THE ROMAN GOD JANUS

 

January, the first month of the year, is named after the Roman god, Janus. He has two faces, one looking back at the past and another looking forward to the future, indicating the continual process of time. Understandingly, he was also the god of doors and gates. In Roman cities they depicted him with two faces at the gates, with one side bearded and the other clean-shaven indicating age and youth. In some locales they depicted him with having four faces, signifying him as an omniscient (all knowing) god and one that no one can hide from. Besides having the first month of the year named after him, followers built many temples in his honor; they also referred to him as Janus Gemini, meaning Janus the twins, since he had two faces. The people believed in him as the protector of the city.

 Ancient legend states he originally came from Thessaly, which is located in the Eastern portion of modern Greece He settled in Latium and was welcomed by a young female resident, Camese, whom he later married. They had many children, one they named Tiberinus, who became the god of the Tiber River for whom the Romans named it. Janus was the first king of the Latins, and his reign historians describe as a Golden Age. He introduced money, laws and the cultivation of the fields. It was only after his death that the Romans deified him as protector of the city.

When Camese died, he was the sole ruler. He later married Juturna a water nymph and had another son, Fontus, who is the god of fountains or springs.  One was located in the Roman Forum and the shrine to his mother is located where it once flowed―Lacus Juturnae. 

Recipe for Ceci Bread

1 lb of unbleached flour

Two rounded tblspns of whole wheat flour

6 ounces of ceci flour

Salt to taste

1 ½ cups of warm water

1 pkg of yeast

One chopped medium size onion (and/or you can also put chopped olives of your liking)

Add the yeast to the water and allow it to froth, mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and when the yeast is ready pour into the electric mixer bowl and add half the dry mix and beat for three minutes on high, then slowly add the rest of the dry ingredients. The dough should now be firm and sticky. Remove it and put on a floured surface and add a little flour at a time and knead until it achieves a nice non sticky consistency, now add the chopped onions or olives and knead that into the dough. Place into an oiled bowl, cover and allow to raise until double.  Carefully dump onto a cooking pan and bake at 375° for 30 to 40 minutes. After 30 min. check with wooden skewer, if it comes out dry it is done.

THE CEPPO OR TREE OF LIGHT

 

The Ceppo (chayp-poe) or Tree of light dates back to the 1500s in Tuscany, Italy. In pagan times, the Tuscans burned a log to commemorate the calends. The calends are the first day of the month. A major event concerning the burning of the Ceppo was at the end of December, in anticipation of the Calend of January. The people attached festivities to the event as the people of England did in the Yule log celebrations and in today’s New Year’s Eve parties. In another holiday, the Festa di San Giuseppe, the celebrants light fires to venerate the Saint the night before his feast day. These fires are visible from afar as sparkling stars through some of the mountainous areas of Italy.

 In Italian Ceppo means stump or log, similarly in modern times often when builders of homes put the rafters of the roof on a new house, carpenters frequently place a branch at the peak of the work until the job is finished. This is in recognition of Jupiter, the god of all gods, whose sacred tree was the oak. Because of this some considered the calends’ fires as a pagan ritual. 

In Rome, the future St. Boniface, with permission of Pope Zachary, abolished the burning of the Ceppo. Many accept that the people replaced it by building a facsimile of a tree from wood. The new Ceppo consists of tiered graduating shelves constructed around a shaft, the largest being at the bottom, and the smallest at the top. The shelves are painted and/or covered with colored paper or cloth on which are placed figurines representing Christmas. Usually the first level has the nativity scene and the above levels, greenery, fruit and other decorations. Lights are also used. 

The people of Italy still use the Ceppo, but many are adopting green artificial trees in it stead. During the holidays the Italians emphasize the nativity scene and the celebrating of Christmas Day as a concentration on Christ. Gift giving comes later during the Epiphany, i.e., the Wise men finding Christ and bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  Consequently, this developed into gift giving among family, friends, and to charities.

It is interesting to note that the word Ceppo derived from the Latin word cippium, which were stone stump shaped landmarks, marking distances on the ancient Roman Highways.

 

 

 

THE MINORCAN EXPERIENCE

 

An early Italian Immigration Happening

St. Augustine, Florida

 

In 1763 Spain lost Cuba to the English during the Seven Years War. It ended with the Treaty of Paris. In that treaty, England ceded Cuba back to Spain in exchange for the Spanish territory of Florida.

A Scotsman, Dr. Andrew Turnbull, and two other business men, invested in an adventure to develop a colony in what is now New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Dr. Turnbull, in recognition of the warmer climate, believed that Mediterranean people would be better suited to settling there. Consequently, he ventured to Italy, Corsica, Turkey, and to Greece, where he formerly was the British consul at Smyrna to the Ottoman Empire. His intent was to entice individuals to contract for indentured servitude. The lure was that each individual would receive fifty acres of land upon completion of their tenure. The length of servitude was six to eight years.

The amount of Italians recruited was 110; Corsicans 210, and a handful of Greeks and Turks. The rest were Minorcans, who, at the time, were under British rule. Outside of the Minorcans, the Italians were the first recruitments and Dr. Turnbull had them transported to Mahon, Minorca while he sailed to Greece and Turkey to recruit more people. During his tenure in Greece as consul he met and married a woman from Smyrna, hence the name―New Smyrna Beach.

He boarded the Italians on farms until the time for their departure to the New World. Some of them waited over a year and in the meantime many married local women. When Dr. Turnbull returned to Mahon, the signees asked permission to bring their wives.

The initial amount of persons that he intended to indenture was six hundred and sixty, but now, since there were wives, presumably, he was getting two for one. He granted them permission and in 1768 eight ships left Mahon with 1400 passengers. During the trip three births occurred and one hundred and forty-eight people died. Four ships became lost on the trip delaying their arrival by a month.

Father Pedro Camps, the priest for the flock accompanied them to and in New Smyrna and in St. Augustine. Father Camps was a highly dedicated individual who tended to his flock with the utmost care. It is because of him that there is an abundance of information about the “Minorqueños,” available. He recorded all the births, baptisms and deaths into what many refer to as, “The Golden Book of the Minorcans”. The original book is still extant and in good condition. Several handwritten copies are on file in the Historical Library in St. Augustine. The name of the colony was Les Mesquite.

The state of affairs in were harsh. Dr. Turnbull and his overseers were cruel and kept those who survived the rigors of the settlement beyond their servitude. Conditions were so bad that nine hundred and thirty individuals died before the end. During the first year four hundred and fifty perished. However, due to births, the number that made it to St. Augustine was six hundred. Of the original 1400 only two hundred and ninety-one survived.

Captives Ramon Rogero, Francisco Pellicer, and Juan Genoply (Genopoli) clandestinely built a make-shift boat, escaped and set sail to reach to St. Augustine to tell the governor of the conditions at the colony. En route a passing ship rescued them and took them to Baltimore. Once there they continued their journey to St. Augustine by horseback and on foot. Upon arrival in St. Augustine they met with the British Governor Tonyn and explained the conditions at New Smyrna. The governor had an investigation conducted with the findings that the colony was in deplorable conditions and the people were enslaved.

He freed and removed them en masse in a seventy-five mile march to St. Augustine in July of 1777.The trek took three days. Records of the investigation still exist. Seven years later the 1783 Treaty of Paris returned Florida Spain

 Some descendant names of the Italian survivors that made it to St. Augustine are Usina, Pacetti (Paxetty, Pachetty, Paxity, etc.) Capo, Canova, Bonelli (Bonelly), Mascaro, Mariano, Manusi, Trotti. Two famous Minorcan descendants are Judy Canova and Stephen Vincent Benét. Originally, his name had no accent. His grandfather, who was from St. Augustine was Stephen Vincent Benet, General U.S Army. His father was Esteve Benet from the Isle of Minorca, arriving in New Smyrna Colony in 1768.

 

Below is a picture of the Oldest Wooden School House in the United States. Juan Genopoly (Giovanni Genopoli) built it.

RAPHAEL

(Raffaello Sanzio or Santi)

 

Raffaello’s last name appears in both spellings; however, he and his works are so famous that people know him simply as Raphael or in Italian as Raffaello. Similar to Michelangelo whose last name is Buonarotti, and Giotto, whose is Di Bondone. Raphael is famous for many Madonna and Child paintings, he did during the Italian Renaissance.

Raphael was born in Urbino on the twenty-eighth of March or the sixth of April 1483, the uncertainty derives from a tomb inscription by Pietro Bembo which states that Raphael died on the same day of the year that he was born―Good Friday. But, in 1483, Good Friday fell on twenty-eighth of March.

Raphael’s father, Giovanni, Sanzio was an artist who worked for the ruler of Urbino―Guidobaldo da Montefeltro and his wife Elisabetta Gonzaga. Giovanni taught his son the rudiments of painting and when he was old enough, he sent him to a school in Perugia. Here he was under the tutelage of Pietro Perugino, a highly regarded artist who apprenticed with Leonardo da Vinci, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Fillipino Lippi, and others.

Within a year Raphael was an artist on his own merit. His first painting, at the age of nineteen was, “The Portrait of Elisabetta Gonzaga” (1502 Oil on canvas presently at the Galleria degli Uffizi, in Florence). He painted a number of Madonna and Child canvases with equal charm. Eighteen different cities in Europe and the United States claim ownership to some of his paintings. Five are at the National Gallery of Art in Washington; D.C.: The Alba Madonna, The Niccolini―Cowper Madonna, The Small Cowper Madonna, Saint George and the Dragon, and Bindo Altoviti.

Raphael, unfortunately, for us, after a two week illness in the prime of his life at the age of thirty-seven died on his birthday in 1520, in Rome. While ill Pope Leo X visited him daily. On his tombstone are the words, “This is Raphael’s tomb. While he lived, Nature feared his victory; when he died, that it would die with him.”

One outstanding aspect of him was his ability to synthesize the styles of other artists into his own productions; thereby keeping, expressing, and emphasizing the genre of his epoch. He was a person held in very high regard by his peers. Giorgio Vasari, a painter, architect, writer, historian, and a contemporary of Raphael, wrote, “With what liberality heaven can occasionally pour out the whole wealth of its treasures, all talents and outstanding skills, into a single person is clearly evident in Raffaello Sanzio of Urbino, who stood out as much for his rare personal charisma as for his unique genius.”  Below is the Alba Madonna, a self portrait, he is in the background, and The School of Athens, and the web sites for viewing his works. At www.galleriabroghese.it, www.vatican.va, www.aberoma.com (Villa Farnese)

MONONGAH MINING DISASTER

 

Immigration to America has been a subject of concern for a long time, even though the laborious tasks performed by them and others built this country into what it is today. Most engaged and are engaging in works that others disdain or reject and consequently, subject themselves to greater risks to their health and well-being as demonstrated in this article.  

The disaster occurred on December 6, 1907. It relates to our subject matter of Everything Italian and Italian American because most of the victims were Italian immigrants. It occurred in Monongah, West Virginia and historically was the worst mining catastrophe of the century. The tragedy was the result of a series of explosions and fires that wrecked two large coal mines, No. 6 and 8, of the Fairmont Coal Company, which was a constituent of the Consolidation Coal Company of Maryland.  The land at which the mines were located, the company leased from ex-Kentucky State Senator Johnson Newlon Camden, originally from Parkersburg, West Virginia.   Of the 362 killed in the explosion, 171 were Italians, the rest represented various ethnic groups, Slavs, Poles, Greeks (5) Blacks (11) and Anglos. Other figures extend upwards to a loss of 500, since many of the miners took their children to work with them, indicating piece work, the more coal you gather the more you make.

The disaster left 250 widows and more than 1,000 children fatherless.  For that day and age we can easily imagine the burden of the wives to support their children and make their way. Most, we can conjecture, were unable to speak English, or able to read or write. Nevertheless, the response of society to the disaster resulted in significant aid to the families from churches, charitable organizations, and people in general. A monument from the Italian government recognizes the strong communal response.

The Italian victims were mainly from San Giovanni in Fiore, Cosenza, Calabria and the region of Molise. In San Giovanni in Fiore, the residents in 2003 to commemorate the explosion, erected a memorial with the inscription “Per non dimenticare minatore calabrese morti nel West Virginia (USA). Il sacrificio di quegli uomini forti tempri le nuove generazione.”

The Italians in Molise presented a bell to the town of Monongah, which today sits in the town square next to a statue representing the widows of the victims.

The picture of the polished black megalith erected at the Mt. Calvary Cemetery in 2006 by the Italian government as a reminder of the catastrophe, sits next to small markers under which are the partial remains of unidentified victims.

Below are pictures of Monument in San Giovanni in Fiore, the bell from Molise, and the statue commemorating the wives of the victims.

 

http://www.wvculture.org/HISTORY/disasters/monongah03.html. (West Virginia Archives and History)

http://www.historyinsidepictures.com/Pages/MonongahMineDisasterTombstonesinlocalgraveyardsorcemeteries.aspx.

 

addendum

 

The disaster brought about significant attention to immigration. Anti-immigration forces date back many years, beginning with the great Irish immigration of the 1850s on. The forces grew stronger seeking to only allow middle class, professional and skilled immigrants mainly of the Protestant faith. The development of the steam ship was instrumental in providing affordable passage for many immigrants. This increased the flow from southern and Eastern Europe. Most of these people were illiterate and peasants. Something of which the anti-immigrant forces highly disapproved.

 

In an article in Charities and The Commons, (a weekly journal published in New York in the years of 1905/06-1909) under the title of “The Effect of Emigration Upon Italy, Threatened Depopulation of the South,” Antonio Magano pointed out: “While we, in America, are considering the restriction of immigration by means of an educational test, the Italian parliament has spent several sessions discussing the possibility of forbidding the emigration of those who cannot read and write.  This would leave the educated classes free to emigrate, but would greatly restrict the emigration of the southern peasants who are needed to till the fields.  Only last March, one of the members of Parliament pointed out the fact that emigration, if it continued at the present rate, would surely prove a severe injury to the country.  Mr. Celsea said:”

'The exodus of our people threatens to be in the near future far and beyond that which we believe and threatens to absorb that gradual increment of population which for some years past had been our pride.  Allow me to remind you that tour emigration from 88,000 in 1886, from 503,000 in 1903, enormously increased in 1905 to 726,000.  During the first half of this year (up to March), the number is 458,000, a tremendous increase over 1905.  Alongside of this fearful increase in emigration is the decrease in the number of those who return.  For if in 1905, 78 per cent returned, in 1906, only 23 or 28 per cent. In the southern provinces, we found almost universal desire to emigrate.'"

ROCKY MARCIANO

 

Rocky was a famous pugilist, whose original name was Rocco Francis Marchegiano. He is noted as being the only world heavyweight champion to retain his title throughout his career. It lasted from the twenty-third of September, 1952 until the twenty-seventh of April, 1956.

Rocky was born on the first of September, 1923, and reared in Brockton, Massachusetts. His father Pierino and his mother, Pasqualina Picciuto were immigrants from Abruzzo and Campania, respectively. Rocky had three sisters and a younger brother. Rocky was active in sports in high school, mainly baseball and later weightlifting. He was a client of the famous Italian American Charles Atlas (Angelo Siciliano). Rocky also toyed with boxing and had a makeshift punching bag that he hung from a tree in the backyard of their home. He quit school in the tenth grade and supported himself and helping the family by doing odd jobs.

 In 1943, at the age of twenty, the army drafted him and assigned him to Swansea, in Wales, England. His duties involved transporting supplies to the mainland. On his return to the U.S., while awaiting discharge, he did amateur boxing for the army and won the 1946, Amateur Armed Forces Tournament. Throughout his army stint he continued to keep an interest in baseball and boxing. He fought as an amateur boxer until 1947, when he fought Lee Epperson, as a professional. He knocked him out in three rounds.

Afterward he returned to amateur boxing in the Golden Gloves’ League. He won the bulk of his engagements, except for one which he lost to Coley Wallace. In a later knockout bout, he hurt his hand and turned his attention to baseball. He went to Fayetteville, North Carolina to try out for a farm team. He lasted three weeks before they cut him from the players. He returned to professional pugilism, and in his first bout on the twelfth of July 1948, he won over Harry Bilizarian by a knockout.  It was uphill from there. Rocky won his first sixteen bouts by knockouts, each before the fifth round and another nine before the first round finished. Some of his most notable competitors were, Marciano v. La Starza, Red Applegate, Rex Lane, Joe Louis, Ezzard Charles, and his most famous, Jersey Joe Wolcott, in September of 1952.

In this bout, Joe was the defender of the Championship Heavyweight Crown. Rocky was losing the match. The scores were all in Jersey Joe’s favor. The bout continued for thirteen rounds when in that round Rocky gave Joe his famous Susie Q, a left hook from which Jersey Joe slumped to the floor. Marciano was now the champion. This final round is available on U-tube at www.rockymarciano.net.

Rocky continued to fight, maintaining the crown and fought his last bout, on the twenty-first of September, 1955, when he fought for his third time at the Yankee Stadium against Archie Moore. He knocked him out in the ninth round. He officially retired on the twenty-seventh of April 1956.

Rocky lost his life on the thirty-first of August, 1969, in a plane crash at the age of forty-nine. In Abruzzo, Italy there is a statue of him in a boxing stance with the inscription―A ROCKY MARCIANO-CAMPIONE DEL MONDO-I CITTADINI DI RIPA TEATINA. (Rocky Marciano Champion of the World, from the citizens of Ripa Teatina)