It Was Always Rome

Emperor Napoleon III There was never any doubt that Rome would be the capital of a reunified Italy.  Just as the Jewish people in exile longed for the city of David and Solomon (“Next year in Jerusalem!”) Italian patriots of the 19th Century dreamed of restoring...

Pasta or Macaroni?

Before there was an Italic Institute I had fun with an imaginary organization named Istituto di Past’Asciutta (ah-SHOO-tah).  The name was even fun to pronounce, try it!  Literally the Institute of “dried paste,” the term covered all your boxed or bagged...

Sopranos: Year 2001

Apologies to General MacArthur: “Old mob shows never die—and they never fade away, either.”  In case you hadn’t noticed, the American media has ‘predictably’ gone gaga over the 25th anniversary of HBO’s The Sopranos, David...

The September Tragedy

On September 3, 1943, the Kingdom of Italy signed an “armistice” with the Allies.  Negotiations had been going on secretly for months with meetings in neutral Portugal by some Italian military leaders under orders of King Victor Emmanuel III. Mussolini had been...

Reimagining History

“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” -George Orwell, from his book 1984 These words are not a riddle or an abstract concept.  For those of us who take pride in the millennial contributions of Italy to...