by Rosario Iaconis | Feb 24, 2026 | Uncategorized
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. Those are Roman fasces mounted in the U.S. House of Representatives. Thomas...
by Rosario Iaconis | Feb 14, 2026 | Uncategorized
[The following essay was published in the NY Daily News on 14 February 2026] What is the perfect Valentine’s Day movie? Why, Rio Bravo, of course. According to Quentin Tarantino: “There are certain movies that you hang out with the characters so much that they...
by Rosario Iaconis | Dec 25, 2025 | Uncategorized
America’s debts—Revolutionary and Republican—to Rome resonate 250 years after Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. To paraphrase Monty Python, “What have the Romans ever done for the American Revolution?” On the night of December 25, 1776, in the midst of a fierce...
by Rosario Iaconis | Nov 3, 2025 | Uncategorized
Mineola, L.I.: Unless Andrew Cuomo stages a Trumanesque comeback on Nov. 4, Mamdani is poised to become Gotham’s 111th mayor. In addition to hogtying the NYPD and eviscerating the private sector, the neophyte assemblyman will fan the flames of antisemitism with...
by Rosario Iaconis | Oct 14, 2025 | Uncategorized
[This essay was published in the NY Daily News on Columbus Day October 13, 2025] In New York City’s volatile 2025 mayoral election, Columbus Day has become a visceral hot-button issue. Though people of Italian ancestry comprise more than 8% of Gotham’s population,...
by Rosario Iaconis | Sep 6, 2025 | Uncategorized
Capo Vaticano I recently returned from a vacation in southern Italy. Here’s an unvarnished assessment of my sojourn to the Seed of Aeneas: Spettacolare! Mine was mainly a southern-based journey across Calabria—from la Sila, the forested mountains...
by Rosario Iaconis | Jul 26, 2025 | Uncategorized
[I had the following letter published in the Financial Times on July 25th] Ian Thomson’s review of John Foot’s account of Italy’s anni di piombo (years of lead, as in bullets) makes for a fascinating yet chilling read (“A climate of terror and discontent.”) The...
by Rosario Iaconis | Oct 19, 2024 | Uncategorized
On Columbus Day, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump should honor America and uphold the ideals of Western civilization by celebrating the epochal voyage of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea. Ours is a proud multicultural society. But scuttling a storied national holiday and...
by Rosario Iaconis | Sep 12, 2024 | Uncategorized
The following letter was sent to and published by the WSJ on September 11, 2024. Clearly, the media needs a continual education in why the mafia genre is so successful. It has more to do with defamation than art.
by Rosario Iaconis | Mar 11, 2024 | Uncategorized
What was Christopher Nolan thinking? In directing Oppenheimer, which has garnered 13 Academy Award nominations, Nolan relegates Enrico Fermi — the true architect of the nuclear age — to a bit part. J. Robert Oppenheimer served as the director of the Manhattan...
by Rosario Iaconis | Jan 30, 2024 | Uncategorized
[Note: This opinion was a response to a political dust-up on Long Island between the Democratic and Republicans candidates who are running in a special election to replace expelled Congressman George Santos. It appeared as a letter to Newsday on January 27th.]...
by Rosario Iaconis | Oct 7, 2023 | Uncategorized
My sojourn to Italy this summer unleashed a torrent of cascading emotions. Memories intermingled with anticipation, exultation and incipient joy. Yet such feelings were also accompanied by a brief bout of sadness. Marcus Agrippa’s Pantheon, 25 B.C. Upon arrival,...
by Rosario Iaconis | Sep 26, 2023 | Uncategorized
Lampedusa — a sun-drenched Italian isle ’twixt Sicily and North Africa — has become a tinderbox that threatens the stability of Europe. Ruthless smugglers are churning the waters of the Mediterranean, trafficking in human cargo. Lampedusa — a sun-drenched Italian isle...
by Rosario Iaconis | Sep 5, 2023 | Uncategorized
Particularly so in respect of the economy, as she rides herd on spending. Shakespeare’s Macbeth wrestled with his vaulting ambition, fearing that it would o’erleap itself and lead to ruin. One of Italy’s top populist conservatives, Matteo Salvini, has also grappled...
by Rosario Iaconis | Aug 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
By falling into a Liz Truss-like morass, the prime minister unnecessarily calls into question her stewardship of the Italian economy — and sparks doubts about her fealty to conservative principles. Italy elected a conservative for this? Prime Minister Meloni suffered...
by Rosario Iaconis | Aug 5, 2023 | Uncategorized
An exit from Communist China’s Belt and Road pact appears to be on the agenda. The unexpected contraction of Italian business activity last quarter is forcing Prime Minister Meloni to redouble her efforts to set a new, free-market path for the economy, including a...
by Rosario Iaconis | Jul 25, 2023 | Uncategorized
The prime minister faces the challenge of governing despite the press, the establishment, and the allegedly loyal opposition in Italy being united in their zeal to topple her. Edmund Kean was mistaken. Dying may be easy, but it’s governance that is hard — especially...
by Rosario Iaconis | Jun 27, 2023 | Uncategorized
‘Basta,’ premier says as she moves to prevent China’s Sinochem from appointing Pirelli’s next chief executive. Free trade, comparative advantage, and private enterprise are all essential components of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s economic philosophy. However, in...
by Rosario Iaconis | Jun 14, 2023 | Uncategorized
“il Cavaliere” By leaving his Forza Italia party rudderless, the death of Italy’s longest-serving premier offers a chance for the prime minister to broaden her base. The death of the Italian Republic’s longest-serving premier, Silvio Berlusconi, marks the...
by Rosario Iaconis | May 26, 2023 | Uncategorized
Some 36,000 are left homeless as six months of rain falls in 36 hours. When it comes to nation-states, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. And then there’s Giorgia Meloni’s Italy. Following a successful G-7 summit at Hiroshima, wherein the Italian prime minister...
by Rosario Iaconis | May 3, 2023 | Uncategorized
It’s that she’s prepared to compromise with the centrists. Who knew? Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Giorgia Meloni is a sinner. In addition to being the Magic Boot’s first female premier, Signora Meloni is the Italian Republic’s first right-wing head of government....
by Rosario Iaconis | Apr 15, 2023 | Uncategorized
‘The more you hire, the fewer taxes you owe to the State.’ Even as Giorgia Meloni grapples with Italy’s day-to-day governance, the new prime minister is forging the shape of things to come — what George Herbert Walker Bush called the “vision thing.” Ms. Meloni...
by Rosario Iaconis | Mar 15, 2023 | Uncategorized
And an Italian version of AOC emerges on Italy’s left. Prime Minister Meloni’s honeymoon period as prime minister has drawn to a close. Though hailed as more pragmatic and competent than many of her critics had believed, Italy’s premier has of late encountered...
by Rosario Iaconis | Feb 22, 2023 | Uncategorized
Italy’s voters, though, keep strengthening her hand. Unlike Claude Rains’s Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca, President Macron does not envision the “beginning of a beautiful friendship” with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Rather, the Gallic leader has tried to...
by Rosario Iaconis | Jan 21, 2023 | Uncategorized
…and Benito Mussolini Is Still Dead Mirabile dictu: Prime Minister Meloni’s center-right coalition is holding — thus far. The Italian parliament’s approval of Ms. Meloni’s annual budget without any political turbulence is the latest signal that she is governing...
by Rosario Iaconis | Dec 12, 2022 | Uncategorized
The merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery may spell the end of the road for Stanley Tucci’s CNN series Searching For Italy. And that’s a good thing. Though billed as a culinary journey up and down the Italian peninsula, Tucci’s oeuvre was more derogatory than...
by Rosario Iaconis | Nov 1, 2022 | Uncategorized
On the home front, her agenda includes constitutional and economic reform — plus a bold infrastructure project that Garibaldi would endorse. Now officially Italy’s Prime Minister Italy’s new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is peripatetic in her pursuit of a more...
by Rosario Iaconis | Oct 18, 2022 | Uncategorized
As Italy’s prospective Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, wades through the profiles of political figures who will comprise her cabinet, she has come up against the galaxy-class egos of her coalition partners, Matteo Salvini (Lega) and Silvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia)....
by Rosario Iaconis | Oct 11, 2022 | Uncategorized
The never-ending battle over Columbus Day brings to mind the world’s second oldest profession. As Harry S. Truman noted: “My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”...
by Rosario Iaconis | Oct 1, 2022 | Uncategorized
She is, in any event, unlikely to be outflanked on the right and is unlikely to go wobbly on the war in Ukraine. Giorgia Meloni’s victory in Italy’s parliamentary elections is as decisive as it is historic. Her conservative coalition won the day, obliterating...
by Rosario Iaconis | Sep 17, 2022 | Uncategorized
Italy’s upcoming parliamentary elections are poised to bring about a sea change in the leadership of the Magic Boot, which for the first time could well be governed by a woman — Giorgia Meloni. Meloni is leading a coalition of parties on the right,...
by Rosario Iaconis | Aug 23, 2022 | Uncategorized
Though the media are aghast at the prospect of Giorgia Meloni (right) becoming Italy’s next prime minister, the parliamentary elections on September 25th will reinforce the hallowed principle of popular sovereignty — the proposition that the ultimate authority of the...
by Rosario Iaconis | Mar 21, 2022 | Uncategorized
“Beware the ides of March,” said the soothsayer to Julius Caesar. Like their ancient forebear, Italian-Americans should have heeded such an augury. For on March 14, 1972, The Godfather premiered at the Loew’s State Theatre in New York. On March 24, it would open...
by Rosario Iaconis | Mar 19, 2022 | Uncategorized
St. Patrick’s Day is both a celebration of faith and a triumph of the human spirit. In addition to his theistic mission, St. Patrick brought the gifts of classical antiquity to the Emerald Isle, enduring privation and enslavement: “So I live among...
by Rosario Iaconis | Oct 12, 2021 | Uncategorized
In killing Columbus Day and replacing it with the hastily contrived Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the New York City Department of Education sent a message to the scions of Italy: Drop dead. Imagine the howls of indignation if the DOE similarly demeaned...
by Rosario Iaconis | Oct 2, 2021 | Uncategorized
The Many Saints of Newark is offal we must refuse. In darkening the silver screen with this lurid prequel to The Sopranos, David Chase concocts an origin story for the thuggish Tony Soprano that resurrects all the anti-Italian tropes and blood libels that made...
by Rosario Iaconis | Aug 9, 2021 | Uncategorized
In issuing a motu propio (“his own opinion”), overturning his predecessor’s Summorum pontificum that permitted usage of the Latin Mass, Pope Francis I evinces a flawed grasp of linguistics, logic and history. But so does Kenneth J. Wolfe (“Let loyal Catholics pray in...
by Rosario Iaconis | Jun 2, 2021 | Uncategorized
In challenging her students to craft a Martian constitution that eschews traditional electoral politics, Professor Hélène Landemore is agitating for the best of all possible political worlds (“Designing democracy on Mars can improve how it works on Earth”, Opinion,...
by Rosario Iaconis | Apr 27, 2021 | Uncategorized
Andrew Yang is in dire need of a tutorial in world history. In a shambolic interview with the Daily News Editorial Board, the New York City mayoral contender displayed his profound ignorance of one of humanity’s most epochal events: “I’ve always found it odd...
by Rosario Iaconis | Mar 27, 2021 | Uncategorized
The Fourth Estate holds a hallowed place in the American pantheon. Thomas Jefferson averred that “Our liberty depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Therefore, criticizing Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is both a fair and...
by Rosario Iaconis | Feb 23, 2021 | Uncategorized
George Kaufman famously averred that “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.” But what about SNL? In skewering Andrew Cuomo over his mishandling of the COVID-19 nursing-home controversy, Michael Che quipped: “New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who looks like all...
by Rosario Iaconis | Oct 6, 2020 | Uncategorized
The United States is a proud multicultural society. And one of our founding precepts – e pluribus unum (out of many, one) – underscores this storied diversity. However, in removing Buffalo’s Christopher Columbus monument – and stripping the park of its...
by Rosario Iaconis | Jun 27, 2020 | Uncategorized
Theodore Roosevelt was indeed a flawed, fallible man who embraced white supremacy and harbored prejudices against many ethnic groups. While serving on the U.S. Civil Service Commission, for example, he wrote to his sister Anna Roosevelt Cowles: “Monday we dined at the...
by Rosario Iaconis | Jun 19, 2020 | Uncategorized
Toppling a statue of Christopher Columbus and submerging it in a lake ill serves Virginia and our noble multicultural republic. Moreover, substituting violence for reason does a disservice to the peaceful George Floyd protesters. It also undermines one of America’s...
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