Highlights

In a bittersweet turn of events, a monument to St. Frances Cabrini will occupy the pedestal in Arrigo Park where Christopher Columbus once stood. I say “bittersweet” because the goal all along for the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans was to restore Columbus to his original place of honor in the park. But after a grueling 4-and-a-half-year legal battle, it became abundantly clear that it wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. Despite the herculean efforts of lead counsel Enrico Mirabelli and his legal team of Frank Sommario and Anthony Onesto, the city of Chicago under two mayoral administrations has steadfastly …

Contrary to Ken Burns’ recent documentary on the American Revolution, it was a band of Italians, the ancient Romans — not the Iroquois — who served as the model for our fledgling republic. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Adams also studied the Greek style of governance. However, America’s Founders believed that Athenian democracy insufficiently embraced the legal underpinnings of a truly egalitarian polity. As Roger Vigneron and Jean-Francois Gerkens note in “The Emancipation of Women in Ancient Rome”: “Of course, the Romans lived in a world with many inequalities: there were slaves, peregrines and barbaric peoples. But inside the …

During the past year, the Italian government severely tightened its citizenship laws to the detriment of many Italian Americans. Now U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno has thrust himself into the center of this growing dual citizenship controversy by introducing a bill that would require any American who holds citizenship in another country to either renounce that foreign citizenship or risk losing their U.S. citizenship. Moreno’s bill, filed on Dec. 1 and known as the Exclusive Citizenship Act, has sparked strong criticism from our Italian American organizations. On behalf of both the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO), and …

  My debut novel, “Secrets of the Jeweled Flask,” got a mention in the October issue of Fra Noi. Coverage in your magazine is an honor of epic proportions because it’s connected to my paternal grandmother, Camille Severino, whom I am named after. I am the only Camille many people know. Many suspect I am the only Camille Severino that existed. But there was another. And she was the original. She was big Camille. I was little Camille. Those monikers stuck even when I towered over her 5-foot figure. Grandma Camille read Fra Noi religiously. I can see her, sitting …

Sept. 21 marked the 70th anniversary of the Rocky Marciano-Archie Moore fight of 1955. It was Marciano’s last bout and final knockout of an opponent. He retired the following year with a 49-0 record, 43 of which were knockouts. He’s the only boxer to retire undefeated. Sadly, he died in a plane crash at age 46 in 1969. Such a career should be ripe for the silver screen, but Marciano’s back story was too humdrum for Hollywood. However, the champ’s short life did make it to television in 1979 starring Tony Lo Bianco and again in 1999 starring Jon Favreau. …

Although little-known today, Enrico de Tonti carried the rich heritage of Italy into the annals of European explorers. His Italian roots of resilience and tenacity — traits forged in a region long ruled by foreign empires — were keys to his survival in the wilderness of 17th-century North America. Tonti was born around 1649 in a coastal town near Naples to Lorenzo de Tonti and Isabelle di Lietto. The family moved to Paris soon after his birth so his father could escape persecution after an unsuccessful revolt against the city’s Spanish viceroy. Raised in Paris, Tonti grew up among émigrés. …

Photos by Rebecca Branconi A century after his great-grandparents left a small Laziale town for America, Steve Decina has reversed the voyage, choosing to raise his children in the land of his forebears. I will never forget the first time I saw San Donato. I had just crossed the Apennines from Pescara and descended into the Val di Comino. I drove, awestruck, into the gently lit village nestled into a notch between two snow-dusted mountains. It was incredibly beautiful — it reminded me of a presepe, the elaborate Italian Nativity scene that often sets the Holy Family among life in …

A capacity crowd watched the Italian national team dominate its American counterpart during recent tournament play in the Chicago area. Italian volleyball fans in the Chicago area were delighted this summer to watch firsthand as the Italian national men’s team took on Team USA at NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates. The crowd was near the arena’s capacity of 11,218 and while the vast majority were wearing red, white and blue, there was a small but mighty contingent of fans supporting Team Italy. A few Italy fans waved the Tricolore and sang along to “Inno di Mameli” during the national anthems …

It all began with a journey. Not in the rhetorical sense of the term, but with real steps, into emptying villages, along silent streets, alongside faces filled with expectation and questions. It was the summer of 2015, and I had an urgent need: to tell the story of Basilicata not as a remote place, but as a space of possibility. Thus was born #IdealPlace — more than a project, a gentle obsession. A way of saying that even in territories considered peripheral, new words are being generated, visions capable of touching the heart of Italy’s transformations. Not just beauty, but …

I have my Grandmother Anna Anzalone Tinaglia’s old Italian “La Sacra Bibbia” from when she lived in the North Side neighborhood once known as Little Sicily. Her copy is well-worn and annotated by her. It’s from the American Bible Society, which gave out Bibles to new immigrants in America. It is a translation by G. Diodati, an Italian Protestant. It isn’t sanctioned by the Catholic Church, and for centuries it was prohibited. Giovanni Diodati was born in 1576 in Switzerland to a noble Protestant family from Lucca. Protestant exiles, his family had fled the Inquisition to find refuge in the …