Powerful Lungs And Long-Spun Lines: Cecilia Bartoli Conjures Farinelli
Cecilia Bartoli isn't your average opera star. She doesn't sing many of the popular 19th century operas. Instead, she prefers to explore the dusty, little-known corners of the 18th century. Bartoli's new album is devoted to music written for a single artist of the Baroque era named Farinelli. He was the most acclaimed opera singer of the mid-1700s,...
The Italian who inspired the Founding Fathers
When analyzing the foundation of legal principles in the United States, that base seemingly started with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. But the bedrock of the American justice system didn’t originate with those revolutionaries. It started with an Italian. Cesare Beccaria – one of the 18th century’s great philosophers –...
Kazabo Publishing Releases Augusto De Angelis’s Classic “Whydunit” Death in a Bookstore on December 2nd
Kazabo Publishing (Kazabo.com) is publishing Death in a Bookstore by Augusto De Angelis on December 2nd, 2019. Originally published as Sei donne e un libro in 1936, it is appearing in English for the first time. Augusto De Angelis was the best selling Italian mystery author of his time and is recognized as the father of Italian crime fiction. Not o...
NIAF 2020-2021 Scholarship Applications Are Now Open
The National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) is now accepting applications for its 2020-2021 scholarship program. Over the past 44 years, NIAF’s scholarship program has grown to offer 29 different scholarships with various criteria ranging in value from $2,500 to $12,000. NIAF offers scholarships in the fields of Italian language and culture, me...
Inside Joe Pesci’s Star-Studded - and Underrated - Music Career
Joe Pesci–whether he likes it or not–will always be known for his darkly funny (like a clown?) onscreen persona. His signature black humor, which is always cut with insecurity and rage, earned him an Oscar in 1991, and has made him a cornerstone of American cinema. This year, the actor was convinced to return from his decades-long retirement to sta...
Mike Piazza taking cues from Tommy Lasorda for Italy’s team
When Mike Piazza was hired to manage Italy's national baseball team, one of the first people he shared the news with was Tommy Lasorda. Now 92, the former Los Angeles Dodgers manager had persuaded Piazza to switch from first base to catcher at the start of what would be a Hall of Fame career. “His style may be a little dated for lack of a better te...
Our boys from Jefferson Street: reckoning with the murder of Jimmy Hoffa and a culture of tarnished men
I had answered a request in the summer of 2017 for “Italian-American extras” for Martin Scorsese’s Netflix production of The Irishman, a film based on the biography of Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran’s I Heard You Paint Houses, written by Charles Brandt. My interest in the book and film centered on the accounts of Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa’s murd...
More Italian women than ever are playing softball at U.S. colleges and high schools
With the Team Italy women's softball squad heading to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, the Italian softball revolution has just begun. In order to compete at a higher level than the European standard, more Italian women than ever from both sides of the Atlantic are playing at U.S. colleges and high schools. Starting every game in the Europe-Africa Olymp...
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino: A Big, Beautiful 50-Year Friendship
“We got together early on,” Al Pacino said, gesturing at Robert De Niro. “And we shared something, which was a big thing at the time.” The two men were sitting in a hotel suite in New York, trying to sum up 50 years of friendship and the weird, singular bond that comes from being two of the most heralded actors of their generation. The balcony door...
10 Italian Amari to Enjoy After Thanksgiving Dinner
Because Thanksgiving is a holiday completely dedicated to the act of eating a gigantic meal, it’s an excellent time to begin familiarizing yourself with the wonderful, stomach-soothing tradition of digestivi. Italian dinners often conclude with this final beverage course, starring a subset of bitter herbal liqueurs known as amari. These flavorful q...
Scacco matto alla malaria
Quando Filippo Mancia lasciò Pavia prima e Cambridge dopo per iniziare la sua avventura di ricerca a New York, mai si sarebbe immaginato un giorno di poter contribuire a trovare un modo per fermare la malaria, una delle malattie più devastanti che, ancora oggi, uccide un bambino ogni due minuti in tutto il mondo, e solo nel 2017 ha provocato 266 mi...
Joe Pesci Is Enjoying His Post-Retirement Phase
The gang was all there at the New York Film Festival’s press screening for Martin Scorsese’s late-phase masterpiece The Irishman back in September: Marty himself, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and in one of an increasingly scarce number of public appearances, Joe Pesci. Resplendent in Marcello Mastroianni shades he refused to take off for the duration...