Our Past National and State President Peter R. Zuzolo wrote the following article with regarding to Italian Heritage and Culture Month.  If you are looking for a good read to commemorate "our month" why not purchase a copy of “The Winds of Time” ... suggested read by Peter R. Zuzolo!

     As previous United States Presidents have done, President Barrack H. Obama has proclaimed October 2009 as “Italian Heritage and Culture Month.”  Many of us in the Order have been celebrating, and will continue to celebrate it for the remainder of the month with justifiable pride. To increase our Italian pride, and to update our knowledge, we can read a book entitled “The Winds of Time” by Richard DiSilvio. DV Books published the 739-page book in April 2008, and then on March 28, 2009. It contains twelve chapters along with a foreword, prelude, epilogue, and bibliography. The 12 chapters are numbered in Roman number format. Each has a subtitle that contain the twelve numbers in Latin, the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve disciples, and the twelve months. Notably, also, are the twelve Olympian Gods, the twelve hours of the clock, and the twelve Tables of Roman Law.

     Richard is an author, artist, historian, and software media developer & programmer. He has also worked on projects for historical documentaries, including “Killing Hitler - The True Story of the Valkyrie Plot”, The War Zone series, Hollywood Director James Cameron’s “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”, “Return to Kirkuk” and many others. At the 2009 National Convention in San Diego, it was my privilege to announce “The Winds of Time” on the convention floor, and received many requests for it.

     The book is very “reader friendly”, since DiSilvio utilizes three very affective methodologies: commentaries, biographies, and narrative vignettes. The vignettes place the reader in many known portions of history as a patchwork type of knowledge. Richard successfully integrates history into a unified mosaic of Western Civilization. He relates how over fifty Titans shaped western civilization. Some of the Titans were very beneficent (Jesus Christ, William Shakespeare, Dante, etc.) while others were evil (Hitler, Stalin, etc.). All exhibited some sort of human frailty. Forty per cent of the Titans were of Roman/Italian decent. He relates how the Roman Republic survived for 500 years, the Roman Empire for 500 years, and the Middle Age Renaissance for 280 years.

     Americans of Italian heritage will be particularly enthralled to read the biographies and experiences of great thinkers, statesmen, religious leaders, architects, writers, artists, musicians, and explorers who came from Italian peninsular and assisted in advancing western civilization. DiSilvio includes many pages on the Emperors Augustus, and Constantine in chapters on ancient Rome, and the establishment of Roman Catholicism. Constantine’s standardization of the bible and unification of the church with 300 bishops from all over the empire at the Nicean Ecumenical Council in AD 325 was a major advancement for Western civilization.

     The Romans inaugurated and mastered the arch, which replaced the Stonehenge, Egyptian, Chinese, and Greek construction method of post and lintel. With knowledge of the arch, the Romans built a network of paved roadways, bridges, aqueducts, and domes that stretched over Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor.  They invented a very strong, watertight concrete with a blend of quicklime and pozzolanic ash. The Assyrians and Babylonians had used clay-based concrete, while the Egyptians had used lime and gypsum. Both of the later produced a very weak, and brittle concrete. The Romans mastered plumbing with hot and cold water for structures such as the; Coliseum, and Baths of Caracalla. They mastered apartment buildings that were utilized as a basis for their systematically planned cities. In 45 BC, Julius Caesar inaugurated his twelve-month calendar with 30 and 31 days each.

     The Roman’s highly skilled army, diverse trade, road network, organized government, and set of laws contributed much to expand Western Civilization, and eventually, was the basis of the United States.  Roman Laws date back to 450 BC (Twelve Tables), and were made into Body Civil Law in AD 534 by Emperor Justinian. The Roman Republic was divided into three branches of government that served as the model for America’s government, the executive, legislative and judiciary.

     The Middle Age of rebirth, and the Renaissance sparked such Titans as Dante, Brunelleschi, da Vinci, Columbus, Galileo, Machiavelli, Savonarola, the Borgia family, and the de Medici family. The first medical center in Salerno with Fugardi’s first book on surgery in AD 1170, the first university in Bologna for public education, and de Medici banking system in Florence

     The book is available in a hardcover or paperback edition. The paperback version book can be purchased on line at: amazon.com,($34.92), dvbooks.net,($28.95), Barnes&Noble.com,($29.65), thewindsoftime.com (Hardcover $32.95 - autographed copy $$40.95), buy.com,($25.74), borders.com, ($32.95), etc. Also check with your local library to see if they have it in stock. If it is not available, then please request it so that they obtain a copy for you in your name.