Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi

Pelosi was born on March 26, 1940. Her father, Thomas J. D’Alesandro, became a House Representative the year before she was born. He remained in office until 1947, after which he became the 39^th Mayor of Baltimore. The first Italian American to hold that post. His parents immigrated to the United States. Her mother Annunciata M. Lombardi immigrated from Compobasso, Campania, Italy. Pelosi’s father claimed mainly northern Italian roots, and of course his wife was a southern Italian. Pelosi was one of six children—the last and only girl. Since her father was the mayor during her late childhood and teenage years many affectionately called her—the Mayor’s Daughter.

Pelosi came from a religious Roman Catholic family. She attended catholic high school and followed that with Trinity Woman’s College in Washington, D.C., from which she graduated in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. Her initial experience at college was one of cultural shock. Since she lived, played, and attended school in Little Italy going to college away from the family and community took an adjustment. After college she worked as a congressional intern for a for a Maryland senator. Since her father was involved in politics the children were active in his campaign activities. Pelosi, when she was twelve years old attended the 1952 Democratic National Convention.   Consequently, politics were a natural to her.

After graduation, she married Paul Pelosi a Georgetown, graduate from San Francisco on September 7, 1963. After marriage they settle in New York, where he worked as a banker. By 1969, and after having five children they moved to San Francisco. There Nancy was active in politics as a supporter. She had no expressed intentions on running for any offices and eventually became the Chair of the California Democratic Party from 1981 until 1983. An incumbent, Phillip Burton, in the U. S. House of Representatives died (1983) and his wife, Sala Galante Burton, ran for his seat and won, however, after winning the second term she died two months after the election. Before her death, she recommended that Pelosi compete in the upcoming special election. She did and won not only won the special election, but the following 1988 regular election and continued to do so till this day. She has consistently garnered up to 80% of the votes. 

In October of 2001 the House elected her as minority whip. Her job was to ensure that democratic members would vote with specific pieces of legislation that the party supported and Republicans who may swing their way. She became the first woman to hold this post.  The following year she won another post as Minority Speaker of the House. The first woman to hold that post too. On January 3, 2019 on the opening day of the 116^th United States Congress, Pelosi received 220 votes to become, a first woman once again to hold the post of Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Dean of the House, Don Young swore her in along with the rest that took the oath of office.  The Speaker is second in the United States presidential line of succession, after the Vice President and ahead of the President pro tempore of the Senate.

 Pelosi, has been a very active individual seeking many forms of legislation. Many have recognized her for her endeavors and accomplishments. Some honors she received are: The Knight Grand Cross of the Order Merit of the Italian Republic, The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun from Japan and in 2006, in Barbara Walters’ list of Most Fascinating Person of the Year, Pelosi was one. In the list of Forbes world’s most powerful women of 2014 she was ranked 26^th.

 RITA LEVI-MONTALCINI

 

Rita was born on the twenty-second of April, 1909, in Turin, Italy. She was one of four children, three girls and a boy, she being a twin of one of the girls. Her mother was Adele Montalcini. The family was wealthy and of Sephardic Jewish faith. The family was Victorian in their values, and her father Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer, believed women should not attend higher education as it would interfere in their role as future mothers. The family, as a whole engaged in intellectual pursuits; thus, it didn’t take much effort for the daughters to change his mind.

She studied medicine at the University of Turin and in 1936, she graduated from medical school with a summa cum laude degree in medicine and surgery.  After which she enrolled in a three year specialization program in neurology and psychiatry. She did research on the effects peripheral tissues have on nerve cell growth. But, because of her Jewish ancestry, Mussolini’s “Manifesto per la Defesa della Razza,” (Manifest for the defense of the Race), caused her to lose her job. When things became worse in Turin, the family escaped to the country side, and had to follow that with going to Florence where the family remained in hiding during the German occupation of Italy (1943-45). By 1944, the Americans cleared Florence of the Nazis and she was able to surface and became actively involved in nursing and caring for refugees suffering with infectious diseases. When the war ended in 1945, she was able to resume her research at Turin.

In 1947, she accepted an invitation to a post at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri by zoologist Viktor Hamburger. Here she was to repeat the research performed before the war in the study of the growth of nerve tissue in chick embryos.

In 1948, they discovered that a variety of mouse tumors spurred nerve growth when implanted into chick embryos. The two traced the effect to a substance in the tumor that they named nerve-growth factor NGF. Levi-Montalcini further showed that the tumor caused similar cell growth in a nerve-tissue cultures kept alive in the laboratory. Stanley Cohen, another interested scientist, joined her at Washington University, and he was able to isolate the nerve-growth factor from the tumor.

Levi-Montalcini planned to remain only twelve months, but the excellent results of their work impressed her to continue. In 1956, the University offered her the position as an associate professor and two years later that of full professorship. In 1962, she developed a research unit in Rome. She remained active both here and abroad. She also held the position of Director of the Institute of Cell Biology of the Italian National Council of Research in Rome.

NGF was the first of many cell-growth factors found in the bodies of animals. In 1986, Dr. Levi-Montalcini received due recognition when she, along with her colleague, Dr. Stanley Cohen, earned the Nobel Prize in medicine for the discoveries of NGF and of EGF, epidermal growth factor, which is used in the treatment of severe burns.

She published an autobiographical work, In Praise of Imperfection, in 1988. At the following internet address she provides a short interesting autobiographical sketch telling of her parents, sisters, and brother and war experiences. Levi-Montalcini held dual citizenship of Italy and of the United States. She passed away on the thirtieth of December 2012, at the age of 102.

http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1986/levi-montalcini-autobio.html

 

VINCENT PHILIP D’ONOFRIO DONE

 

D’Onofrio is an American actor, producer and singer of Italian descent with ancestors from Sicily. He was born in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1959.

His father Gennaro D’Onofrio, an assistant theater-production and interior designer, met his mother Phyllis Minicola, a restaurant server and manager in Hawaii during his military assignment in 1956.  After having two daughters, Antoinette in 1956, and Elizabeth in 1957, they had Vincent.

D’Onofrio’s parents divorced when he was young. He spent most of his youth with his mother and his step-father George Meyer and his son and daughter.  His step-father operated a number of community theaters; consequently, introducing him to the field of acting. His first interest was in sleight of hand and magic that he learned from Cuban entertainers.  During his teenage years he worked backstage in set- buildings and sound production.

After graduating from Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School he began appearing front stage. Following high school he enrolled for eighteen months at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he engaged in small community-theater productions. Subsequent to that, he studied method-acting at the American Stanislavsky Theater and the Actors Studio under acting-coaches. This experience helped him acquire his first paid role in off Broadway’s, This Property Is Condemned. He went on and appeared in a number of productions—Of Mice and Men, and Sexual Perversity in Chicago. He continued his career by performing in many New York University productions. During this time he worked as a bouncer at the Hard Rock Café and other city clubs. Standing at six foot three he apparently had a physique to go with it. In an interview, he related, “It was pretty crazy. There was a lot of violence. Some of it was really tough to be around.”

In 1984, he had his Broadway debut as Nick Rizzoli in Open Admissions. Two years later he applied for a role as Pvt. Leonard Lawrence, in Full Metal Jacket, which he considers his defining moment in acting. He sent audition tapes to director Stanley Kubrick. Four tapes later he got the role. The original Pvt. Lawrence was a skinny red neck; however, Kubrick thought otherwise, believing the role would have a greater impact if he was big and clumsy. Bizarrely, the production required that D’Onofrio gain seventy pounds to fulfill the role. He did and brought his weight to 280 pounds. He holds the record for the most weight gained by an actor for a movie. He surpassed Robert De Niro’s sixty pounds gain to play Jake La Motta in the Raging Bull (1980).

In 1998, D’Onofrio, his father and sister Elizabeth founded the RiverRun International Film Festival in Brevard, North Carolina. A few years later, Dale Pollock, former film producer and dean at the School of Filmmaking at the University of North Carolina’s School of the Arts, took control and moved the festival to Winston-Salem

After his defining moment in film D’Onofrio continued to play as a supporting actor for many pictures, by 1997, he went into television and received an Emmy nomination for his appearance as John Lange, the doomed victim in Homicide: Life on the Street episode of “Subway”. Two years later he turned down a role in the Sopranos. By 2001, he accepted his best-known role as Det. Robert Goren on the television show Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

In November of 2005, D’Onofrio won best actor at the Stockholm International Film Festival, for his role as Mike Cobb in the film, Thumbsucker.  D’Onofrio spread his wings into teaching, acting, directing, and producing many films in concert with many others. He made a debut in music on October 27, 2009, as country singer character, George Geronimo Gerkle at Joe’s Pub in New York City. 

In 2008, he and his sister Toni, started hosting events to raise money for the Utah Meth Cops Project. He served as the project’s spokesperson from 2009 to 2012.  He is a supporter of law enforcement, and since 2010, he has been the spokesperson for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and Museum. He narrates the documentary, Heroes Behind The Badge, 2012, a story of four fallen officers and the impact their deaths have on their families, coworkers, and communities. In 2013, a follow up of the documentary—Sacrifice and Survival was released. D’Onofrio continues to be involved in many activities.

D’Onofrio has three children, one a daughter from a long standing relationship with Greta Scacchi with whom he starred in a number of films. On March 22, 1997 D’Onofrio married Dutch model Carin van der Donk, they had a son born in 1999. Soon after his birth they separated, only to reconcile and have a second son born in 2008.

Many refer to D’Onofrio as “an actor’s actor.” The wide variety of roles he has played and the quality of his work, and the diversity of engagements—teacher, director and producer have earned him a reputation as a resourceful talent. He is the Kingpin of Daredevil, a 2017 Netflix series.

Photographs are from Wikipedia, and the last one is of Vincent and his second wife Carin.

PIETRO CESARE ALBERTI

 

Italian American writers consider Alberti as the first Italian immigrant to settle in New York. He was a Venetian and the supposed son of Andrea Alberti, the Secretary of the Ducal Treasury, and Lady Veronica Cremona. Nevertheless he bore the same name of the powerful Venetian branch of the Florentine Alberti Family. He was born on June 20, 1608.

The city of Venice, at the time of his birth, was a republic and at its zenith in economic power and influence.  When he was twenty-seven, the Bubonic plague scourged the city killing over 40,000 residents. Alberti, presumably, to escape contracting the disease, decided to venture to the new world. On his first leg of his journey he traveled to New Amsterdam arriving there in the second of June, of 1635. He acquired a position as a sailor on the De Connick David that was preparing to sail to the new world. The ship sailed down the west coast of Africa, passing the mouth of the Congo River and then at some point south of it headed west towards Brazil.

The captain and Alberti didn’t get along and the captain threatened to land him in Cayenne, Guiana. They resolved their problems and Alberti remained on board. The ship continued on to the West Indies and Virginia. When it finally reached the final destination, New Amsterdam, (New York City) Alberti disembarked and allegedly sued the captain for unpaid wages and won his case.

Alberti settled for a permanent stay in New Amsterdam. Since he was an Italian amongst the Dutch, the residents knew him by many different names―Peter the Italian, Cicero Alberto, Caesar Albertus, Peter Mallenmook and more. In 1639 Alberti contracted with Pieter Montfoort, a tobacco planter to buy part of his plantation. In the sixth year of his settlement he married a local Dutch woman, Judith Manje. They domiciled on Broad Street in Manhattan. After four years he secured the deed of ownership for the land from the Director General and Council of New Amsterdam. By 1646 he and his wife left their home on Broad Street and moved to their new property located on Long Island’s Brooklyn section.

 The Alberti’s had seven children with only one dying in infancy. Unfortunately, while the children were still at an age requiring supervision, the Indians, in 1655, raided the plantation and slew Pietro and Judith. The Dutch authorities appointed a guardian and leased the plantation. All the children married and in 1695 two of the sons, Jan and Willem, sold the business. Through the following generations the surname became Albertus, Burtus, Burtis, and finally anglicized to Albertis.

The Alberti family and descendant ares one of the earliest of millions of Italian Americans who today are a major part of the American social fabric. In New York City’s Battery Park is a small stone near the bronze statue of Giovanni da Verrazzano, which commemorates Alberti’s arrival.

For more information see http//www.italianhistorical.org/  

Luisa Tetrazzini

Tetrazzini was an Italian opera singer of old and was a coloratura soprano of wide fame. She was born on June 29, 1871, in Florence, Italy. She had a phenomenal voice containing unique talents and was an international star performing in Europe, South America, and the United States.

She was the daughter of a military tailor and the youngest of three siblings. Her sister, Eva, also a successful singer, was fourteen years older, and her voice teacher. Folklore indicates that she began singing at the age of three. The middle sister of the three was Elvira and she too was an opera singer.

Tetrazzini later studied at the Instituto Musicale in Florence. She also made he debut as Inez in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera L’Africaine, at the Teatro Pagliano in 1890 in her hometown. She was married at the time to Giuseppe Scalaberni who managed the building in that contained the theater. Luisa would attend the rehearsals, listening for hours, and one day fortune smiled on her. The person to sing Inez became ill. Luisa substituted and her stunning career commenced. For the next eight years she sang at various opera houses throughout Italy and Europe. She then went to South America, Mexico, and the United States where she made her debut in San Francisco in 1905. She followed that with a debut in 1908, in New York. However, her appearance was not at the Metropolitan, but at Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera Company. She played the role of Violetta in La Traviata with as great a success as she had at Covent Garden in London the previous year. The Garden appearance was the advent of a star studded career, since at the time she was an unknown. Her performance and talent were so impressive that she became an overnight operatic superstar.  Her career skyrocketed to where her appearances commanded the highest fees, selling out opera houses and concert halls where ever she performed. She also appeared at the Metropolitan for the 1911season giving eight performances. She followed that with a three year stint singing for the Boston Opera and the Chicago Gran Opera Companies.

Ellis Island records show she arrived there six times beginning in 1903. One of her most notable trips was in 1908, when in 1910, in San Francisco on Christmas Eve, she gave a free concert singing in the street at the corner of Market and Kearney near Lotta’s Fountain for a city she said she loved. Her gift to the city many considered an epitaph to the losses from the 1906 earthquake. The literature states something close to 250,000 people attended.  At about this time, many believe Ernest Arbogast, a chef at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco created the dish later named Chicken Tetrazzini. Tetrazzini was a long time resident of the hotel and was an apparent savorer of the dish.  However, Louis Paquet, a chef at the Historic Hotel McAlpin, at Herald Square, in New York many credit with popularizing the dish.  Nevertheless, many New Yorkers argue the point saying it was created in their city.

Tetrazzini was petite and as she grew older she became quite stout; nevertheless, her stage appearances were unaffected by her physique. She was an excellent musician who was a sociable, energetic and passionate person. Other singers, Enrico Caruso, Adelina Patti, Freida Hempel, all talented and highly regarded personalities, admired and applauded her talents.

After World War I, she left the opera stage for the concert platform. She married three times and her last husband was a spender and quickly squandered her fortune. One of her husbands, M. Vernati was twenty-years her junior, she 56 and he 26. During her later years she would often say, “I am old, I am fat, but I am still Tetrazzini.” Consequently, she had to continue concerts despite the deterioration of her voice. She retired in 1932, and died in Milan on April 28, 1940. The state paid for her funeral. The following photographs are from Allmusic.com and Pinterest.

JOSEPH STELLA

An Italian born American Futurist painter.

 

Giuseppe Michele Stella was born on June 13, 1877, in Muro Lucano, Potenza, Basilicata, Italy.  He was the fourth of five brothers. He was a chubby and introspective child and somewhat of a loner. His father and grandfather were lawyers and the family was affluent. Stella had no interest in pursuing the vocations dominant in the family. From a young age he demonstrated talent for drawing and a passion for art. Since his family was prosperous education was available to him that was not for the masses. He enjoyed school and learned both English and French.

When he was nineteen years old, he moved to New York City to study medicine and pharmacology. Upon leaving Ellis Island, he anglicized his name to Joseph. Many immigrant descendants believe the officials at Ellis Island changed their ancestor’s names. Such was not the case; the agents screening the persons arriving received manifests from the ships written by agents in the country of origin. Thus, many changed their names after leaving Ellis Island.

Soon after his arrival Stella ditched his pursuit in medicine and went into art. He enrolled at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art. His mentor was William Merritt Chase, who at the time was a popular American painter and a champion of Impressionism and a teacher. Other students of his were Georgia O’Keefe, Edward Hopper and George Bellows—all American Art Masters.

Stella in his early days worked as an illustrator, publishing realist drawings in magazines. He was an expert draftsman and made drawings throughout his career. Stella started as an academic realist, which changed, as he matured, to a modernist. He was known for his sweeping and dynamic lines. He had a strong interest in immigrant and ethnic living. He would roam the streets with his sketch-pad drawing particular poses of city life. However, Stella was unhappy and tired of America, even though the industrial aspects of the New York City impressed him and at the same time weighed on his psyche. One can easily imagine the impact a bustling, dynamic, rapidly growing metropolis could have on a young mind coming from a small idyllic community. He returned to Italy in 1909. He felt, “an enforced stay among enemies, in a black funereal land over which weighted…the curse of a merciless climate” (industrialism).

His move back home was propitious; his return led to contact with Modernism, which casted his characteristic style. After two years he relocated to Paris where Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism flourished. His response, in his writings, was, “There was in the air the glamor of a battle.” He couldn’t have selected a better time to be there. After two years of associating with many notables in the field of art he ventured to give America another try.

On his return to New York he fused back into the local art social circles and as a results he painted the Battle of Lights and Coney Island, his earliest and greatest American Futurist works. In 1914-16 Armory show (The International Exhibition of Modern Art) Stella became a much talked about figure, both good and bad. Conservative critics found Modernism incomprehensible; therefore, threatening.

(See: http://www.npr.org/2013/02/17/172002686/armory-show-that-shocked-america-in-1913-celebrates-100.)

During the 1920s he painted his famous Brooklyn Bridge. Another well-known painting  of his is New York Interpreted (The Voice of the City) 1922, in this one he painted a twenty-three feet long and eight feet high depiction of bridges and skyscrapers. Many looked upon this work as an altar piece indicating that industrialism was displacing religion as the center of modern life. 

Stella did not maintain a strong position as a painter of a any particular style, since as his career continued, he continually changed, going from one to another and not staying with what was in vogue. He became a puzzling painter.  Below are a number of quotes, which clearly explain his wonderment of the world around him.

Quotes

“I was thrilled to find America so rich with so many new motives to be translated into a new art. Steel and electricity had created a new world.”

“I have seen the future and it is good. We will wipe away the religions of old and start anew.”

“At my arrival (in Paris), Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism were in full swing. There was in the air the glamour of a battle, the holy battle raging for the assertion of a new truth. My youth plunged full in it.”

“During the last years of the war I went to live in Brooklyn in the most forlorn region of the oceanic tragic city, in Williamsburg, near the bridge. Brooklyn gave me a sense of liberation. The vast view of her sky, in opposition to the narrow one of New York, was a relief and at night, in her solitude, I used to find, intact, the green freedom of my own self.”

“I had witnessed the growth and expansion of New York proceeding parallel to the development of my own life…and therefore I was feeling entitled to interpret the titanic efforts, the conquests already obtained by the imperial city in order to become what now She is, the center of the world.”

Stella died on November 5, 1946 in New York City.

Below in following order are, The Battle of Lights, Luna Park, The Virgin, Joseph Stella, and The Brooklyn Bridge.

 

ITALIAN FUNERALS

 

On my first trip to Italy, one of the first thing I wanted to do was to see a Roman structure of any sort. Thus, on the second day I was there I asked locals if there were any Roman ruins nearby. We, my wife and I, were directed to a Roman out-look defensive tower located in Velate, a frazione, of Varese, Lombardia where we were lodging for a few days. The residents of the area built it in the eleventh century.  Consequently, it was not a Roman fortification but a local defensive work. Nevertheless, it still was impressive standing at 450 feet with excellent construction. It is partially ruined, but what remains provides significant insight into the painstaking efforts to make it last and withstand any attack. The literature refers to it as “La Torre di Velate.”  Our visit to Italy was prior to a national movement called Restauro, restoration, thus I took my photograph before. The latter one is after. When we visited it, it was unkempt with a small sign explaining its history.

After viewing and fulfilling my visual hunger, I noticed that nearby was a walled-in cemetery. I was able to see some of the tops of the mausoleum. This really piqued my curiosity, more so because there was a funeral in procession. Many mourners were walking behind a casket carted by men. By the time we walked into the graveyard the men were inserting the coffin into a tiered mausoleum. My wife and I stood off to the side and a man walking by us looked at me with teary eyes and uttered, “He was so young. What a misfortune.” I nodded my head in reverence. Nevertheless, I was astounded at what my eyes beheld as they scanned the two or three acres of the cemetery.

The mausoleums were in various sizes and built from beautiful different colored marble. The builders constructed them in classical architecture with such precision that they appear as if they are entrances to homes of wealthy Ancient Romans. We see the same in cemeteries here in America, especially where there is a large population of people of Italian heritage. However, because of the varied ethnic groups buried in many of the cemeteries the mausoleums tend to stand alone. In Italy they stand close together. Below are two photographs I took. One of the tower and one of a part of the cemetery. The other two are from www.tripadvisor.co.nz and www.tripadvisor.co.uk. Thus, we see how many Italians honor their dead.

Most Italian funerals follow the rituals of the Catholic Church, since most of the people are of that religion. The Italians of America follow the same; however, in regard to customs beyond the church, much of Italian American funerals have become watered down. In small towns in Italy next of kin give notice of a death by placing posters in various parts of the town. On it are the details of the passing and of the funeral arrangements. The American counterpart is the obituaries appearing in the newspaper. At the funeral, small religious cards with information about the deceased are available. They usually contain a prayer on one side and information about the deceased on the other. Neighbors and friends upon learning of the death bring food, which seems also to be a widespread practice in America. Solemnity and respect for the dead is important. In America with so much cultural diversity many Italians are awed with “celebrations” that some groups engage in, in the passing of individuals.

  Italy allows cremation; however, there are laws prescribing the process. One has to join an association of cremation, if they so desire to receive that service. If, upon the individual’s death, family members want to do otherwise, it still takes place. If one does not belong to the association, family members can apply for permission. Generally, the families may keep the ashes at home in an urn or if they desire, to scatter them. Laws permit it in special areas within cemeteries or on private land with the owner’s consent. The laws governing funerals vary from region to region.

Cemeteries are municipal, and usually whatever route one enters a city, there is a sign indicating the way to it. They do not belong to any church or organization and any one has the right to entombment burial. I use that word since it is extremely rare for in-ground burial, given the limited amount of land; thus, in the cemeteries are family mausoleums and tiered crypts. Since Italy is a small country with a large population, the laws of the regions require the gathering of the bones of the deceased after a period of 5 to 30 years. They place the bones in a common ossario (bone depository). Some of these date back hundreds of years. Many of them, are tourist attractions such as catacombs; however, those of modern time are religious places, such as the Tempio Ossario ai Caduti d’Italia (Bone Temple of the Fallen) in the piazzale XXVI Luglio, in Udine, Italy, containing the bones of 25,000 Italian soldiers who died during the First World War. It is a church and a holy and solemn place in respect of the dead. The following photographs in order of appearance are the cemetery near the tower, the tower before restauro and after, one of the embrasures, and the Tempio Ossario.