Thursday, December 5th, 6:00 pm. Suggested donation of $15 per person. Italian American Museum, 151 Mulberry Street, New York, NY. For reservations please send an email here. You are cordially invited to attend a Book Presentation and Talk by Dr. Jo Ann Cavallo who will discuss her book, “The Sicilian Puppet Theater of Agrippino Manteo (1884-1947): The Paladins of France in America”.

Jo Ann Cavallo’s book reconstructs the history of the Manteo Family’s Sicilian Marionette Theater across three generations and brings to light for the first time the contents of Agrippino Manteo’s extensive puppet theater scripts.

In addition to 270 translated synopses of plays from the famous Paladins of France cycle, the volume provides translations of 8 complete plays with comparative analyses that uncover the creative process of adaptation from Italian Renaissance masterpieces of chivalric poetry (Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso), to Giusto Lodico’s nineteenth-century Storia dei paladini di Francia, to Agrippino’s Opera dei Pupi scripts. Professor Cavallo’s talk will present highlights from the family’s trajectory as puppeteers and examples of Agrippino Manteo’s craft as a playwright.

Jo Ann Cavallo, Professor of Italian and Chair of the Italian Department at Columbia University, specializes in Italian Renaissance epics and their adaptation in popular performance traditions.