Buongiorno e ciao a tutti:
We hope that all had a blessed Buona Pasqua and Passover,and that the coming together of faith, family, friends and food created wonderful memories for you and your families.
In our home we brought back an Italian tradition that goes back nearly 1600 years. In my mother’s Italy (she left in 1935 at the age of 12 and now is 83), on the Vigil of Easter (Saturday at 11 AM), this marks the end of Lent – La Quaresima è finito! Families gather for breakfast and la festa begins. We had nearly 40 family members join us.
We took this family gathering as an opportunity to highlight some traditions. My mom gave cooking instructions on how to make Pizza Rustica di Pasqua – which we enjoyed eating Easter Sunday and we had the children prepare pizza dough for Sunday evening’s collation. The children had a great time. A little messy, but the pizza seemed to taste better because the little one’s had their hands in the preparation. Genealogical charts were set up highlighting the family history and the transition to America and picture albums of family and events were displayed.
There are things in this life which are priceless. Yesterday, for us, this was one of them.
Fraternally,
Robert Necci
WORTH REPEATING
“When I was little, my mother would say to me, America is the greatest country in the world. And there was a sense, as Italian-Americans, that it was a great privilege to live in America.” ~ Francis Ford Coppola
IN THE NEWS
April 6, 2006 – Daily Herald Tribune (Anzio, Italy) - Irresistible Roma!
You’ll quickly discover why all the emperors holidayed in this gorgeous seaside resort town during the Imperial Ages. Caligula dreamed of turning this town into the capital of the Empire, instead of Rome, which is a 20-minute bullet train ride to the north. You’ll save substantially on hotels and find accommodations, such as the Villa Germaine, that you can’t find at all in Rome. Those savings will be well spent at all the wonderful shops and restaurants along the Roman sea coast. Combining a Roman sea coast vacation with a Rome trip may be the way you can appease your kids and still satisfy the adults yearning for ancient attractions. For the young ones, there’s the Zoo Marine Park - an amusement park fix for those with North American-style holiday tastes. Rome is the second most popular Italian spot for North American tourists (only to sister city Florence). Rome is irresistible. It has been said you can tour the city of Romulus and Remus for three hours, three days or three years. There is so much to see and as former tour guide and now Edmonton travel agent Mario Skrpec says, “It’s all about the tour guide, he or she brings the romance, excitement and history of this city to life for tourists with his speech.”
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/Z29_00birresistible0407.lasso
April 11, 2006 – Fresh Plaza (Rome, Italy) - Italy: Tomatoes from Two Centuries Ago
Mr. Giovannangelo Solinas is an agrarian expert who works in the Italian island of Sardinia. His passion for agriculture must be a heritage from his ancestors, because Mr. Solinas cultivates an ancient tomato, which was grown for the first time by his great-great-grandfather. This tomato, which can weigh up to one kilo, has an oval form and its pulp is so thick that if you cut it in slices, they look like beefsteaks. “The ordinary tomatoes, which you can find on the market, are watery and tasteless, Solinas says, while my tomato is very perfumed and has an excellent taste. Each year, I keep the seeds of the greatest tomatoes and I seed my field with those on the following season. Once I picked up a tomato of 1.5 kg!” An association (www.civiltacontadina.it) has recently been constituted in Sardinia, in order to defend the seeds of ancient varieties of fruit and vegetables thanks to the collaboration of growers and amateurs.
http://www.freshplaza.com/2006/11apr/3_it_tomatoes.htm
April 11, 2006 – PRNewswire (Kansas City, MO) - American Italian Pasta Company Mounts Television Advertising Campaign for Golden Grain® Pasta Brand
American Italian Pasta Company, the largest dry pasta producer in North America, is airing a television advertising campaign for its Golden Grain® brand. The campaign, the first AIPC has conducted for Golden Grain, is designed to capture the brand’s nearly 100-year heritage with the theme “Golden Grain. Makes Meals to Remember.” “Golden Grain has been a brand consumers have known and trusted since 1912 and it continues to be relevant to modern lifestyles,” said Drew Lericos of American Italian Pasta Company. As easy-to-prepare meals that the whole family enjoys become increasingly important to busy moms, Golden Grain pasta provides an ideal solution, allowing moms to provide the family a convenient, economical and healthy dish and still add that personal touch of a home cooked meal. “This advertising campaign highlights the enduring popularity of Golden Grain pasta, which continues to make new meal traditions the whole family looks forward to," he added. That message is reflected in the tagline: “The recipe may change, but for generations there has been only one pasta. Golden Grain. Makes Meals to Remember.”
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060411/cgtu051.html?.v=62
April 12, 2006 – McAlester News (OK) - Viva Italiano!
Actually, several more bits of Italian cuisine were acknowledged during the rousing ovation representatives of Krebs and McAlester received at the state Capitol on Tuesday. The cities were named as the official Italian capital of Oklahoma by a measure passed in the Oklahoma House. A companion bill also passed in the Senate. “The Chamber is very excited to get this official proclamation that Krebs/McAlester is the Italian capital of Oklahoma,” said McAlester Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture President Evans McBride. “We will now be able to promote throughout Oklahoma to bring more travelers to our fine community.” The resolutions also noted the connection the Italian restaurants had to the area’s coal mining heritage — since some of the restaurant founders began by selling sandwiches to the miners. “I’m really proud because our ancestors worked so hard to do what they did,” said Elizabeth Prichard. The House and Senate proclaimed that the communities of Krebs and McAlester “be forever known as the Italian capital of Oklahoma.”
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.mcalesternews.com/homepage/local_story_102112212.html?keyword=leadpicturestory
April 12, 2006 – AGI (Rome, Italy) – Easter: Tradition and Savings Return to Table
On the Italian dining table at Easter there will not just be lamb and colomba cakes, now deeply rooted symbols, but also old dishes with fresh vegetables, which are cheap, stated Aic, the Italian cooking institute, according to which Easter this year will see the rediscovery of artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, salads, fresh green beans, and for “sweets” the return of pies, Giuseppe dell’Osso, President of the Italian Academy of Cooking has called for the rediscovery of Easter’s gastronomic traditions, choosing above all regional recipes based on aromatic herbs, vegetables, and eggs. A different way but as tasty of celebrating Easter considering the unacceptable increase in meat prices, with “the colors of spring with bitter herbs and lettuce together with unleavened bread,” in the Jewish Easter tradition, where the ancient tradition of putting chervil and parsley in salt water or vinegar symbolizes the bitterness of slavery in Egypt and the escape. And certainly in homage to this tradition that inspires the collection of bitter wild vegetables in Friday’s procession at Caltanisssetta, as carriers of the black Christ. Among the most famous Easter tarts is the “pasqualina”, from Liguria, which seems inspired, with its six levels (filled with herbs, eggs, cheese and ricotta) really to remember the years of Christ.
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200604121727-1155-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia
April 12, 2006 – Times-Union (Albany, NY) - Family Legacy
Theresa Viva will be in the kitchen this Sunday morning, doing what she does every Easter: Making pizza rustica, the quiche-like concoction called Easter pie. Born in Italy near Salerno, Viva has a family tradition to uphold. Her grandmother and mother prepared these pies for their family. Now it’s her turn to make them as the generations assemble to celebrate the end of Lent. “I have such fond memories of pizza rustica,” Viva says. “I can’t imagine Easter without it.” Easter pies are as Italian as risotto or pasta, but much less commercial. They are a cherished household tradition rarely found in restaurants or bakeries in this country. They come in two styles, both teeming with ricotta and eggs. The meat pie, or pizza rustica, is served as an appetizer or with the main meal. The other version is a sweet pie, or pastere con riso, also known as a rice pie. It’s for dessert. Viva makes both. She always has. Tweaking tradition: She is the pastry chef at two of David Zecchini’s Saratoga Springs restaurants, Forno Toscano and the recently opened Mare, working long hours preparing tiramisu and cannoli. But she’s also the family cook, responsible for maintaining traditions.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.timesunion.com/aspstories/story.asp?storyID=470791
April 13, 2006 – Best Syndication - Link Between Prostate Cancer and High Cholesterol
Italian researchers say they have found a link between high cholesterol and prostate cancer. According to the co-author, Dr. Cristina Bosetti, “Androgens – hormones that have a role in prostate tissue and cancer – are synthesized from cholesterol, suggesting a possible biological relationship between high cholesterol and prostate cancer. Gallstones are related to high cholesterol levels as well and are often composed of cholesterol. So, the direct relationship we found between gallstones and prostate cancer, while it was not statistically significant, suggests a similar biological mechanism may explain the link.” Androgens are male sex hormones, like testosterone. Although an association between prostate cancer and high cholesterol has been suggested, this study published on-line in Annals of Oncology, shows a statistically significant direct relationship between the two. Researchers relied on their participant’s self-reporting of medical conditions.
http://www.bestsyndication.com/Articles/2006/dan_wilson/health/04/041306_cholesterol_prostate_cancer.htm
April 13, 2006 – The Hindu (India) - Now, Italians Are Scouting for Students
If the English-speaking countries are luring students to their universities and institutes of higher education, the Italians are now here. The Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce recently organized a road show with seminars, offering 50 postgraduate scholarships at prestigious Italian universities. The chamber launched a program called “Invest your talent in Italy” aimed at talented postgraduate Indian students, offering them training in prestigious Italian academic institutions and an internship period with placement in direct contact with companies to complete their university course. The 50 scholarships were offered in Information and Communication Technology and Management and Industrial Design. The universities participating in the program were LUISS (Libera Universita Internazionale degli Studi Sociali), Rome; Politecnico Di Milano, Milan; Politecnico Di Torino, Turin; Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa; Universita Bocconi, Milan and Universita Degli Studi Di Trento, Trento. All the lectures and teaching materials for the chosen courses will be in English. Besides, there will be courses in the Italian language and culture to help students get an opportunity for closer social and intellectual integration.
http://www.hindu.com/2006/04/13/stories/2006041322550300.htm
April 13, 2006 – AGI (Rome, Italy) – Italians Are Traveling Abroad
The first spring holidays are traditionally when Italians plan their trips abroad. Travel agencies are seeing a good number of reservations, and the most sought after are long-haul journeys. Such are the forecasts from FIAVET, the Italian federation of travel agents for the upcoming spring holidays. Easter weekend will be the first trial run to see whether the first warmer days and the desire to go abroad will win out over the still meager finances, and whether Italian tourism is finally aimed at the recovery that the entire sector awaits. Easter is not that only period in question. This spring is dense with long weekends and bank holidays, up to May 7th, with several opportunities to take holidays, including April 25th and May 1st. Spring also represents the season to reopen second homes.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200604131707-1135-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia
April 13, 2006 – Associated Press – Philadelphia Guy to Represent Italians Living Abroad
A Philadelphia insurance agent and a Chicago bakery owner, both newly elected to Italy’s parliament, say Italians living abroad should gain new recognition now that they for the first time have their own representatives. “I hope Italians get to know how important the Italian community abroad is to Italy,” said Renato Turano, 63, of Chicago, who on Tuesday won the first Senate seat to represent an estimated 400,000 Italians in North and Central America. The North and Central America district’s two seats in the Chamber of Deputies, parliament’s lower house, went to Salvatore Ferrigno, 46, of the Philadelphia area, and Gino Bucchino, 58, a physician from Toronto. “Now we have a voice in Italy’s Parliament,” Bucchino said. Italian expatriates from four new electoral districts around the world elected 12 representatives to the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies and six to the 315-seat Senate. After the votes abroad were counted Tuesday, Italy’s Interior Ministry assigned Romano Prodi’s center-left coalition four of the six Senate seats set aside for expatriates, giving Prodi’s opposition bloc 158 Senate seats to 156 for Premier Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition - the bare minimum needed for a majority.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/nation/14331157.htm
COMMUNITY EVENTS CALENDAR
For a listing of many Italian and Italian American programs, updated regularly, visit the John D Calandra Italian American Institute’s Community Events Calendar at the following link:
http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/calandra/community/commcal.html
THE CENTER FOR ITALIAN STUDIES
Spring 2006 Calendar Update
April
20, Thursday
Conversations at Stony Brook University with Frank Lentricchia, Writer, literary critic, and Professor, Duke University. 3-4 PM in Poetry Center, Humanities Building, on his fiction and criticism. 5:20 PM, in Earth and Space Science Lecture Hall 001, remarks and readings on his new novel, The Book of Ruth. All are invited. Call 631-632-7444 for additional information.
22, Saturday, 9:00 AM – 1 PM
Conference: Italian Emigration Today. An opportunity for recent emigres from Italy to present and share their personal experiences and observations and to explore together the current history of Italian Emigration. Program will include Enzo Carollo, President of Eurama Foods, Inc.; Professors Massimo Pigliucci, Stony Brook University, Giuseppe Ammendola, New York University, Antonio Iavarone, Institute of Cancer Genetics, Columbia University; Ministro Antonio Bandini, NY/Italian Consular General and Federico Tozzi, Director of Marketing, Italy-America Chamber of Commerce. Location: Center for Italian Studies, Frank Melville Memorial Library, Room E 4340, Stony Brook University. All are invited. Free and open to the public. Call 631-632-7444 for additional information.
29, Saturday, 9:00 AM – 1 PM
Seminar: Italians in America, Citizenship Through Work and Labor: The History of Italian Unionism in the United States. Offered in collaboration with the Brooklyn College Center for Italian American Studies. Presenters include, Professors Stanislao Pugliese, Salvatore La Gumina, Vito De Simone, Giampiero Bianchi; Labor Union representatives: Theodore H. Jacobsen, Nicholas Spilotro, and Luigi La Carbonara; Journalists: Andrea Mantineo, and Stefano Vaccara.. Remarks by N.Y. Italian Consul, Antonio Bandini and FAI-CISL Secretary General, Albino Gorini. Meeting Location: Stony Brook/ Manhattan, 401 Park Avenue South, 2nd floor. Free and open to the public. Call 631-632-7444 for additional information.
May
2, Tuesday, 1 PM
Dedication Ceremonies of the Richard Vetere papers to Stony Brook University Library
Special Collections and Archives. Richard Vetere, noted author and playwright, will be on campus to visit classes and participate in the celebration, which will take place in the Center for Italian Studies, Frank Melville Memorial Library, E4340. His novel, The Third Miracle, will be available for purchase and book signing by the author. Coffee reception following ceremonies. All are invited.
21, Sunday, 10 AM – 3 PM (Rain date, June 4, 2006.)
Concorso Italiano, A Celebration of Italian Automotive Excellence and Beauty: A display of art forms on wheels as a means of illustrating one form of Italian culture. Various Italian car clubs will be represented: Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Lamborghini, Lancia and Fiat. Display Cars will rally at Stony Brook University campus on the lawn directly across from the Sports Complex, John S. Toll Drive. Viewing is free and open to the public. Owners of Italian automobiles interested in participating in this display, please contact Professor Bob Cess, (phone: 631 -632-8321; or via email: rcess@notes.cc.sunysb.edu)
June (Dates and Times to be announced)
16th Annual New York Conference of Italian American State Legislators, State Capitol, Albany, New York. Information about participating in this event will be made available at a later date. Call 631-632-7444 if you would like to be kept informed.
Special Event in July
July 2, Sunday, 2 PM
Folkloric Concert by visiting Coro San Romedio from Italy Alpine Trentino region.
Location: Stony Brook University, Student Activity Center Auditorium. Free and open to the public. All are invited. Call 631-632-7444 for additional information.
SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING NEW: ITALIAN WOMEN'S IMMIGRATION POST WORLD WAR II, NEW WORK BY PHOTOGRAPHER JESSICA CHORNESKY
Something Borrowed, Something New: Italian Women’s Immigration Post World War II, a photography exhibition by Jessica Chornesky, will open at The National Museum of Catholic Art and History on April 18, 2006. Using photography and oral histories to explore Italian immigration to the United States from a uniquely female perspective, Chornesky documents and compares the Italian women who immigrated to the United States after World War II to their female counterparts (primarily sisters and cousins) who stayed in Italy. The photographs and stories draw us into the lives of the subjects and prompt us to think about where culture and identity intersect. “Something Borrowed, Something New was borne out of my love for Italy and my fascination with and admiration for people who uproot themselves by choice or necessity,” said Chornesky. “I have always been interested in seeking out less heard voices-often these tend to be those of women. Working on a project about the experience of Italian women, from the dual perspective of women living in Italy and their counterparts who immigrated to the United States in the years following World War II, provided a unique window into a rich culture and people, and an important aspect of the Italian experience - immigration.” Throughout 2003 and 2004, Chornesky interviewed Italian American women about their immigration experience as well as their perspectives on such subjects as money, power, sex and work. She also traveled throughout Sicily and Southern Italy to photograph and interview their female relatives.
ITALIAN AMERICAN MUSEUM
Identity Theft, an exhibition of original paintings and prints by contemporary Italian American artist Antonio Petracca opens on April 26th at 10 a.m., and debuts Petracca’s new series Pompeii Overlay Tagged. The exhibition will remain on view through June 16. The Italian American Museum is the first museum dedicated to preserving and presenting the cultural and social contributions of Italian Americans to the American way of life. The Identity Theftexhibit will be open to the public from Monday through Friday, 10 AM–4 PM or by appointment (212-642-2020) at 28 West 44th Street, 17th floor between 5th and 6th Avenues.
THE BIRTH OF THE REPUBLIC
Rome’s astonishing ascent was not based wholly or even mostly on her military exploits, but on the moral sensibilities of her people and the limitation of government power.
By Steve Bonta, The New American – October 4, 2004
This is the first installment in a series of articles on the rise and fall of the Roman Republic.
As with most ancient nations, the origins of Rome are clouded by legend. The first inhabitants of what became the city-state of Rome may have been refugees from defeated Troy, led by the semi-legendary hero Aeneas. Rome’s greatest poet, Virgil, said as much in his immortal epic, the Aeneid, and Roman historians, such as Appian and Livy, claimed the same.
By all accounts, Rome in the eighth century B.C. was little more than an armed camp of brigands. Yet within seven hundred years, this squalid, warlike settlement became the greatest man-made power the world had ever seen, mistress of most of Europe, North Africa, Asia Minor and the Middle East. Ancient Rome was the incubator for Christianity, the repository of Western Civilization for over a thousand years, and the setting for much of the greatest historical drama - and many of the most extraordinary characters - ever to occupy the human stage.
Rome rose to unexampled heights, only to fall with a shock that still reverberates across the centuries. Unlike the great civilizations that preceded her - Egypt, Elam, Sumer, Babylon, Carthage and others – Rome’s legacy was far more than jumbled ruins. Of Rome we preserve a vast literature, a code of laws, and many of our political, cultural, artistic and religious forms. For instead of collapsing utterly, like its predecessors, Rome was first broken into fragments and then transmuted into the political and religious institutions that served as a foundation for modern Western civilization.
America’s Founding Fathers: as well as their European contemporaries, were fascinated with Rome, for in the 18th century the Western world had only recently attained the wealth, power and vitality of Roman civilization at its peak. In the more than two centuries since the American founding, American and European civilization have far outstripped and eclipsed the achievements of ancient Rome. But the mystique of Rome persists. The lessons of the rise and fall of Rome resonate in our age, when a single power consumed by imperialistic ambition and cankered by moral decay - the United States of America - seems to be slouching down the same path to decline that the Romans followed.
Of the time between the traditional founding of Rome around 753 B.C. with the ascent of Romulus and the birth of the Roman Republic in about 509 B.C. with the expulsion of the Tarquins, we know nothing not colored by legend. Yet there is no reason to believe that Romulus did not exist, or that he was not, as Plutarch and Livy both assert, the first Roman king. Romulus is depicted as a violent, warlike individual, the most ruthless member of a very rough crowd. The stories of his murder of Remus, his brother, and his war with the Sabines over the rape of the Sabine women by his men, whether true or not, are certainly in keeping with the warlike spirit the Romans cultivated, from the very foundation of their city.
State of War
With only a few brief interludes, Rome was perpetually at war from the time of the Tarquins to the ascent of Caesar Augustus. In Alexander Hamilton’s words, she “never sated of carnage and conquest.” Like Sparta, Rome, both as a monarchy and as a republic, was organized along military lines. Every able-bodied Roman male saw annual military service throughout his young adult years, until the time of Marius in the late second century B.C. when Rome professionalized her military. So pervasive was the military in Roman political culture that even the senators were known as “conscript fathers.” Much of Rome’s success can be attributed to her fanatical attention to military order and to the cultivation of virtues conducive to military strength: unswerving loyalty, obedience, frugality, and disregard for peril to life and limb.
From her remotest beginnings, Rome enjoyed an almost uninterrupted string of military successes, at first over hostile neighbors like the Aequans, the Volscians and the Samnites, and later against overseas rivals like Carthage, Macedonia and Pontus. Rome’s military setbacks, during the seven and a half centuries between her founding and the destruction of the legions of Varro by the Germans at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D., were few and memorable. They included the sacking of Rome by the Gauls in about 390 B.C.; the humiliation under the Samnite yoke at Caudine Forks in 321 B.C. (which was speedily avenged by an overwhelming Roman reprisal); the setbacks against
Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, and Hannibal, the Carthaginian general; the challenge of Mithridates, king of Pontus; Spartacus, short-lived slave revolt; and the slaughter of Crassus and his legions by the Parthians in 53 B.C. at Carrhae.
But for the most part, Roman military history is a dreary catalog of one-sided
battles with outmatched and poorly organized foes, of the destruction or absorption of entire nations into the expanding Roman state, and of almost superhuman resilience in rebounding from rare defeats that would have broken the back of any other people, such as the disaster at Cannae in 216 B.C., where Hannibal's forces cut down the flower of Rome's entire military.
Political Strength
But the ascent of Rome was not due wholly or even mostly to her military successes. Rome, in her evolution from armed camp to monarchy to republic to empire, discovered a formula for limiting the power of government by dividing it among several different magistrates and elected bodies. The Roman Republic also developed a written code of laws that defined and protected the rights of Roman citizens. The exquisitely balanced Roman state conferred an extraordinary degree of political stability, while granting to Roman citizens a degree of personal liberty almost unknown in human history before that time. The Roman state was, wrote Polybius, “a union which is strong enough to withstand all emergencies, so that it is impossible to find a better form of constitution than this.”
Many of the institutions of the Roman republican government, as well as the roots of the distinctive Roman culture, developed well before the founding of the republic itself. The Senate, Rome’s oldest government body, was apparently founded by Romulus. It may have been patterned after the Gerousia, a governing body of Sparta, and also resembled the Athenian Areopagus.
Rome's second king, Numa Pompilius - a Sabine statesman who refused an offer of the kingship until a large body of his fellow-citizens persuaded him to accept - set about civilizing the Romans and refining the crude despotism of his predecessor. “The first thing he did at the entrance into government,” Plutarch relates, “was to dismiss the band of three hundred men which had been Romulus’ lifeguard ... saying that he would not distrust those who put confidence in him; nor rule over a people that distrusted him.”
Numa forbade the use of any graven image in the worship of God, a practice that seems to have persisted for more than a century after his death. He instituted many other religious reforms, including the creation of the Vestal Virgins, and lived a life of conspicuous piety that many of his subjects were pleased to emulate.
Numa was by disposition a man peace, and wanted to reduce the Romans’ love of violence and warfare. He instituted the order of the Fetials, a college of priests whose special task it was, in Plutarch’s words, to “put a stop to disputes by conference and by speech; for it was not allowable to take up arms until they had declared all hopes of accommodation to be at an end.” The Fetials endured until the late Roman Empire, providing a check of sorts on the power of the Roman state to go to war.
During his reign, at least, Numa appears to have been successful in taming the war-like disposition of his people, even if it was seldom assuaged thereafter. It was the custom in Rome to shut the doors of the temple of the god Janus during times of peace, a custom that, after Numa, was put into practice only - during the consulship of Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius in the third century B.C. - in all of the centuries leading up to the reign of Caesar Augustus. Wrote Plutarch with admiration:
During the reign of Numa, those gates were never seen open a single day, but continued constantly shut for a space of forty-three years together, such an entire and universal cessation of war existed. For not only had the people of Rome itself been softened and charmed into a peaceful temper by the just and mild rule of a pacific prince, but even the neighboring cities, as if some salubrious and gentle air had blown from Rome upon them, began to experience a change of feeling, and partook in the general longing for the sweets of peace and order For during the whole reign of Numa, there was neither war, nor sedition, nor innovation in the state, nor any envy or ill-will to his person, nor plot or conspiracy from views of ambition.
Kings and Despots
Unfortunately, this state of affairs did not outlive Numa himself. Tullus Hostilius, his immediate successor, was, according to Livy, “not only unlike the preceding king, but was even of a more warlike disposition than Romulus…. Thinking, therefore, that the state was becoming languid through quiet, he everywhere sought for pretexts for stirring up war.” Before long, he succeeded in provoking a war with the Albans, a closely related neighboring nation. The war ended with the Roman destruction of Alba, and the permanent enmity, towards Rome, of Alba’s allies.
After the Alban conflict, Tullus declared war against the Sabines, which resulted in a speedy Roman victory. In all, the reign of Tullus, which lasted 32 years, was applauded by Livy for its “great military renown.” It set the pattern, to be followed by Rome ever after, of incessant warfare with her neighbors, and aggressive territorial expansion.
The four kings that followed Tullus continued the Roman tradition of endless war, with campaigns against formidable foes like the Veii, the Aequans and the Volscians. The latter two in particular fought the Romans for generations before finally being vanquished and absorbed into the burgeoning Roman state.
The last king of early Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (“Tarquin the Proud”), was a vicious despot who came to power by murdering his predecessor, the aged monarch Servius Tullius. Tarquin is said to have been aided in his misdeed by Tullius’ daughter Tullia, with whom he had developed an adulterous liaison. Tullia found her father’s lifeless body in the street outside the Senate where Tarquin had personally cast it, whereupon she triumphantly drove her chariot over it. She even, according to Livy, carried off a portion of her father’s remains to be offered up to her household gods.
Tarquin lost no time clamping down on the Roman state. He purged the government of suspected rivals, including many senior senators, and even had a number of his own relatives murdered. He surrounded himself with an armed entourage, since, in Livy's estimation, “he had no claim to the kingdom except by force, inasmuch as he reigned without either the order of the people or the sanction of the senate.” Like most tyrants, Tarquin was preoccupied with war and with building a monument to himself, in this case an immense temple of Jupiter intended to be the most magnificent building in the ancient world.
Rise of the Republic
Tarquin’s downfall was as dramatic as his seizure of power. His youngest son Sextus conceived an illicit passion for Lucretia, the wife of a Roman aristocrat related to Tarquin himself. While Lucretia’s husband was away, Sextus crept into her chamber and violated her at the point of a sword. Lucretia immediately sent for her father and husband, enjoining each to bring a trustworthy friend. Accordingly her father brought Publius Valerius and her husband summoned Lucius Junius Brutus, who happened to be a disaffected nephew of Tarquin. The distraught Lucretia informed the four men what had happened and, as an affirmation of her testimony, committed suicide on the spot, after securing their promise that the guilty party would suffer for his crime.
It was Brutus who drew Lucretia’s dagger from the self-inflicted wound, and, holding it aloft, reputedly said: “By this blood, most pure before the pollution of royal villainy, I swear, and I call upon you, O gods, to witness my oath that I shall pursue Lucius Tarquin, the Proud, his wicked wife, and all their race with fire, sword, and all other means in my power; nor shall I ever suffer them or any other to reign at Rome.” He then led the other three in the same oath, and they then bore Lucretia’s body to the Forum, where they raised a revolt against the Tarquins. After a 25-year reign of terror, Tarquin the Proud was expelled from Rome, and Brutus and Collatinus, Lucretia’s husband, elected Rome’s first consuls.
Lucius Junius Brutus is thus remembered as the father of the Roman Republic. After the expulsion of the Tarquins, he and all Rome took an oath never to allow another king to reign over Rome. The new state, called a “res publica” (“people’s thing”) in Latin, was something new: a form of government that protected the rights of its citizens while being itself limited by laws and by the diffusion of its powers into many different magistrates and governing bodies. Brutus’ commitment to the new republic was so unshakeable that he even presided over the execution of several of his own sons and nephews after finding them guilty of conspiring with agents of the exiled Tarquin to reinstall the monarchy. He eventually perished on the battlefield in hand-to-hand combat with the son of Tarquinius Superbus, during one of several unsuccessful attempts by the Tarquins to reconquer Rome.
His consular colleague Collatinus, because of bearing the surname Tarquinius, soon left office and voluntarily went into exile, to remove any apprehensions that another Tarquin might usurp power. His place was taken by Publius Valerius, the other witness to Lucretia’s suicide, and usually reckoned along with L. Brutus as Rome’s most important founding father.
Plutarch compared Publius Valerius, afterwards nicknamed Poplicola (“lover of the people”), to Solon, the great lawgiver of Athens. Indeed, Publius proved to be more of a statesman than his erstwhile colleague Brutus, while being as strong a partisan of popular liberty. When Publius heard that some had criticized him for his stately house on a hill overlooking the Forum, he ordered the house pulled down, and moved in with friends until furnished with a more modest house of his own.
Publius also made substantial reforms in Roman law to shore up the new republican government and to fortify the rights of the people against depredations by the state. He appointed 164 new senators to fill the vacancies of those purged by Tarquin. He enacted a law permitting offenders convicted by the consuls to appeal their sentences directly to the people, a device that, by depending on the doubtful ability of the populace to deliberate en masse, was probably much less effective as a check on state power than it was intended to be. He also instituted the death penalty for usurping any public office without the people’s consent and provided for tax relief for the very poor.
Such measures may smack more of democratic excess than of true republican government. Indeed, while Rome eventually achieved the best-balanced form of government in the ancient world and deserved the appellation of republic, she shared with most other ancient popular states the fatal deficiency of allowing the masses to assemble and deliberate directly. In the long run, this handicap, together with certain other flaws, was to doom the Roman Republic. But it must be borne in mind that, when Western Civilization was in its infancy, any degree of popular government was probably a distinct improvement over the suffocating despotism that held the rest of the human race in thrall.
With the career and reforms of Publius Valerius - whose name in a latter age was used by the authors of The Federalist Papers as an enlightened pseudonym - the Roman Republic was off to a brilliant beginning. Poplicola, after successfully leading Rome in a series of wars instigated mostly by the vindictive Tarquins, stepped down from the consulship and died, having lived a life that “so far as human life may be, had been full of all that is good and honorable,” in Plutarch's admiring terminology. But the Roman Republic was to outlive its founders by many centuries, and its legacy by millennia. [Part I of X].
FOR THE SERIOUS STUDENT
The original sources for Rome’s semi-legendary early history are many, but two in particular stand out, as much for their literary quality as for their historical interest: Livy and Plutarch. Titus Livius or Livy was, if not the greatest, certainly the most comprehensive source for Roman history, from the founding of Rome up to the late republican period. As with most ancient authors, much of Livy’s Roman history has been lost, but the remaining portions are packed with fascinating details and vivid descriptions of pivotal events like the expulsion of the Tarquins. In the American Founders’ day, Livy was required reading for advanced Latin students. Nowadays, the complete surviving works of Livy are available in very readable translation, and are one of the best introductions to both the history and culture of early Rome.
Plutarch, a Greek who compiled his famous book of parallel biographies of ancient Greeks and Romans in the early 2nd century A.D., is one of the best-loved writers of all time. His brief but engaging sketches portray his subjects with honesty and affection; their failings and strengths are both held up for the reader to evaluate. Still the best translation of Plutarch’s Lives -one of the most widely read books in early America - is the so-called Dryden translation. Compiled by poet John Dryden in the late l600s and later edited by scholar Arthur Clough in the mid-19th century, this masterly translation is still in print in a two-volume Modem Library Classics edition.
UPCOMING EVENTS
- April 20, 2006 — The Coalition of Italian American Associations, Inc. will have Berardo Paradiso, President, Italy-America Chamber of Commerce at their monthly meeting. Columbus Citizens Foundation, 8 East 69th St. 6:30 PM. $85 pp. RSVP (212) 541-1021.
- April 22, 2006 — District 3 Bocce Tournament. 12 Noon. Ditmars Park – Steinway Street, Astoria, between 23 Av. & Ditmars Blvd. Contact: Maryann Re, (908) 479-6074 or maryann.re@earthlink.net
- April 28, 2006 — Italian American Museum Gala and Award Ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street, 55 Wall Street, Manhattan. 7 PM. Black Tie. Contact: (212) 541-1031/1021or visit www.italianamericanmuseum.org or email info@italianamericanmuseum.org
- April 29, 2006 — Spring Plenary Session – Hosted by Gabriele D’Annunzio Lodge #321, Schenectady. Contact: Marianne Principe O’Neil, (516) 785-4623.
- April 30, 2006 — District 1 Bocce Tournament. 10 AM. Ronkonkoma Beach Pavilion, Rosevale Avenue, Ronkonkoma. Contact: Robert Necci, (631) 256-6397 or rdnecci@optonline.net
- May 4, 2006 — 24th Annual Golden Lion Awards Dinner honoring Angela Susan Anton, Lawrence E. Auriana and Nicholas J. LaMorte at the Garden City Hotel. Cocktail Hour, 7 PM. $300 per person. Contact: Marianne Principe O’Neil, (516) 785-4623.
- May 6, 2006 — 9th Annual Grand Lodge Foundation Walk-A-Thon at Eisenhower Park, Parking Field #1. Contact: Dan Colantone at (516) 799-6804.
- May 7, 2006 — CSJ/B’rith Solidarity Breakfast, Coral House, 70 Milburn Avenue, Baldwin. 9:30 AM. $35 per person. Contact: Marge Moschella at (516) 249-2879.
- May 25-28, 2006 — Annual Festival by Joe DiMaggio Lodge #2248. Food, live music and fireworks. East Fishkill Recreation Area. Contact: Dave Totillo, (845) 632-1452.
- June 17, 2006 – Free Concert presented by Centennial Lodge #2828 OSIA member, Michéal Castaldo at 8:00 p.m. Rain Date (TBA). The Common Ground - Rotary Park, between Candee and Gillette Avenues, Sayville, LI, NY. Bring a blanket or a folding chair.
- June 22-25, 2006 — 100th Annual NYOSIA State Convention at the Holiday Inn Turf, Colonie, NY. More information to follow. Contact: Rae Lanzilotta at (516) 334-0830.
- June 26, 2006 — Italian Night, Harry Chapin Lakeside Theatre, Eisenhower Park, East Meadow. Contact: Carolyn Reres, (516) 358-5010 or reres@juno.com
- July 21-22, 2006 — Summer Italian Festival at the Geneva Lodge #2397 Pavilion. 2 PM. $2 per person. Contact: Dan Chelenza, (315) 781-2203.
- July 29, 2006 — Summer Plenary Session. More information to follow. Contact: Marianne Principe O’Neil, (516) 785-4623.
- August 5, 2006 — Bocce Tournament at the Geneva Lodge #2397 Pavilion. 12 Noon. $20 per person. Contact: Jamie Kaim, (315) 781-2242.
- September 24, 2006 — Garibaldi Meucci Museum Annual Brunch at LaGrange Inn, West Islip. 10:30 AM. More information to follow.
- October 1, 2006 — Italian Feast by Columbus Lodge #2143 at North Broadway, Massapequa. 11 AM. Contact: Tony Ventiera, (516) 797-4992.
- October 29, 2006 — “The Giglio Feast of Brooklyn” by Prof. Salvatore Primeggio for the Loggia Glen Cove #1016. Held at the Glen Cove Library, Glen Cove. 2:30 PM. Contact: Kathryn Grande, (516) 676-7436.
- November 5, 2006 — Gift of Sight Annual Luncheon at Immaculate Conception Center, 7200 Douglaston Parkway, Douglaston, 1-5 p.m.
- January 26, 2007 — 14th Annual Winter Charity Ball at the Chateau Briand, Carle Place. 1 PM. More information to follow.
Nota del Redattore:
Respectfully submitted:
Robert Necci
Coordinator - Italian Education, Culture & Language Committees
Chair – Italian Heritage & Culture Committee
2101 Bellmore Avenue
Bellmore, NY 11710-5605
HeritageandCultureReport@nysosia.org
STATE PRESIDENT CARLO MATTEUCCI
Goals & Objectives: 2005-2007 Administration
ITALIAN CULTURE, HERITAGE and EDUCATION
To promote, preserve, and support our Italian culture, heritage, and language by implementing this element of the Order in our parades, functions, meetings, and conventions.
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