Painted Renaissance volumes on view at Yale’s Beinecke Library
A dozen volumes on display at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library are shelved side-by-side with their fore edges, not their spines, facing out. It is not a case of curatorial malpractice — far from it. Those exposed fore edges form a gallery of miniature paintings from the Renaissance era — portraits of the volumes’ celebrated authors...
Gaetano Cipolla: What Makes a Sicilian?
March 23 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm. I AM BOOKS, 189 NORTH STREET, BOSTON, MA 02113. Gaetano Cipolla is a retired professor of Italian and Chairman of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages at St. John’s University in New York City. Cipolla has written numerous scholarly articles on Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Pirandello, Calvino and others. Some of his e...
Leo Marino: The House on Greene Street
For Leo Marino, author of The House on Greene Street: Life and Times of a First Generation Italian American, compiling this first book was for his family. “This started 20 years ago,” says Marino, a Branford resident. “My brother and I talked about our ancestry. This was before the days of ancestry.com.” The family research took several trips to It...
Judge Frank Caprio wants justice for all
Providence Municipal Court Chief Justice Frank Caprio opens the passenger side back door of a metallic blue 2018 Lincoln Navigator parked on the side of the private Aurora Club Civic Association in Providence’s Federal Hill. It’s the place where he is permanent director and has been a member for more than fifty years, and he has lunch there on an a...
Schools to observe Indigenous People's Day
Throughout the United States, the second Monday of October is observed as Columbus Day. Beginning this year, the North Andover schools will recognize it as both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples' Day. The vote in favor of the change was 4-1 Thursday night. David Torrisi was the sole dissenter. He said the move is "diminishing" Columbus Day, which...
Remembering Pat and Bella, who welcomed me in my early years in America
He was Italian. She was Irish. Their home in Yonkers was often a refuge for me during the 1980s, my early years in America, as I grappled awkwardly with immigrant life. Hospitable to a fault, Pasquale “Pat” and Bella Barbuto knew how to make guests feel at ease. Whether you were from Dublin, like me, or Tehran, like my friend Hossein, close or dist...
Forgotten Franklin terror plot turns 100
Everything was calm in town on the evening of Feb. 28, 1919, but behind the Ray Mill of the American Woolen Company at 301 Union St., something sinister was afoot. In the silence of night 100 years ago, four Italian-American anarchists’ plan went horribly wrong when they found themselves the victims of their own plot to blow up the wool and fabric...
Botticelli Spun Masterful Scenes Of Historical Complexity
Even before she had a museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner had a Botticelli — the first painting by the late 15th-century Italian artist to enter this country. It wasn’t one of the ravishing masterpieces casual art lovers are familiar with: “Primavera” or “The Birth of Venus” — those magnificent large-scale paintings that lure thousands of visitors to...
La comunità italiana in Connecticut chiede la nomina del Vice Console
Ormai da anni senza un vice consolato attivo e duraturo, il Gruppo Italiani e Italo-Americani residenti in Connecticut ha recentemente sottoscritto un documento, dove viene richiesto ai rappresentanti italiani eletti all’estero di attivarsi affinché la numerosa comunità non venga trascurata. In particolare, la comunità si è rivolta al ministro degl...
New Haven's 'Little Italy' Movie To Be Shown In East Haven
A documentary film about New Haven's Little Italy that has played to packed crowds all over the area will soon have three showings in Branford and East Haven. The film, The Village: Life in New Haven's Little Italy, was the creation of award-winning journalist Steve Hamm. It had its successful debut at last year's New Haven Documentary Film Festiva...
Joseph R. Bonavolonta Named Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Field Office
FBI Director Christopher Wray has named Joseph R. Bonavolonta as special agent in charge of the Boston Field Office. Mr. Bonavolonta has served as deputy assistant director for the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division since March 2018. He previously helped lead the Boston Field Office as assistant special agent in charge from 2013 to 2017 and is hono...
Marblehead Town Meeting to be asked to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day
In the mid-1980s, Holly Jaynes asked her mother why she was teaching second graders about Christopher Columbus. “I didn’t know what to do,” Jaynes said. “All I could do was tell her not to teach it.” Since that day more than 30 years ago, Jaynes has found the words to explain why Columbus shouldn’t be celebrated and she is part of a movement to spr...