president (below) no doubt felt
he was reliving a bad dream from just
over a year ago.
government (but not asking for a vote of
confidence in Parliament), Monti let
President Napolitano know that he
would resign. The formal resignation
took place on Dec. 21, effectively kicking
off the campaign season that will end
with the February 24-25 elections.
The political turmoil of the last two
years has effectively caused a conflagration of the Italian political landscape.
The only moderate force to remain stable
has been the Partito Democratico, which
has capitalized on the popularity of its
recent primaries. (It was the only party to
do so.) But Monti’s willingness to be
prime minister again has seen a number
of smaller centrist parties coalesce
around him instead of seeking an alliance with the PD. Unwanted in this
centrist mix is Berlusconi’s PdL, which
has been forced to run to the right of center. On the extremes, the far-right and
once-powerful Northern League, also
plagued by scandals, is skeptical of joining forces with Berlusconi, while to the
left, Antonio Di Pietro’s Italia dei Valori
has isolated itself into near-certain oblivion. A new political movement led by comedian Beppe Grillo, the MoVimento 5
Stelle, might attract a good percentage of
angry and disappointed voters.
Unless a clear victor arises from the
elections, the current fragmentation
brings with it the high risk of political instability. With a nod toward malaprop
master Yogi Berra, it looks like it may be
déjà vu over and over and over again.
BOSTONIANO
Changing a country’s electoral
process is a delicate matter, which
should be done in a spirit of inclusion.
But on Feb. 24 and 25, Italians will be
called to the ballot box to vote using a
system that was passed outrageously
quickly by the Berlusconi government in
late 2005 and
without any
support from
opposition
parties. It is
now known
as the Porcellum — the
Piglet law.
The
derogatory
moniker comes from — believe it or not
— the law’s own author, Northern
League senator and former minister,
Roberto Calderoli. Asked during a television interview what he thought about the
law he himself penned, Calderoli described it as a “porcata” — the act of a
pig. Political expert Giovanni Sartori extrapolated the law’s nickname from the
interview, giving it a Latin twist, and it
has been known as Porcellum ever since.
Even a cursory look at the new system reveals why. Voters are no longer allowed to indicate who they want to elect,
but only the party they prefer. Parties
win percentages of the seats in each
chamber based on the percentage of votes
they receive. The parties fill those seats
from lists of candidates of their own devising, giving the parties the power to decide who will and won’t represent the
people. As if that weren’t undemocratic
enough, the time-honored system of territorial representation was thrown out the
window, with candidates now being permitted to run in — and represent — any
BOSTONIANO
region, regardless of where they live.
And the madness doesn’t end there.
The winning party receives 55 percent of
the seats, regardless of their actual winning percentage in races that can include
literally dozens of parties. That calculus
is applied nationwide in the 630-seat
Chamber of Deputies, thus guaranteeing
the winning party far more power than it
actually has earned. In the Senate, the
calculus is applied regionally, creating
the exact opposite effect. Take, for example, Lombardia, a Northern League
stronghold and Italy’s most populous region, accounting for 47 of the Senate’s
315 seats. The Northern League (which
not coincidentally spearheaded the law
change) can win with only 20 percent of
the vote and still net 55 percent of the
Senate seats from that region. Multiply
that skewed result over Italy’s 20 wildly
diverse regions and you create a virtual
political war zone.
In addition to kicking democracy to
the curb, these so-called reforms effectively killed the nation’s nascent movement toward a two-party system. That
movement began with electoral reforms
in 1993 that reined in the number of
smaller parties and forced the remaining
parties to work together in coalitions.
The resulting more-or-less two-party system ushered in a period of relative politi-
February 2013
▲ ROBERTO CALDEROLI
Having authored Italy’s disastrous 2005
electoral reforms, the Northern League
stalwart has since given it a resounding
no-confidence vote.
cal stability, producing 10 government in
20 years, versus 51 governments in the
previous 47. With the chaos created in
the Senate by the new system, the bad
olden days are back with a vengeance.
The only positive change wrought by
the new law was the introduction of the
vote abroad, which legally acknowledged
Italian citizens living outside Italy’s borders. The Center-Right opened that door
with the expectation those votes would
lend to their victory in the upcoming
election. But that door was slammed shut
in the Center-Right’s face when Prodi’s
Center-Left L’Unione party eked out a
narrow victory on the strength of the vote
abroad.
Various attempts have been made to
restore Italy’s electoral sanity in recent
years. A group of senators led by Renato
Turano made a push to revert back to the
old system, with some improvements. A
referendum had been called for in May
2008, but due to the sudden collapse of
the Prodi government that spring, the
vote was postponed to June 21, 2009.
Nothing came of the referendum, as it
was boycotted by the ruling parties. The
Monti government considered changing
the law, but the current political crisis
ended the impetus.
Whichever party emerges victorious
on Feb. 25, job number one had better be
real and lasting electoral reform. Otherwise, the nation is destined to backslide
into the pigsty of political instability that
dominated the second half of the 20th
century.
25
ELECTIONS Italy Abroad
Italy Abroad ELECTIONS
Stemming
the tide
A dream
by Renato Turano
by Nicola Orichuia
The Italian elections are right around
the corner, and I find myself taking part
in them for the first time as an emigrant.
Being abroad has had a twofold effect on
my perception of the country’s constant
state of political turmoil. First, I’m far
less interested in the theatrics of the
whole thing, in which politicians continually jab at each other and use
the media to send subliminal
messages only they can understand. And at this great distance, I can hear far more
clearly what politicians have to
say about the future of Italy, especially when it comes to policies promoting a fairer and
more open job market for the
younger generations. It would
be nice to hear at least one proposal capable of stemming the
economic tide that has driven
so many of us so far away from
what we cherish most: our
homes.
The silence from politicians
has been deafening, but there’s actually a
lot to be said. The notorious “brain
drain” that Italy is experiencing isn’t just
a superficial way of dismissing a recent
trend. It’s actually the best way to describe what I call the third wave of emigration from Italy. All three waves have
come at times of economic crisis. The
first wave, between 1886 and 1920, saw
more than 12 million Italians flee a primitive and poverty-stricken nation. The
second came during the destruction and
desolation that World War II left behind.
The third wave is a modern one —
smaller in numbers, but made up mostly
of young professionals who are eager to
prove themselves, yet are unable to do so
in the land of their birth.
28
to Chicago, our lives packed in two suitcases. That year alone, 6,552 young Italians with college degrees left the country.
That makes for almost $852 million in
human capital that was washed from our
shores.
Reviewing these numbers, one has to
wonder where Italian politicians have
been all these years. Labor
and Social Politics Minister
Elsa Fornero used the English
word “choosy” to describe
the younger generation’s take
on work. In so doing, she revealed a complete disconnect
between today’s political
class and the future of the
country. According to a recent study made by the independent research group
DataGiovani, 355,000 young
Italians found their first employment during the first semester of 2012. That’s 80,000
Italian researchers and students at MIT less than those who registered in the same period five
years earlier. And the quality of the job
That’s an average of 30,000 a year, which
market is equally disconcerting. Many
doubles when you consider that at least
companies are relying on down-and-dirty
one in every two expatriates does not
internal turnovers, using short-term conregister with AIRE. Adding salt to the
tracts and internships as an excuse to
wound, Confimprese Italia, a national orhire as few young Italian adults full time
ganization representing small- and
medium-sized businesses. calculated that as possible. All the proposed solutions
brought to the table so far have either
70 percent of today’s emigrants have at
been half-baked, undernourished or comleast a college degree.
pletely starved-out.
All of this comes with a high price
It’s no small wonder that so many
tag. The Sole 24 Ore article estimated the
cost to educate an Italian student from el- talented young Italians will be casting
their votes from abroad this year. And if
ementary school all the way through colthe government has any hope of reverslege is roughly $130,000. Multiply that
ing the brain drain and bringing them
by the number of college graduates who
back home, they had better start paying
leave Italy, and the sum is staggering.
heed to what the next generation has to
Take 2008, for example, the year my wife
say.
and I bought a one-way ticket from Rome
The loss of human capital has been
devastating to Italy. In December 2010,
the economic newspaper Sole 24 used
two figures to put the “brain drain” into
perspective. From AIRE, the official registry of Italians living abroad, came the
bad news that 316,572 young Italians had
left the country between 2000 and 2010.
February 2013
BOSTONIANO
Italian citizens living abroad will
play a pivotal role in the upcoming elections in Italy. Our vote had a major impact on the balance of power in 2006 and
2008, and it promises to do so again. And
although only six senators and 12
deputies are elected outside of Italy, we
can make a huge difference in the way
the Italian government views and treats
us, as long as we speak with one voice.
While we share a common ancestry with our counterparts in Italy, make
no mistake about it: We live in very different worlds, and we have a very different agenda. While the new
government grapples with domestic issues like inflation, unemployment, a
crumbling infrastructure and the economic impact of an aging population, it
also must begin to address the needs of
the millions of its citizens who live
around the globe.
Topping the agenda is citizenship for
all who deserve it. Individuals who were
born in Italy have the right to be counted
as citizens, but many had to renounce
their citizenship when they moved
abroad. It is crucial this fundamental
right be restored to them. We also need to
guarantee health care assistance to elderly Italians who want to visit or reunite
with family members living abroad. After
all, they faithfully paid their taxes
throughout their lives, which qualifies
them for coverage of their medical needs.
Those services cannot be denied to them
simply because they’re living in another
country.
Teaching the Italian language to our
younger generations is another issue of
paramount importance. By learning the
language of their ancestors, our children
and grandchildren can better understand
who they are while maintaining closer
BOSTONIANO
deferred
ties to their heritage. Language education
is one of the most important tools we
have in our never-ending effort to keep
our culture alive. That effort begins at
home, of course, but it must be reinforced through readily available classes
both in our schools and
through our organizations. The
Italian government can play a
key role by financially supporting these language programs, as well as teacher
education and curriculum development.
And the opportunities for cultural
enrichment on the academic front must
not end there. Many college-level students in Italy yearn to study in the
United States, and the number of ItalianAmerican students who want to study in
Italy is constantly on the rise. The Italian
government can play an important part
in fostering and facilitating these exchanges. We also need to broaden our
reach beyond traditional realms of higher
education, promoting exchanges among
professional and trade schools and other
institutions of learning.
Promoting the image of Italy in
America will be extremely important
during the 2013 Year of Italian Culture in
the United States. Consular offices are at
February 2013
the center of these promotional efforts,
but they are constantly being hampered
by funding cuts. The first step is to stabilize and even increase funding to the
consular offices, but that has to work
hand-in-hand with restructuring the system so it operates more efficiently. This
can be accomplished by combining offices and functions, increasing cooperation among the remaining offices, and
hiring more personnel locally,
rather than sending
them from Italy
and transferring
them wholesale
every four years.
The abysmal
state of the Italian
electoral system negatively impacts every
Italian citizen, regardless of where they live.
At present, Italians can
vote only for parties, not
for candidates; candidates can run in multiple
regions, then pick which
region they want to represent if they
win; and parties can form with virtually
no support from the voters. To mend this
badly broken system, we need to allow
voters to elect candidates directly, force
candidates to run only in the district in
which they live and require parties to receive at least 4 percent of the vote worldwide to win a seat in parliament.
I vigorously advocated for all of the
above agenda items during my tenure as
senator from 2006 to 2008, and virtually
no progress has been made in the intervening years. Luckily, a new year and
new elections bring new hope that the
voice of Italians living abroad will finally be heard.
29
FEATURES History
The
first
superpower
by Lucyann Murray
As Italians, most of us have yearned
to walk among the crumbling ruins of
Rome, to touch the ancient soil that
yielded our ancestors, to marvel at the
structures still standing, such as the great
Colosseum, that hulking symbol of the
Eternal City where too much blood was
shed. Rome never fails to draw us in,
back to a time and place far removed
from our own reality.
This month, I start
a series that will explore the captivating
world of Ancient
Rome. Bostoniano will
publish several articles
a year over the next
few years. This first article will serve as an
introduction and explore why the tale of
Ancient Rome is so
pertinent to who we
are today. It is not
overstating the case to
say Rome has had a
profound effect on the
shape of the modern
world.
Around 14 A.D., the Greek scholar
Strabo wrote that the known world was
divided into two parts. The better part
was the Roman world, ordered and prosperous. The rest of the world, he said,
was occupied by uncivilized barbarians.
Today, Rome continues to stand out in
our minds as an awe-inspiring monument to stability and size. The vast empire left a lasting impression on the
world’s psyche. People of enormous cultural differences on three continents gave
allegiance to one political system, and it
endured for a millennium and a half.
BOSTONIANO
Rome’s rise to power and world dominion is not a tale that can be told in a
2,000-word article. As the saying goes,
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.” It took
1,500 years for Rome to develop, flourish
and then dissolve. Acquiring the empire
was not a peaceful or quick endeavor. In
the process, Rome evolved from a huddle
of huts on a hill to a monarchy, to a republic based on oligarchy and democ-
racy, and then back to monarchical rule
by emperors.
From the obscurity of a little community on the Tiber River, with enemies
only a few kilometers away, grew a vast
empire that would dominate and control
most of the known world. The empire
would ultimately include all of continental Europe west of the Rhine and south of
the Danube, most of Asia west of the Euphrates, northern Africa and the islands
of the Mediterranean. An impressive accomplishment!
The saga of Ancient Rome has no
February 2013
▲ CAPUT MUNDI
From the obscurity of a little community
on the Tiber River grew a vast empire
that would dominate and control most
of the known world.
parallel in history. Titillating
blockbuster movies and television series have extolled the
glory that was Rome. More
than a few have been made
featuring legions of soldiers
bent on conquest, tyranny,
lust and power. Films have
dealt with crazed emperors
like Caligula and Nero, cloakand-dagger murders, orgiastic
revelry and brutal gladiatorial
games. Fantasy constructions,
from Caesar’s Palace in Las
Vegas to fraternity toga parties, prove the idea of Rome is
constantly being revived in
the hearts and minds of people so many centuries after
the demise of the great society. Rome, in
short, fascinates us!
More important, though less sensational, are the endless lists of legacies
Rome left to the world. We owe Rome a
huge cultural debt for its contributions in
so many fields such as art, architecture,
engineering, language, literature, law and
religion.
One of Rome’s greatest legacies is its
spirit of universality — its desire to incorporate all humanity within its family.
From early in its history, Rome extended
Continues on page 32 …
31
FEATURES History
… continued from page 31 …
citizenship to those it conquered. By
these acts, it ensured the new groups
would fall under Roman rule, and the
empire would be populated by people of
a multitude of cultures and religions.
The poet Namatianus wrote in 420 B.C.:
its receptiveness to all religions of the
world. The temple of Isis, for instance,
was built of Egyptian material to house
the Hellenized cult of the Egyptian deity.
The United Nations, the United States of
America and the newly formed European
Union reflect the influence Rome’s ideas
of universality had on cultures that
would arise later.
Ancient Rome also left the world a
legacy of language: Latin. For more than
a thousand years after the empire collapsed, educated men wrote in Latin. It
was essential to anyone seeking a formal
education and still is used in law and the
biological sciences. The romance languages of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
French and Romanian have their roots in
Latin. It’s estimated that half to twothirds of our own English words originate from the Romans’ native tongue.
Our American motto, “E Pluribu Unum,”
is Latin. It is, in short, the foundation of
modern languages spoken by hundreds
of millions of people.
The 26-letter alphabet and the 12month, 365-day calendar are
two more examples of the
“You created one homeland
For the differing peoples
Those without justice
Benefited from your rule
By allowing the vanquished
To share in your own laws
You made a city
Out of what was once a world”
This particular legacy is nowhere
more evident than in America. At the
base of our own Statue of Liberty are inscribed Emma Lazarus’ words: “… give
me your tired, your poor, your huddled
masses …” Our Italian ancestors were
among those “masses” yearning for a better life in a free society.
As in America, where freedom of religion is evident in many sects, Roman
temples and architectural style reflected
32
gifts Rome left Western society, but perhaps the greatest bequests Rome gave to
us were its administrative institutions.
The framework of Western political life
has its roots in Rome. Rome replaced anarchy with law and order, and went
on to rule its world with a unified
legal system, despite the wide
disparity of cultures and religions of the people it ruled.
The seeds of democracy were
sown in Roman law and political theory. In fact, Roman law
and English common law are the
foundation of jurisprudence for
most Western nations. From Rome,
we also inherited the concepts of separation of governmental powers, sovereignty
of the people and social contract.
Little bits of Roman influence surround us. The United States emblem, the
eagle, is modeled after that of the Roman
deity Jupiter. Our American Senate is the
Roman name for a Roman institution.
The Jefferson Memorial in Washington,
D.C., mimics the Pantheon in Rome, a
Continues on page 34 …
BOSTONIANO
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33
FEATURES History
… continued from page 33 …
political as well as architectural salute
from the new to the ancient world. The
beautiful Pennsylvania Railroad Station
in New York City (now demolished) was
a recreation of the baths of Caracalla in
Rome, built 1,700 years prior. The Capitol Building and Supreme Court are
Roman models. Their coinage served as a
model for ours.
In addition, many of the
Roman building styles that we
chose to emulate would not
have been possible had the
Romans not invented concrete. Many technological advances achieved by the
Romans went unmatched
until the 19th century. They
built aqueducts, bridges and
roads. At its greatest output,
the Roman network of roads
spread like webs across the
empire, extending approximately 53,000 miles. Amazingly detailed triumphal
arches were constructed to
honor the general in “tri-
34
umph” who had destroyed at least 5,000
of the enemy. When Rome put down the
slave revolt led by Spartacus, 6,000 of his
soldiers were crucified. The crosses
stretched for miles along the Appian
Way, the mother of Roman roads that led
from Rome to Apulia in the south.
Rome built remarkable sanitation
systems. The Roman Cloaca Maxima is
February 2013
one of the world’s earliest sewage systems, and the much-talked-about Roman
baths give homage to the fact that they
were a highly civilized people. There
was an old Roman proverb that described
an ignorant man as being a person who
didn’t know how to read or swim!
It is true the Romans were more
practical than they were innovative.
They borrowed heavily from
other cultures such as the
Greeks, Etruscans, Egyptians
and the peoples of the Fertile
Crescent. They “adapted”
what they “adopted” and then
spread it throughout their
conquered worlds, bringing
Hellenistic civilization wherever they went. This would
form the skeletal structure of
modern Western culture. Caesar’s conquest of Gaul produced the civilization of
France, and as a result of the
culture brought to it, is considered one of the most important conquests in history.
BOSTONIANO
What would the world be today — what
form would Western Civilization have
taken — had it not been for Rome?
Rome’s footprints are everywhere.
Another inheritor of things Roman is
the Roman Catholic Church. The canon
law of the Catholic Church borrowed
from principles of the Roman
system of law. Until Vatican II,
all services were held in Latin.
The Church’s nucleus still lies
within Rome’s Vatican with a
pope as head of a line that dates
back almost 2,000 years to St.
Peter, the first pontiff. The official language of the Vatican is
Ecclesiastical Latin. Since Latin
is a “dead language,” words are
less likely to change over the
centuries. This helps safeguard
the orthodoxy of the Church.
The term “Pontifex Maximus”
was the name of the most important position held by a Roman in
the ancient pagan religion, and
was once held by Julius Caesar.
Today, the Roman Catholic pope
BOSTONIANO
February 2013
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still carries the title, though it is translated into the term “Supreme Pontiff.”
Since Rome wasn’t built in a day and
a 2,000-word article will never suffice, it
will be an ambitious undertaking to
make Rome live again in the pages of
Bostoniano, one that I hope will prove
[email protected]
interesting and informative. I’ll start with
fact and myth about Rome’s beginning
those many years ago on the banks of the
Tiber River in an Italy populated by
tribal cultures and take it through Rome’s
demise. Did Rome fall or did it merely
evolve into something different? Are
there lessons we can learn for
our own civilization in 2012?
I’ll delve into topics such as
Rome’s military history of world
domination. I’ll explore its institutions, religions, educational
system, arts, technology and the
interesting personalities that
played a part in its development. I’ll also touch on the topics that have always titillated
us, such as the spectacle of the
gladiatorial games and the exploration of Roman social life.
An old Roman inscription announces: “The bath, wine and
love ruin one’s health but make
life worth living.” Alas, the Romans did know how to live.
Stay tuned.
35
Ciao Italia™ with Mary Ann Esposito
CUISINE
To
market,
To market…
by Mary Ann Esposito
Live and eat like the Italians. That is
my advice to anyone contemplating a
trip to Italy. Whenever I am there, I enjoy
doing the daily things that Italians do,
like shopping for local ingredients and
cooking a meal. I try to find out what is
going on in the area where
I am staying so that I can
have as meaningful an experience as possible. I
stopped staying in hotels
long ago and decided that
renting a place was not
only cheaper, it immediately made me feel right at
home and gave me the
freedom to really experience Italy away from the
often staid environment of
a hotel.
One of my fondest
memories is shopping on
market day in the town of
Camucia near Cortona in
eastern Tuscany. Camucia’s
outdoor market is similar to many found
throughout Italy, and in fact many of the
vendors travel with their goods from
town to town. Every town has a designated market day, and Thursday was the
big shopping day in Camucia. I had
heard the local people talking in a bar
about getting to the market early so they
could be first in line to buy panini (sandwiches) stacked with thin slices of spitroasted pork known as porchetta.
As I came to find out, porchetta is
the most popular item at the market. I decided to be there early, too. The vendors
have a unique system for setting up shop
36
with their portable stores on wheels that
seem to unfold with no effort. Husbandand-wife teams and whole families steer
you toward their goods as their singsong
voices resonate above the crowd. Early
on a sunny morning, people have begun
to mingle among the vendors after their
cappuccino at a nearby bar. The biggest
decisions they will make this morning
are what to eat for a merenda (snack) and
what to buy for cena (supper).
Because market day is the main
event of the week, it evokes a carnivallike atmosphere. Just the anticipation of
what will be offered is enough to pique
everyone’s curiosity, and it is an occasion to see old friends and catch up on
all the news. On benches nearby, elderly
women and gentlemen, who are in no
hurry, watch the scene unfold. Smartly
dressed women in short skirts and high
February 2013
heels with pretty-colored scarves at their
necks push baby strollers with children
who are so perfectly dressed they could
easily be on the runway of an Italian
fashion show. The men, in dark sunglasses, and many with telefonini (cell
phones) glued to their ears,
are more interested in the
women passing by than the
price of fruits and vegetables.
A large line begins
forming near the porchetta
truck, and the air around it
is thick with the smell of
rosemary and other spices.
Resting on the counter like
a golden calf is a whole pig
with sprigs of rosemary
stuck in its ears and a
whole lemon in its mouth.
Its skin is so shiny and uniformly tanned that I think
to myself any lifeguard
would be envious.
The skin is crackling, the meat is
lean, and it is cut into thin slices and layered on good, salt-less Tuscan bread.
Customers wave their hands like rock
concert fans waiting to gobble up precious tickets, vying to be next to shout
out their orders. As soon as the sandwiches are made, they are snatched up
and devoured on the spot. I buy one, too;
it is succulent and flavorful, and worth
standing in line for. This same scene will
be played out on every subsequent
Thursday as long as there is a market day
in Camucia.
Viva la porchetta!
BOSTONIANO
Land
of
Sun& Sea
CUISINE Recipes
by Dolores Sennebogen
When poet Gabriele D’Annunzio
viewed the stretch of Calabrian coast
that faces Sicily on the Strait of Messina
he declared it “il più bel chilometro d’Italia,” the loveliest kilometer of Italy.
Tourists have only recently discovered
Calabria’s miles of clean coastline, encircled by the Ionian Sea on the east and
the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west. The region that forms the toe of Italy’s boot is
still unspoiled by crowds and fast food
chains, yet offers miles of beaches and a
rugged mountainous interior, snow
capped until mid-May. Tourism has
lagged because until 40 years ago Calabria was among the poorest regions of
Italy. Although their fortunes are improving, home cooks cling to their culinary roots, serving uncomplicated yet
uncompromising dishes typical of meals
their great-grandparents ate. There is a
near-reverence for pasta and vegetables,
often combined in hearty ways. Eggplant,
sweet peppers, artichokes, and zucchini
are popular, as are olive oil, fresh and
cured pork, and cheeses such as Caciocavallo Silano and Pecorino Crotonese.
In coastal towns, swordfish, sardines and
cod are plentiful. Desserts often feature
almonds, figs, and citrus fruit, especially
prized bergametti or bergamot oranges.
The smooth peel of these intensely
scented oranges are candied for use in
pastries, and the oil is used worldwide in
teas, liqueurs and cosmetics. But perhaps
the most ubiquitous culinary treasure in
Calabria is their beloved fire-red peperoncini that are seen strung up to dry on
almost every balcony and terrace. The
peperoncino, celebrated with its own fall
festival, can be considered the unofficial
symbol of Calabrian cuisine.
BOSTONIANO
MILLECOSEDDE
DALLA CALABRIA
(Calabrian Pasta and Bean Soup)
Drain, rinse under cold water, and chop.
Combine the beans with the mushrooms, cabbage, onion and celery in a
heavy 6-quart soup pot. Add 12 cups
cold water, stir to combine, and place
over medium-high heat. When the water
begins to boil, lower the heat and simmer gently, uncovered, for about 1-1/2
hours, until all the beans are tender. Stir
in the oil and season with the red pepper
and salt to taste. Add the pasta and continue cooking for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Cover
and let stand about 10 minutes, allowing
the flavors to combine. Serve with grated
Pecorino cheese.
— adapted from Judith Barrett
“Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy”
PEPERONATA
(Braised Peppers with Tomato & Onions)
1/4 cup small brown lentils
2/3 cup chickpeas
1/3 cup dried cannellini or
Great Northern beans
1/3 cup dried, split skinned fava beans
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
4 cups finely shredded Savoy cabbage
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 rib celery, finely chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Salt to taste
1 pound dried spaghetti,
broken into small pieces
Grated cheese
Soak all the beans together in cold
water for 8 hours or longer. Discard the
soaking water. Rinse under cold water
and drain again. Soak the mushrooms in
2 cups warm water for about 30 minutes.
February 2013
1 pound plum tomatoes (about 8 med.)
2 green peppers
2 yellow peppers
1 large sweet onion
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, cut in half
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
Black pepper or red pepper flakes to taste
4 large fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
Peel the tomatoes by plunging them
into boiling water for 10 seconds. The
skins will peel off easily. Cut them each
in half and remove the seeds with a teaspoon. If you work with a sieve over a
bowl you can collect the juice in the
bowl. Press the pulp in the sieve with
back of a spoon to extract more of the
juice. Coarsely chop the tomatoes and set
Continues on page 38 …
37
CUISINE Recipes
… continued from page 37 …
aside.
Wash the peppers and halve them.
Discard the core and seeds. Slice the
peppers into strips 3/4-inch to 1-inch
thick. Slice the onion into 1/4-inch
slices.
Heat the olive oil in a skillet and add
the garlic. Cook just until it begins to
take on color and then discard it. Add
the onions to the oil and cook gently
until they start to soften, about 8 minutes. Add the peppers, season lightly
with half the salt, cover and cook over
very low heat for 15 minutes. Add the
chopped tomatoes and the accumulated
juices. Season with the remaining salt,
the pepper and basil and stir well. Return to a boil, then reduce the heat to
lowest setting and cook until the peppers
and tomatoes are soft (20 to 30 minutes).
Taste to correct seasonings and serve
warm or at room temperature.
— Dolores Sennebogen
SAGNE CHINE
(Calabrian Lasagne)
1 pound lasagne
4-5 cups homemade marinara sauce
Meatballs (recipe follows)
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
Olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 (10-ounce) package frozen
artichoke hearts, partially thawed
1 (10-ounce) package frozen baby peas,
partially thawed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground
black pepper
3 hard-cooked eggs, thinly sliced
12 ounces fresh mozzarella, shredded
1/2 cup grated Pecorino cheese
To save time when assembling this
dish, you may make the sauce and meatballs a day or two ahead of time. For the
38
meatballs, prepare the recipe below but
form the mixture into dozens of tiny 1/2inch meatballs. They should be the size
of small marbles. Sauté them in a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high
heat. Turn frequently until
lightly browned on all sides.
Soak the porcini mushrooms
in warm water for 25 minutes.
Drain, rinse, and place on paper
towels. In a skillet sauté the
chopped onions in a small
amount of olive oil until translucent. Slice the mushrooms thinly
and stir them into the onions.
Thinly slice the artichoke hearts
and add them to the skillet along with
the peas, salt and pepper. Sauté until the
vegetables are tender but not mushy. Remove the skillet from the heat.
To cook the lasagne noodles, bring a
very large pot of water to a boil over high
heat. Add salt to taste and 2 tablespoons
of olive oil. Add the pasta, stirring constantly until just under al dente. Have a
large bowl of cold water nearby with 2
tablespoons of olive oil mixed in. Remove the cooked pasta and plunge into
the cold water to prevent further cooking
and sticking. Cook the noodles in several
batches if necessary. When ready to assemble the sagne chine, drain the noodles.
TO ASSEMBLE:
Spread a thin layer of
sauce over the bottom
of a deep 10-by-14inch baking pan.
Add a layer of
pasta, 1/3 of the
meatballs, 1/3 of
the vegetables in
the skillet, 1 sliced
egg, a thin layer of
sauce, 1/3 of the
mozzarella, and 1/4 of
the Pecorino. Continue
layering in that order, ending
with lasagne, sauce and the remaining
Pecorino. There should be four layers of
pasta. Bake uncovered in a 375-degree
oven for 50 to 60 minutes until the
cheese is lightly browned. Insert the tip
of a knife into the center to make sure the
lasagne is cooked through. Let set for 5 to
10 minutes before cutting.
— adapted from Mary Ann Amabile
Palmer, “Cucina di Calabria”
February 2013
1-1/3 cups cold water
FILLING:
1-1/4 cups dry figs, stems removed
1-1/4 cups seedless raisins
3/4 cup almonds
3/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup honey or sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 tablespoons freshly grated orange zest
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Confectioners’ sugar
1 large clove garlic, pressed
1/2 cup olive oil
4 swordfish steaks, 3/4 to 1inch thick
POLPETTE
(Meatballs)
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup grated Pecorino
or Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup water
1 clove garlic, through a press
1 tablespoon finely minced onion
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 eggs
3/4 pound ground round steak
1/4 pound ground pork
Combine the crumbs,
cheese and water. Add the
seasonings, eggs and meat.
Mix well. Divide the mixture into 12 to 14 meatballs. Brown in hot olive
oil and add to your favorite sauce recipe.
— Ann Sorrentino
“From Ann’s Kitchen”
PESCE SPADA
AL SALMORIGLIO
(Swordfish with Lemon & Garlic Sauce)
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
or red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon Italian parsley,
chopped
1/2 teaspoon each basil
and oregano
BOSTONIANO
Mix the lemon juice with the salt,
pepper, parsley, basil, oregano and garlic
until the salt has dissolved. Add the olive
oil a little at a time and whisk until well
combined. Let stand for one hour. Rinse
the swordfish and pat dry with paper
towels. Lightly brush the swordfish
steaks with some of the sauce. Grill over
coals for 5 minutes. Turn very carefully
and cook another five minutes until just
cooked through. Transfer the fish to a
serving plate, whisk the salmoriglio sauce
again and spoon a generous amount over
each serving.
— Dolores Sennebogen
PETRALI
(Calabrian Fig and Nut Cookies)
PASTRY:
4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon freshly grated orange zest
1-1/4 cups butter, softened
BOSTONIANO
PASTRY: Put most of the flour in a
large mixing bowl and add the baking
powder, sugar, salt, and orange zest. With
a pastry blender, cut in the butter. Add
the water gradually and mix until the ingredients hold together. If the pastry is
still sticky, gradually add additional
flour. Put on a lightly floured surface and
knead for 4 to 5 minutes or until the
dough is smooth. Put it in a lightly
greased bowl, turn to coat, cover and refrigerate while preparing the filling.
FILLING: In a food processor with a
metal blade, add the figs, raisins, almonds, and walnuts. Pulse until the contents are chopped into 1/4-inch pieces.
(If a food processor is not available, chop
by hand.) Transfer the mixture to a bowl
and add the honey or sugar, the orange
juice and zest, and the cinnamon. Mix
thoroughly.
Divide the dough into four parts, and
work with one piece at a time. On a
floured workspace, roll each piece of
dough into a rectangle 1/8-inch thick.
Use cookie cutters to cut 3-inch circles or
a pasty wheel to cut 3-inch squares. Put a
heaping teaspoon of filling in the center
of half of the cookies. Moisten the edges
with wet fingertips and put identically
shaped cutouts on their mates, pressing
lightly to seal. Flute the edges with the
tines of a fork. Prick the tops in a few
spots and place on ungreased cookie
sheets. Bake on the top rack of a preheated 400-degree oven for 25 minutes or
until lightly browned.
Cool on baking racks and store in airtight containers. Just before serving,
sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar.
VARIATION: Many cooks cut all of
the dough into rounds and make half-
February 2013
moon shaped cookies. You should use
slightly less filling if you do this. Some
families frost the cookies with a sugar
glaze or melted chocolate, adding sprinkles for decoration.
— adapted from Mary Amabile Palmer
“Cucina di Calabria”
▼ CHEF’S TIP ▼
BEST BEANS
Cooks probably started soaking
beans because they looked dirty,
but with today’s pre-cleaned, presorted and pre-packaged products, that is not part of our thinking.
Soaking dried beans overnight is
still recommended to help remove
some of the indigestible complex
sugars from the outer coating and
to soften them so they will cook
more quickly. This is not just a convenience. The shorter cooking time
helps retain the nutritive value
within the beans such as proteins,
vitamins and fiber.
39
COMMUNITY Highlights
■ Boston sets
■ A growing
sights on Italian
love affair with
culture center
pasta sauce
Boston is on track to have its very
own Italian cultural center by 2016. In
late December, the public charity and
nonprofit organization Friends of the
Italian Cultural Center of Boston was
launched, along with its website:
www.ficcb.it.
Working closely with the Consulate
General of Italy in Boston and with the
Italian and Italian-American community
and its many local associations, the
FICCB will work toward creating a center that serves “as a public meeting
place, similar to an Italian ‘piazza,’ open
to all those who love Italy,” according to
the website.
More than just a meeting place, the
cultural center “will organize and host
events, cultural exchanges, exhibitions,
conferences, Italian language courses,
film festivals, presentations of companies, cooking classes, fashion shows and
every initiative that will bring the community closer to Italy.”
The first fundraising event for the
Center was held at Louis Boston on June
1, 2012. Dubbed “italianissimo!” the extravaganza was co-chaired by Boston
Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Consul
General of Italy in Boston Giuseppe Pastorelli (right and left, below).
“We are here to preserve and nurture
our Italian-American heritage,” Menino
said at the event, praising Consul General Pastorelli for his support of the project. “We’re well on our way to
accomplishing our goal.”
One of the region’s top pasta sauce
producers is preparing to share the love
with a whole new client base. Monza native Paolo Volpati-Kedra is gearing up for
a spectacular 2013 for Sauces ’n Love.
“We’re projecting a 60 percent growth,”
says Volpati-Kedra, who started the company out of his own Brighton kitchen
back in 2000.
To reach that impressive goal, the
company’s founder and president recently took some dramatic steps to increase production at his Lynn-based
plant. Before Christmas, Volpati-Kedra
tore down the interior walls of the main
production room to accommodate two
new automated sauce-churning cauldrons and a bottling machine while freeing up space for a third production line
that will focus on pesto.
The increase in capacity was required to meet a growing demand from
other sauce companies to have Sauces ’n
Love handle their production. “We recently were certified to produce organic
and kosher foods, so that helps attract
even more clients,” Volpati-Kedra says.
A remake is also in the works for the
company’s two brands: Scarpetta for
durable sauces and Sauces ’n Love for refrigerated recipes.
Visit www.bostoniano.info/people
for the full interview.
BOSTONIANO
■ Starting the
year off with
a bang
On Jan. 18, the Museum of Fine Arts
in Boston unveiled the bust known as
“Capitoline Brutus,” considered to be
one of the most stunning bronze portraits
to survive from ancient Rome. The bust
is on loan from Rome’s Capitoline Museums. Dating back to the 4th and 3rd centuries, B.C., and believed to portray the
Eternal City’s first consul, Lucio Giunio
Bruto, the bust is a rare example of the
extraordinary heights attained by Rome’s
early artists.
The loan kicks off New England’s
celebration of the Year of Italian Culture
in the United States, which will continue
with at least one event per month. The
calendar was packed in January, with a
musical celebration of the 200th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth. The
Boston Symphony Orchestra, directed by
Daniele Gatti, performed Verdi’s “Requiem,” while Director Federico Cortese
led his Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra in a performance of “Rigoletto” on
Jan. 20. Future entries will include a
photo exhibit on the city of L’Aquila, a
theatrical performance of Carlo Collodi’s
“Pinocchio,” and a seminar series on
Nobel laureate Franco Modigliani.
(www.italyinus2013.org.)
February 2013
41
COMMUNITY Highlights
Highlights COMMUNITY
A five-hour train ride from Bologna
to Napoli comes to a grinding halt because of a bomb threat down the tracks
in the latest installment of Danielle Festino’s website column. It’s hotter
than peperoncini in
the train car,
Danielle and her
sister are running
out of provisions,
and Danielle is diabetic. To add insult
to inconvenience,
they’re sharing the
Danielle Festino
car with a Bolognese man in a wrinkled grey suit and
sneakers who interrupts his cell phone
conversation just long enough to crack
wise. For the rest of the story, visit
www.bostoniano.info/tradizioni.
42
Website columnist Lauren E. Forcucci devotes her
February installment to a celebration of her beloved
Juventus, and the
Boston soccer club
that shares her pasLauren Forcucci
sion. “A notable international symbol
of Italian sporting greatness, Juventus
has had an amazing year! The current
Scudetto champions, they are a club
filled with international stars and supporters globally,” Lauren writes. “In
Boston, the Juventus Club keeps the
spirit of i banconieri alive with local passion and a connection to the goings-on of
its favorite team. For the rest of the story,
visit www.bostoniano.info/calcio.
February 2013
“It came as no surprise to Lauren
Birmingham Piscitelli that public relations executives were among the most
stressed out people in the country,”
website columnist
Michele McPhee
writes. “A mover and
shaker in the cutthroat world of
Boston PR, she felt it
in her shoulders and
in the pit of her
Michele McPhee stomach. That stress
led her to seek solace in Sorrento. That
stress also helped her start her wildly
successful Cooking Vacations business.
And that business helped her meet her
anima gemella, her soul mate, who became her husband.” For the rest of the
story, visit www.bostoniano.info/businessbeat.
BOSTONIANO
Graphic designer Donald Tarallo is
the subject of Briana Palma’s most recent
website profile. An
assistant professor at
Bridgewater State
University, Tarallo
specializes in Italy’s
contributions to
graphic design and
typography from ancient Rome to modBriana Palma
ern times, and he has
showcased his findings at exhibits
throughout the Boston area. In a wideranging Q&A with Briana, he shares what
attracted him to ancient typography, the
discoveries he made while in Italy and
the inscriptions you should look for on
your next trip to Rome. For the rest of the
story, visit www.bostoniano.info/artisticamente.
BOSTONIANO
In his latest
website column,
James S. Pasto offers
a fascinating
glimpse into the
way we celebrated
our heritage more
than a century ago,
and the dismay it
James S. Pasto
provoked among
proper Bostonians. According to an article in the Feb. 4, 1885, edition of the
Boston Globe, the police felt compelled
to intervene when more than 1,000 men,
women and children, out for “as good a
time as could be had,” took to the
streets, following in procession behind
“eleven masquerading Italians” dressed
to the nines to celebrate Carnevale. For
the rest of the story, visit www.bostoniano.info/northendspirit.
February 2013
Drummer Sergio Bellotti is the subject of Stefano Salimbeni’s most recent
website profile. A fixture in the local
music scene and a full professor at the
Berklee College of Music, Bellotti recently opened the largest percussion specialty store in the
state: 247 Drums in
Winchester. Bellotti
began his musical
career in Italy, and
vividly recalls the
day he made the
leap from one side
of the Atlantic to
the other. He was
Stefano Salimbeni
performing in a
band on a cruise ship in the middle of
the ocean when he was “fired for love.”
For the rest of the story, visit www.bostoniano.info/italiani.
43
COMMUNITY Artbeat
■ FEBRUARY 21
JOHNNY D’S | Canzoniere Grecanico
Salentino | 617-776-2004 | www.johnnyds.com
WOLK GALLERY | “L’Aquila, 2010,” exhibition
of photographs by Michele Nastasi | School of Architecture and Planning, MIT (Cambridge) |
http://bit.ly/ZL8GXY
ITALIAN LANGUAGE BOOK CLUB | Promoted by AES World Languages and Cultures Institute | Location TBA | http://bit.ly/11sATbl
■ FEBRUARY 8
SANDERS THEATRE | “Venice Baroque Orchestra,” presented by Boston Early Music Festival
| 617-661-1812 | www.bemf.org
■ FEBRUARY 9
WATERTOWN SONS OF ITALY | “Carnevale,
Un Ballo in Maschera” | 617-489-5234 | www.osiama.org
■ JANUARY 29-FEBRUARY 10
■ FEBRUARY 13
EMERSON COLLEGE PARAMOUNT CENTER |
Carlo Goldoni’s “The Servant of Two Masters” |
www.artsemerson.org
BERKLEE PERFORMANCE CENTER | Mark
Shilasky and Friends, featuring the Giovanni
Moltoni Quartet | 617-266-1400 |
www.berklee.edu/events
■ FEBRUARY 1
SCULLERS JAZZ CLUB | Grammy-nominated
jazz singer Roberta Gambarini | 617-562-4111 |
www.scullersjazz.com
■ FEBRUARY 3
BOSTON BAROQUE | A trio sonata of Arcangelo Corelli, along with Couperin’s “Apotheosis of
Lully” and Elliott Carter’s “Sonata for flute, oboe,
cello and harpsichord” | Edward Pickman Concert
Hall at the Longy School of Music of Bard College
| 617-876-0956 | www.longy.edu
■ FEBRUARY 5
44
BOSTON OPERA HOUSE | Tony Bennett in
concert | 617-259-3400 | www.bostonoperahouse.com
■ FEBRUARY 16-17
BOSTON WINE EXPO | New England’s largest
consumer and trade wine event | 877-946-3976 |
www.wine-expos.com
IL GRUPPO FOLCLORISTICO RICORDI D’ITALIA | 35th annual Carnevale Dinner-Dance
with regional Italian folk song and dance | American Legion Post #440 (Newton) | 781-606-2446
■ FEBRUARY 24
SOCIETÀ SAN DOMENICO PROTETTORE DI
AUGUSTA | La Giornata Internazionale della
Donna | Spinelli’s in Lynnfield | 781-289-6323
■ FEBRUARY 25
■ THROUGH FEBRUARY 25
PANOPTICON GALLERY | “A View From the
Top: Bradford Washburn and Vittorio Sella” photography exhibit | 617-267-8929 | www.panopticongallery.com
AGELESS CHARMER
■ FEBRUARY 26
JACK QUARTET | Featuring works by Salvatore Sciarrino and Georg Friedrich Haas | Tsai
Performance Center, Boston University | 617353-2000 | www.bu.edu
■ THROUGH MAY 1
■ FEBRUARY 18
IEPPE SEMINAR | Interdisciplinary seminar
by Carlo Cottarelli titled “International Economic
Policy and Political Economy” | Stokes Hall,
Boston College | 617-552-8000 |
http://bit.ly/ZWJhPT
February 2013
TARANTELLA REINVENTED
Italy’s leading ensemble on the world music circuit, Canzoniere
Grecanico Salentino will bring their blend of traditional and modern regional music back to the Boston area with a Feb. 7 show at
Johnny D’s in Somerville. Hailing from the Puglia region, the
seven-piece troupe of musicians and dancers are at the forefront of
a new wave of young performers re-inventing Southern Italy’s
Pizzica Taranta traditions. 617-776-2004 | www.johnnyds.com
BOSTON COLLEGE | Public reading of the
Divine Comedy, Paradiso 31 | 617-552-8000 |
http://bit.ly/13qKT4k
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | Capitoline Brutus,
on loan from Rome’s Capitoline Museums as part
of the Year of Italian Culture in the United States
| 617-267-9300 | www.mfa.org
One of America’s foremost song stylists, Tony Bennett promises to deliver a romantic evening of music during his Feb. 14 show at the
Boston Opera House. Launching his career in the late 1930s and continuing to charm audiences well into the 21st century, the beloved 86year-old crooner will showcase some of his biggest hits.
617-259-3400 | www.bostonoperahouse.com
■
▼
CIRCOLO ITALIANO | Lecture by Matteo
Casini titled “Giovani in Festa nell’Italia del Rinascimento” | www.circoloitaliano.org
■ FEBRUARY 14
■ FEBRUARY 23
Two-time Grammy-nominated jazz singer Roberta Gambarini will
bring her sensuous style and powerful vocals back to Boston’s
Scullers Jazz Club on Feb. 1. Born in Turin into a family of passionate
jazz listeners and currently living and working in New York, Gambarini has been hailed as the true successor of Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah
Vaughan and Carmen McRae. 617-562-4111 | www.scullersjazz.com
▼
Bostoniano is proud to list any special
event that is open to the public and either sponsored by Italian-American organizations, businesses or individuals, or
dedicated to exploring the Italian or Italian-American experience. Please e-mail
the date, sponsor, name and nature of
your event, plus contact information, to
[email protected] no later than the
first of the month prior to the month of
publication.
KEEPER OF THE FLAME
■ FEBRUARY 7
▼
■ LIST YOUR EVENT
▼
COMMUNITY
VIEW FROM THE TOP
One of outdoor photography’s pioneers, Vittorio Sella will be celebrated
alongside colleague Bradford Washburn at the Panopticon Gallery
through Feb. 25. Originally from Biella, Italy, Sella began his photographic journey in 1879 while climbing the nearby Alps. With an 11-by14 large-format field camera in tow, he captured stunning views of the
mountains on wet-plate collodion glass negatives. 617-267-8929 |
www.panopticongallery.com
BOSTONIANO
BAROQUE MASTERS
▼
Calendar
The Venice Baroque Orchestra makes a triumphant return to Boston on February 8 with
a program showcasing Vivaldi concertos that
feature dynamic interplay between soloist and
ensemble, with additional works by Italian
master composers Albinoni, Geminiani and
Veracini. Founded in 1997 by Baroque scholar
and harpsichordist Andrea Marcon, the Venice
Baroque Orchestra is “one of the world’s most
adventurous and dramatic period instrument
ensembles,” according to NPR.
617-661-1812 | www.bemf.org
BOSTONIANO
February 2013
45
ELEZIONI In Italia
In Italia ELEZIONI
Fallimento
Storia di un
garantito
collasso
di Nicola Orichuia
Lo scorso 21 dicembre, quando il
ibilità. È di fatto il colpo da KO che
Presidente del Consiglio Mario Monti ha
stende il governo Berlusconi, collassato
dato le sue dimissioni, il Presidente della
quattro giorni dopo.
Repubblica deve aver vissuto un forte
Per evitare lo spettro delle elezioni
senso di déjà vu. La stessa scena si era
anticipate in un periodo così economicapresentata soltanto 13 mesi prima al
mente e politicamente delicato per l’IQuirinale. L’8 novembre 2011, però, era
talia, il Presidente della Repubblica
stato Silvio Berlusconi a rassegnare le
Giorgio Napolitano coordina una trandimissioni.
sizione pacifica, affidando al rispettato
Per capire cosa è successo al
economista e due volte commissario eupanorama politico da allora, è
fondamentale partire proprio da
quest’ultimo episodio.
Dopo tre anni e mezzo di legislatura, il governo Berlusconi è
l’equivalente di un pugile alle
corde. Numerosi colpi sono stati
inferti a partire dal 30 luglio 2010,
quando il Presidente della Camera dei Deputati e co-fondatore
del Partito della Libertà, Gianfranco Fini, decide di formare un
suo movimento indipendente. AfIl Presidente della Repubblica Giorgio Napolitano
flitto da scandali di ogni sorta, il
governo resiste comunque grazie ad una
ropeo Mario Monti l’incarico di formare
risicata maggioranza. Almeno finché non
un nuovo governo. A capo di un governo
si è entra nel round finale.
composto di tecnici, Monti ottiene i voti
Ottobre e novembre 2011 sono mesi
dei più grandi partiti, avviando i lavori
devastanti ed umilianti. Prima il governo
con una netta maggioranza parlamentare,
è sconfitto in Parlamento su un voto proche di fatto gli permette di passare ricedurale il 10 ottobre. Due settimane
forme drastiche, come quella del sistema
dopo, Berlusconi è forzato dall’Unione
pensionistico e reintroducendo l’imposta
Europea a firmare un patto per cambiare
municipale sulla prima casa. Mosse che
il sistema pensionistico e per rendere più
addirittura portano alle lacrime il minflessibile il mercato del lavoro. Alla doistro per il Lavoro e per le Politiche Somanda se Berlusconi abbia rassicurato i
ciali, Elsa Fornero.
suoi partner europei, il presidente
Tredici mesi dopo il suo insediafrancese Nicolas Sarkozy e la cancelliera
mento, il 6 dicembre 2012, l’anomala
tedesca Agnela Merkel ridacchiano. Ma il maggioranza di Monti collassa anch’essa.
peggio non è ancora arrivato. Al vertice
In un turbine di eventi, Berlusconi (che
G20 di Cannes del 4 novembre, l’Italia è
sembrava scomparso dalla scena politica)
costretta ad accettare il monitoraggio del
ordina al suo PdL di ritirare la fiducia al
Fondo Monetario Internazionale. Il
governo su alcuni disegni di legge. Due
Paese, in altre parole, ha perso ogni credgiorni Monti rimanda l’incarico a Napoli-
46
February 2013
di Nicola Orichuia
▲ MARIO MONTI
Quando il Presidente del Consiglio ha
dato le sue dimissioni a dicembre, il
Presidente Napolitano (sotto) ha rivissuto lo scenario di 13 mesi prima.
tano (senza però chiedere la fiducia in
Parlamento). Le dimissioni sono poi ufficializzate il 21 dicembre, data che di
fatto segna l’inizio della campagna elettorale che ci porterà al voto del 24 e 25
febbraio.
La confusione degli ultimi due anni
ha avuto un effetto deflagrante per
quanto riguarda lo scenario politico italiano. L’unica forza moderata che ha mantenuto una certa stabilità è stato il Partito
Democratico, che ha capitalizzato sull’onda positiva delle recenti primarie —
unico partito ad indirle. La volontà di
Monti a fare di nuovo il presidente del
Consiglio ha attratto attorno alla sua persona un numero di partiti centristi, che
fino a poco prima erano disposti ad
un’alleanza con il PD. Chi non è stato voluto in questo calderone centrista è il
PdL, forzando il partito di Berlusconi a
stare più a destra rispetto a Monti. Agli
estremi, la Lega Nord avrà vita dura a
ripetere i successi del passato a causa di
numerosi scandali, mentre la sparizione
dell’Italia dei Valori di Antonio Di Pietro
sembra quasi certa, anche qui per motivi
legati a scandali interni. Resta da vedere
come farà il MoVimento 5 Stelle del
comico Beppe Grillo, che potrebbe attrarre il voto di molti delusi.
Se non dovesse uscire un chiaro
vincitore dalle elezioni di febbraio, il rischio è di ritrovarsi con un Parlamento instabile che non farà molto per migliorare
la situazione di confusione attuale.
BOSTONIANO
Cambiare legge elettorale è una procedura delicata, che si spera possa essere
compiuta in uno spirito bipartisan. Ma il
24 e 25 febbraio gli italiani saranno chiamati alle urne per votare con un sistema
che venne approvato troppo velocemente
e senza alcun sostegno da parte dell’opposizione a fine 2005. La legge è conosciuta come Porcellum — o legge “porcata”.
A darle questo soprannome è stato lo
stesso autore della legge, il senatore ed
ex ministro della Lega Nord, Roberto
Calderoli. Durante una puntata del programma Matrix del giornalista Enrico
Mentana, Calderoli descrisse tra lo stupore generale la sua creatura come una
“porcata”. Da lì, il politologo Giovanni
Sartori benedì la nuova legge come Porcellum.
Anche uno sguardo superficiale alla
legge può aiutare a capire il perché di
tale nome. Innanzittuto, gli elettori non
sono più liberi di indicare sulle schede
elettorali i candidati preferiti, ma sono
limitati a segnare il simbolo di un partito. I partiti, a loro volta, vincono un numero di seggi in base alla percentuale di
voti ottenuti, ma i candidati vengono
eletti in base all’ordine di presentazione
nelle liste. In altre parole, i partiti possono far eleggere chi vogliono. Se si aggiunge a tutto ciò la possibilità di
candidarsi in un numero di liste illimi-
BOSTONIANO
tato, trascurando del tutto la rappresentanza territoriale, il quadro di una legge
meno democratica della precedente si fa
chiaro.
Ma non è finita qui. Il partito che
riceve più voti ottiene automaticamente
il 55 per cento dei seggi. Il calcolo viene
applicato a livello nazionale per i 630
posti della Camera dei Deputati (di cui
12 posti assegnati all’estero), garantendo
così una maggioranza assoluta al partito
vincente. Al Senato, invece, il premio di
maggioranza viene affidato a livello regionale, creando così l’effetto opposto.
Prendiamo la Lombardia come esempio.
Un partito forte sul territorio locale come
la Lega Nord potrebbe vincere la maggioranza dei 47 seggi assegnati dalla regione, e lo scenario potrebbe ripetersi in
altre regioni. Da tutto ciò può risultare
un Senato largamente frammentato.
Oltre a storcere la democraticità del
voto, la legge ha anche avuto l’effetto
negativo di sopprimere i tentativi di
creazione di un bipolarismo politico. Da
quando era stata passata la precedente riforma elettorale nel 1993, il panorama
politico italiano aveva pian piano imboccato il cammino del sistema a due
schieramenti: centro-destra e centro-sinistra. Ora, però, i partiti sembrano tornati
alla frammentarietà della Prima Repubblica.
February 2013
▲ ROBERTO CALDEROLI
Con la sua legge elettorale “porcata”,
l’ex ministro leghista ha di fatto riportato
l’instabilità nella polticia italiana.
L’unico aspetto positivo della riforma è stata l’introduzione del voto per
gli italiani all’estero. Per il centro-destra
allora al governo si prospettava una vittoria nelle circoscrizioni estere, ma il risultato delle elezioni del 2006 finì per
favorire l’Unione guidata da Romano
Prodi.
Nel corso degli anni sono stati fatti
vari tentativi per cambiare la legge. Un
gruppo di senatori guidato da Renato Turano aveva spinto per una riforma nel
2007, ma il loro proposito è stato bloccato a seguito della caduta del governo
Prodi a inizio 2008. La fine della legislatura ha anche costretto a rimandare di
un anno un referendum indetto per abrogare la legge. Il referendum si tenne
così il 21 giugno 2009, con boicottamento generale da parte dei partiti di
maggioranza e mancato raggiungimento
del quorum necessario (50% più uno)
per rendere valido il voto. Anche il governo Monti aveva promesso di cambiare
la legge elettorale, ma anche qui una crisi
ha reso nullo ogni tentativo.
Qualunque sia il partito o la coalizione che uscirà vittoriosa dalle elezioni
del 24 e 25 febbraio, il primo punto in
agenda dovrebbe essere la riforma della
legge elettorale. Altrimenti, l’Italia
rischia di scivolre all’indietro e rimanere
nel porcile dell’instabilità politica che ha
dominato il Parlamento nei primi 50
anni della storia repubblicana.
47
ELEZIONI Italia All’Estero
Italia All’Estero ELEZIONI
Arginare
la marea
Un sogno
rimandato
di Renato Turano
di Nicola Orichuia
Le elezioni parlamentari sono dietro
l’angolo, ed io mi ritrovo per la prima
volta a parteciparvi da emigrato. La lontananza ha un duplice effetto sulla mia
percezione della politica italiana, soprattutto del linguaggio usato. Mi accorgo di
non badare più tanto allo spettacolo
politico, quello fatto di batti e
ribatti, pieno di messaggi subliminali rivolti a pochi eletti.
Grazie alla distanza, metto a
fuoco ciò che i politici dicono
a proposito del futuro dell’Italia, ma soprattutto cosa
hanno in mente di fare per favorire e tutelare le generazioni più giovani. Vorrei
sentire che proposte esistono
per sviluppare le reti sociali
ed economiche del Paese, in
modo da favorire la creazione
di posti di lavoro qualficati,
all’interno di un mercato del
lavoro che sia giusto e che
rispetti coloro che vogliono farne parte. Il
silenzio che sento dall’altra parte è
spesso assordante.
Eppure ci sarebbe tanto di cui parlare. La famosa “fuga dei cervelli” non è
soltanto un modo come un altro per criticare l’Italia. È soprattutto la sintesi estrema di quella che io definisco la terza
grande ondata migratoria via dall’Italia.
Ognuna di queste si è presentata in momenti di forte crisi nel nostro Paese. La
prima, tra il 1886 ed il 1920, ha visto
oltre 12 milioni di italiani espatriare a
causa dell’estrema povertà. La seconda si
è presentata dopo la Seconda Guerra
Mondiale, da cui l’Italia era uscita a
pezzi. La terza è quella moderna — minore in termini di quantità, ma composta
per lo più di professionisti e persone
qualificate. Un flusso migratorio che
48
priva l’Italia delle energie e delle idee
necessarie per affrontare al meglio il futuro in un mondo sempre più competitivo.
I numeri parlano chiaro. Nel dicembre 2010, il Sole 24 Ore aveva usato due
dati per indicare il fenomeno della “fuga
dei cervelli”. Il primo viene dall’Anagrafe Italiani Residenti Estero (AIRE),
secondo cui “316.572 giovani non ancora
quarantenni hanno lasciato il Paese tra il
2000 e il gennaio 2010.” Una media di
circa 30mila all’anno, che diventa 60mila
se si considera una buona metà di espatriati che non si registrano all’AIRE,
nonostante l’iscrizione sia obbligatoria.
Un numero confermato da Confimprese
Italia, che nello stesso periodo aveva stimato il numero di emigrati laureati attorno al 70 percento.
Tutto ciò ha un costo, non solo in termini umani ma anche economici. Una
stima prudenziale del Sole 24 Ore, in
base a calcoli fatti su dati dell’Organizzazione per la cooperazione e lo sviluppo
economico, fissa a 130mila dollari l’investimento del Paese in un laureato. Per
February 2013
fare un esempio, l’Istituto Statistico
Nazionale ha calcolato che i 6.552 laureati partiti nel 2008 equivalgono ad un
capitale umano pari a quasi 852 milioni
di dollari. Insomma, l’Italia non solo
perde preziose risorse umane, ma spreca
anche tanti soldi.
Di fronte a questi numeri,
ci si chiede se la politica italiana sia davvero così cieca da
non vedere il problema, o se
abbia volutamente trascurato il
problema. Definire i giovani
italiani “choosy” (schizzinosi),
come ha fatto l’anno scorso il
ministro del Lavoro e delle
Politiche Sociali Elsa Fornero,
denota un totale distacco dalla
realtà che affrontano la maggior parte dei ragazzi e ragazze
italiani. Secondo un’indagine
condotta dalla società di analisi DataGiovani, nel primo semestre 2012 sono stati 355mila
i giovani italiani a trovare il loro primo
impiego. Ben 80mila in meno rispetto
allo stesso perido di cinque anni fa. Ma è
soprattutto la tipologia di lavori offerti
che rende vulnerabili le giovani generazioni. Secondo DataGiovani, oltre al
massiccio ricorso a contratti a breve termine, molte aziende e società oggi approfittano dello strumento dello stage,
che raramente ha una funzione formativa. Tutto ciò porta allo svuotamento
dell’Italia ed allo stesso tempo all’impoverimento generale — sia economico che
sociale — della nazione.
Non ci sarà da sorprendersi, dunque,
se a queste elezioni parteciperanno dall’estero molti più elettori giovani. Starà
al futuro governo lavorare affinché questi
abbiano in Italia le stesse opportunità offerte oggi all’estero.
BOSTONIANO
I cittadini italiani che risiedono all’estero avranno un ruolo fondamentale
nelle prossime elezioni. Il nostro voto
ebbe un forte impatto sull’equilibrio dei
poteri tra il 2006 ed il 2008, e tutto sembra indicare che sarà così anche questa
volta. E nonostante vengano eletti solo
sei senatori e dodici deputati fuori dall’Italia, possiamo fare la differenza
quando il governo tratta temi a noi cari.
L’importante, però, è presentarsi con
una voce sola.
Mentre condividiamo lo stesso patrimonio culturale dei nostri colleghi in
Italia, dobbiamo essere chiari: viviamo
in mondi molto diversi ed abbiamo programmi diversi. Mentre il governo italiano deve badare a numerose questioni
interne come l’inflazione, la disoccupazione, una rete infrastrutturale che
cade a pezzi e l’impatto di una popolazione sempre più anziana sull’economia, è necessario che inizi a fare
attenzione anche ai bisogni dei milioni
di cittadini italiani sparsi per il mondo.
In cima al programma deve esserci il
diritto di cittadinanza per tutti coloro
che sono nati in Italia ma che hanno
dovuto rinunciare alla cittadinanza per
un motivo o per un altro quando si sono
trasferiti. È fondamentale che questo
diritto venga ripristinato. Abbiamo anche
bisogno di garantire l’assistenza sanitaria
a tutti quegli anziani che vogliono visitare o ricongiungersi con i propri cari all’estero. Dopotutto, essi hanno pagato le
tasse come dovuto per tutta la vita ed
hanno diritto alla copertura medica.
Questi servizi non possono essergli
negati solo perché vivono in un altro
Paese.
L’insegnamento della lingua italiana
alle giovani generazioni è un altro tema
importantissimo. Imparando la lingua
BOSTONIANO
dalla propria famiglia, i nostri figli e
nipoti potranno meglio comprendere chi
sono, mantenendo forti i legami con il
proprio patrimonio culturale. Imparare la
lingua italiana è uno degli strumenti più
importanti che abbiamo per preservare e
tenere in vita la nostra cultura. È uno
sforzo che va compiuto innanzitutto tra
le mura domestiche, ma anche tramite
programmi resi disponibili nelle nostre
scuole e nelle nostre organizzazioni. Il
governo italiano può avere un ruolo chiave in questo senso, finanziando programmi d’insegnamento, la preparazione
degli insegnanti e lo sviluppo di programmi appositi.
Le opportunità di crescita culturale
non devono limitarsi alla lingua italiana.
Molti studenti universitari in Italia sognano di venire a studiare negli Stati
Uniti, mentre il numero di studenti italoamericani che vogliono studiare in Italia
è in costante crescita. Anche qui il governo italiano può fare la sua parte, promuovendo e facilitando scambi tra
istituti universitari. Dobbiamo inoltre allargare questo tipo di scambi per includere altre realtà di studi secondari, come
le scuole professionali e commerciali.
Promuovere l’immagine del nostro
February 2013
Paese sarà estremamente importante durante l’Anno della Cultura Italiana negli
Stati Uniti. Gli uffici consolari sono al
centro di questo sforzo promozionale, ma
si ritrovano a dover affrontare sempre
più tagli. Il primo passo da fare è rendere
stabili e addirittura aumentare i fondi per
la rete consolare — un’iniziativa che
però deve essere accompagnata da una
riforma del sistema di gestione del lavoro affinché diventi più efficiente.
Questo può essere ottenuto accorpando
uffici e mansioni, aumentando la collaborazione tra uffici rimanenti ed assumendo più persone sul territorio,
piuttosto che cambiare e far venire personale dall’Italia ogni quattro anni.
Infine, lo stato disastroso del sistema elettorale italiano ha avuto un
impatto negativo sui cittadini italiani,
a prescindere da dove abitano. Al momento, gli elettori italiani possono
votare solo per i partiti, non per i candidati; i candidati possono presentarsi in
multiple regioni, poi scegliere quale regione rappresentare se vincono; e i partiti
possono formarsi senza mai chiedere
conto ai cittadini. Per riparare questo sistema, dobbiamo permettere agli elettori
di scegliere direttamente i propri candidati, forzando allo stesso tempo i candidati a presentarsi in una sola regione —
quella in cui risiedono — e fare in modo
che solo quei partiti che ricevono almeno
il 4 per cento del voto globale possano
accedere al Parlamento.
Ho sostenuto fortemente queste posizioni durante il mio incarico come senatore tra il 2006 ed il 2008. Da allora non
è stato fatto nulla. Per fortuna, un nuovo
anno e nuove elezioni portano con sé
una rinnovata speranza che la voce degli
italiani all’estero possa finalmente essere
sentita.
49
Ascoli Piceno PARTING SHOTS
Towering
achievement
An aerial view of Ascoli Piceno
would lead any visitor to wonder why
the city of 100,000 has so many towers.
The 50 or so that remain are only a small
portion of the seemingly countless spires
that once stuck out like enormous needles all across this fascinating town in
Italy’s Marche region.
Surrounded on three sides by the
Apennine Mountains, Ascoli Piceno was
once a vital stop along the Via Salaria
(“Salt Road”) that connected ancient
Rome to the salt-producing areas on the
Adriatic shores. The first century B.C.
Porta Gemina (“Twin Gate”) stands today
50
as testimony to that period, although one
of the archways was occupied by a small
church for several centuries.
As with so many other Italian towns
after the collapse of the Roman Empire,
Ascoli Piceno patiently endured a steady
stream of belligerent European conquerors, all while the town’s families
waged a quiet war for power within. During Medieval times, a tower represented
wealth … and so the race was on! In the
early 13th century, the city boasted more
than 200 towers, many of which were
fully rigged military bastions prepared
for everything and anything … that is,
February 2013
by Nicola Orichuia
until the Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick
II took it upon himself to destroy 91 of
them, along with a good portion of the
town.
The towers that remain today are in
varying states of repair, with some having been used as bases for modern buildings. The most impressive are the
114-foot-tall Torre degli Ercolani, the S.
Venanzio bell tower and the 1,000-yearold twin towers in front of S. Agostino
Church. All of this can be enjoyed while
strolling through the town with a bag full
of “olive ascolane,” their famous fried
green olives stuffed with ground meat.
BOSTONIANO