Our Inner Pagan

Today is celebrated as Little Easter in Italy, a recovery from yesterday’s religious blow-out. For those of you who think that Catholicism saved the ancient Italic people from their pagan ways, think again.  It’s a question of theory vs practice.  Peter and Paul...

Going Wobbly

Now that a statue of Columbus adorns the White House grounds, thanks to a non-Italic president, our community leaders should take the hint and redouble their efforts to restore the Great Navigator’s place in history.  However, I fear that many who speak for our...

CHICAGO, CHICAGO, THAT TODDLIN’ TOWN

Institute members may recall that in 2007 we initiated, co-produced, and supervised the first-ever, full-length (60 minute) documentary on the history of Italians in Chicago called, appropriately, And They Came to Chicago: The Italian American Legacy. It was shown on...

Ageless Corporations

Why Italians like old things has fascinated me since I learned that the oldest bank in the world is in Italy.  Banca Monte dei Paschi was founded in 1472 in Siena.  Today, it’s not only still in business but is Italy’s 3rd largest bank. Banca Monte dei...

From Calabria to Chicagoland

Though writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous phrase “There are no second acts in American lives” has long been disproven (think of Clint Eastwood winning his second-Best Director Oscar in his 70s after winning one ten years earlier in his 60s),...

Our Saintly Competition

This week the Irish celebrate an Italic saint while we celebrate a Jewish one.  Modern Romanophiles still celebrate Matronalia, motherhood & feminism The Roman St. Patrick not only led the conversion of heathen Celts but taught them to read and write in...