Margot

Aeneas and the Sibyl in the Underworld, ca. 1600, oil on copper, Jan Brueghel the Elder (1569-1625), courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Do the gods light this fire in our hearts, or does each man's mad desire become his god? ~ Virgil, The Aeneid, Book 9

Pretty girls are a dime a dozen in Manhattan. I’ve long since learned to take them in with a passing glance—an aesthetic acknowledgment, nothing more—and drift back into my thoughts. But on my commute home this evening, I saw a sibylline vision: someone who seemed to have strayed from another world.

She sat across from me, legs crossed: a classical Mediterranean beauty, dark-complexioned, with thick black hair and wide, doe-like eyes. Her name tag read Margot. Dressed in a black blouse and a charcoal skirt that brushed her ankles, she looked utterly out of place on the subway—she belonged in a sunlit café on the Costa degli Dei or the Côte d’Azur, not hurtling through the steel and concrete underworld beneath New York City.

What truly arrested me was her smile. Bright and knowing, there was something faintly lupine—almost predatory—in it. She had the broadest grin as she read The Aeneid. If seeing a young person with a physical book isn’t exotic enough these days, a woman reading Virgil is my undoing. She made me wish, absurdly, that I were thirty years younger.

She caught me looking once or twice, but paid no heed to my stolen glances. I was tempted to ask what line in that grave poem could make her smile like that, but I know how it feels to be interrupted mid-page—so I refrained.

When she stepped off at her station, I was left staring at her empty seat, thinking about the old poet. Perhaps she was an oracle of sorts. Virgil’s birthday is approaching—October 15th—and it’s been a few years since I last opened his books. Tonight, I think I’ll dust off those old volumes and revisit him once again.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, October 7th, Feast of Our Lady of Victory and the Most Holy Rosary

Simple Pleasures: The Dawn Chorus

Saw another painted sky during my morning walk. The air was mildly cool—that gentle in-between of summer and fall—and the birds were in full voice, a frenzied harmony known as the dawn chorus.

These early walks have become a quiet ritual before I get on with my day: a chance to move, breathe in the fresh air, and let my scattered thoughts settle into order. There’s something about that hour—the light just breaking, the world half-awake—that makes everything feel possible again.

God bless, and happy Feast of Our Lady of Victory!

Thoughts on “The Future Was Then: The Changing Face of Fascist Italy”

Poster House, New York City
119 W. 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011
September 27, 2025 – February 22, 2026

I was first introduced to radical art forms—Dadaism (Tzara), Surrealism (Dalí), Expressionism (Dix), and the rest—by my high school art teacher. But it was Futurism that captivated me most: the speed, violence, and explosive energy of Marinetti’s manifestos. For teenage me, it felt electric, as if art might leap off the canvas and rewire the world overnight. Looking back, I jokingly call this my “Left Wing phase,” a brief but earnest flirtation with the avant-garde. Like most teenage obsessions, it didn’t last—but I confess, I still carry a soft spot for some of it.

That same electricity courses through Poster House today, where the walls vibrate with the anxious optimism of a century past—the so-called Fascist century (Ventennio Fascista). The Future Was Then: The Changing Face of Fascist Italy presents 75 works from the Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli in Bologna and explores the deliberate marriage between avant-garde aesthetics and authoritarian politics during Benito Mussolini’s reign. It asks not only what art became under Fascism, but what art helped Fascism to become.

The show begins in the charged atmosphere of Futurism—a movement that adored the speed of machines, the dynamism of modern life, and the destruction of what it called “museal” stagnation. [1] Many Futurists, led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, greeted the Duce as the embodiment of their ideals. Artists like Fortunato Depero eagerly aligned their work with the regime, finding in Fascism both ideological kinship and practical opportunity. Mussolini’s government was commissioning posters, buildings, and product design on a massive scale, offering modern artists unprecedented patronage and visibility.

What emerges is an Italy whose visual identity was not simply imposed from above, but shaped through a complex collaboration between the state and its artists. Propaganda was often indistinguishable from art: a commercial advertisement for pasta shares the same aggressive typography and geometric forms as a rally poster, while furniture design echoed the clean, martial lines of Fascist architecture. Even Depero’s vibrant, playful color schemes were harnessed for Fascist propaganda, proof that no aesthetic—however whimsical—escaped politicization.

As the regime matured, the balance shifted. By the 1930s, Futurist experimentation had given way to the state’s preference for Romanità—a revival of classical Roman grandeur that cast Fascism as heir to the Caesars and architect of a new empire. What began as co-option became control, as the regime sought to bend the art world to its vision of the uomo fascista—the “new man” it claimed would embody discipline, strength, and national destiny.

The strength of the exhibition lies in its refusal to sanitize. Many of the works are dazzling: shimmering lithographs, bold designs by Giacomo Balla, and the somber dreamlike abstractions of Mario Sironi. Their beauty, however, carries an unease for over-refined viewers, who cannot help but interpret them through an effete modern lens. For their contemporaries, by contrast, these same images were not troubling at all; they embodied vigor, progress, and national pride, and were celebrated as stylish, modern, and unmistakably Italian.

Poster House, itself devoted to the history of visual persuasion, proves a fitting venue. The display contextualizes each piece with care, situating Italian Fascist aesthetics within a broader story of twentieth-century modernism. The loans from the Cirulli collection—one of the richest archives of Italian design—give the show breadth: decorative arts, architectural sketches, graphic design, and illustrations all interweave into a portrait of a society where no medium was too trivial for ideology.

Walking through, one feels the entanglement between creative freedom and political vision. The Futurists sought to overthrow the past; the Fascists sought to enshrine themselves as the future. Their temporary alliance left behind works of startling vitality, but also of haunting beauty—once again reminding us that art can be seduced, that artists are never immune from the allure of power, and that beauty can serve any master. The Future Was Then does not merely illuminate the past; it holds up a mirror. The lesson is not that propaganda was once powerful, but that it always is. The seductions of image and language are at work all around us today—in the academy, in the media, in entertainment—revealing yesterday’s tools of persuasion not as relics, but as prototypes of the world we inhabit now.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, October 6th, Feasts of San Bruno di Colonia, San Renato di Sorrento, and Santa Maria Francesca delle Cinque Piaghe

Notes
[1] The Futurists used the word museal as a slur to describe culture they considered lifeless, frozen in museums, and overly reverent of tradition. For them, it symbolized stagnation and the dead weight of history, which they countered with Futurism’s celebration of speed, modernity, and technological dynamism.

Remembering the Victors of Lepanto

Don Giovanni d’Austria, Marcantonio Colonna and Sebastiano Venier

In memory of the Victors of Lepanto, Don Giovanni d’Austria, Marcantonio Colonna, Sebastiano Venier and all the heroic men of the Holy League, who defended Christendom and defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, we pray for the happy repose of their souls.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

Celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn

Madonna del Rosario di Pompei, ora pro nobis

On Sunday afternoon, the Shrine Church of St. Bernadette in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, was filled to capacity as hundreds gathered for the annual celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii.

During the entrance procession, representatives of the Knights of Columbus, the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great joined the Holy Name Society of St. Bernadette and the clergy.

During Mass, Pastor Fr. Jeremy Canna led the faithful in the recitation of the Supplica—the fervent prayer of petition to our Blessed Mother, traditionally offered on May 8 and the first Sunday of October.

Following the liturgy, the celebration continued at Sirico’s Catering Hall, where guests enjoyed traditional Southern Italian fare, lively conversation, and spirited dancing.

Heartfelt thanks to Fr. Canna, the Holy Name Society, and the entire St. Bernadette community for their gracious hospitality and devotion. It is always a joy and privilege to come together in faith and tradition. Evviva Maria!

Image of the Madonna del Rosario di Pompei in the baptistery

After Mass, Cavaliere of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George and Dame of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre take a commemorative photo by the image of Our Lady of Pompeii

(L) A makeshift shrine was erected in the hall. (R) Our confratello John Cordi shares a few words of thanks and welcome before the celebration 

Fr. Canna offers a prayer of thanksgiving before the meal

Steve and Lucia

Alexis, Mike, and Maria

John and Maria

Revelers trip the light fantastic

Hot antipasti

Pork chop 

Sfogliatelle

Congratulations to the Italian American Emporium!

Store and Studio logo patch

A warm auguri to our friends at the Italian American Emporium on the exciting opening of their new shop at 155 Mulberry Street in the heart of Little Italy, New York City!

With the spirited motto “Everything you need to be Italian,” the Emporium promises to be more than just a store—it’s a celebration of heritage, craftsmanship, and that inimitable Italianità that makes our culture so alive and beloved. From the scent of espresso to the gleam of classic Italian style, their space embodies both nostalgia and renewal, bringing the traditions of the old country to life in the modern city.

We wish them great success and joy in this new chapter. Visit them in person—or explore their world online at redsaucestudio.com—and experience for yourself what it truly means to be Italian, right here in New York.

Bravi, amici—and buona fortuna!

Photo of the Week: Madonna del Rosariello, Chiesa di Santa Maria del Rosario, Piazza Cavour, Napoli

Photo by Andrew Giordano

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New Book — Dio, Patria, Fueros e Re: Introduzione al Carlismo

A new title that may be of interest to our readers. Available at damicoeditore.it

• Dio, Patria, Fueros e Re: Introduzione al Carlismo by Gianandrea de Antonellis

Publisher: D’Amico Editore
Publication date: October 2025
Hardback: €10.00
Language: Italian
Pages: 162

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Latin Mass Pilgrimage from Arlington, Virginia, to Washington, DC

Fra’ Diavolo and the Defense of Cultural Memory: Correcting the Myths of Masaniello and Beyond

The Revolt of the Neapolitan Fisherman Tommaso Aniello, known as Masaniello (1622-1647) in Naples by Giuseppe Mazza (Museo della scienza di Milano)

A lu tiempo de chisti scunfuorte
Masaniello è bestuto da muorto.
Dint’’a nicchia ’na capa cu ll’ossa
nce ha lassato ’na coppola rossa.
Chesta coppola dà ’na voce,
quanno ’a famme nun è doce,
quann’’o popolo resta ’ncroce,
quanno pave ’stu tributo
pure ’a tassa ’ncopp’’o tavuto.
A lu tiempo de chisti scunfuorte
Masaniello è bestuto da muorto.
Masaniello s’’o credono muorto… [1]

Gianandrea de Antonellis’ article Fra’ Diavolo vive ancora nello spettacolo “Voci, suoni e canti di Briganti in Terra di Lavoro” (Fra’ Diavolo still lives on in the show “Voices, Sounds and Songs of Brigands in Terra di Lavoro”) is a compelling reflection on the politics of memory. More than a historical survey, it is a corrective act: dismantling persistent distortions surrounding figures such as Masaniello and Fra’ Diavolo, and restoring them to their rightful place in Southern Italy’s cultural consciousness.

De Antonellis begins with a meditation on the necessity of heroes.

“Blessed is the people that has no need of heroes." The pacifist and egalitarian intent of whoever wrote that sentence is beyond doubt, but it can also be read in another sense: blessed is the one who has no need of heroes—or of money, or of food, or of anything else—because he already has them, not because there is no need for them.

A people—any people—needs heroes. That is why we are naturally drawn, from childhood, to the stories of historical or literary heroes: Hector and Achilles, Horatius Cocles and Mucius Scaevola, Attilius Regulus and Pheidippides, Lancelot and Gawain… In the Kingdom of Naples we can list the Great Captain, Ettore Fieramosca, Masaniello of Sorrento, and his Amalfitan namesake, Cardinal Ruffo, the Prince of Canosa…

This sets the frame: a people bereft of heroes is a people deprived of memory. De Antonellis shows how cultural tradition continually seeks to supply such figures, though later generations may distort their meaning.

Particularly striking is the article’s correction of Masaniello’s legacy. Popularized as a revolutionary icon, Masaniello in fact led a revolt that was explicitly anti-revolutionary.

Masaniello—who has (wrongly) become a revolutionary symbol (in reality his revolt was fully anti-revolutionary, because it aimed to restore the previous taxation, the respect for Neapolitan law, and, above all, it burst forth with the cry "Long live the King of Spain! Death to bad government!")—is thus seen as the incarnation of the Volksgeist, the "spirit of the people," ready to rise up in case of abuses by the (mis)rulers of the day…

Here, de Antonellis restores Masaniello as a figure of popular legitimacy rather than revolutionary rupture, reminding us that loyalty and protest were not opposed but intertwined.

Bust of the hero Fra' Diavolo
sculpted by Raffaele Mollo (2019)

If Masaniello has been miscast as a revolutionary, Fra’ Diavolo has suffered the opposite fate: reduced from a colonel and duke into a bandit or comic rogue.

But if, thanks to a deft historiographical falsification that is hard to kill, Masaniello has become a (wrong, I repeat) symbol of the revolutionary spirit, it is far more difficult to turn into a progressive a champion of legitimism like Michele Arcangelo Pezza (1771–1806), a guerrilla leader who became a colonel of the Neapolitan army, created Duke of Cassano by Ferdinand IV, universally known by the nickname Fra’ Diavolo.

Unable to enlist him ideologically, liberal culture diminished him through Auber’s opéra-comique (1830) and later through Hollywood parody, turning a model of fidelity into a theatrical thief. De Antonellis sharply unmasks this falsification, showing Fra’ Diavolo as a hero of incorruptible loyalty who refused French offers of rank and money: “Because when one has sworn, one has sworn!”

The review culminates in Claudio Saltarelli’s theatrical revival, which gives Fra’ Diavolo his true voice. Through Raimondo Rotondi’s performance in the Laborino dialect, [2] the insurgent emerges not as an artifact of the past but as a living exemplar of courage and fidelity.

And so, on 11 November 1806, Colonel Michele Arcangelo Pezza died. And with him, the Duke of Cassano also died. But Fra’ Diavolo did not die. Because Fra’ Diavolo is always reborn, in each of us.

The sabre of Fra’ Diavolo becomes the counterpart to Masaniello’s red cap, a symbol that can rally every stratum of society—soldiers, nobles, clergy, and common people alike—around the perennial cause of resisting oppression.

De Antonellis’ essay, and Saltarelli’s theatrical work, are acts of cultural reclamation. They remind us that heroes must not be abandoned to distortion, whether by ideological misreading or by the trivializing force of entertainment.

The closing exhortation is the article’s most powerful contribution:

Put it in your heads: the story of Fra’ Diavolo is your story. Whoever wants to make you forget it does not wish you well.

By rehabilitating Masaniello and Fra’ Diavolo, de Antonellis does more than narrate history—he defends memory itself. His work is a reminder that cultural truth, once recovered, can still speak with urgency to the present.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, October 2nd, Feast of the Guardian Angels

* Translations are my own.

Notes

[1] Excerpt from the traditional Neapolitan ballad ‘O cunto ’e Masaniello, preserved in oral tradition and performed by the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare on the album Li sarracini adorano lu sole (EMI, 1974).

In the time of these hardships

Masaniello is dressed as a dead man.

Inside the niche, a skull with bones

has left a red cap there.

This cap gives a voice,

when hunger is not sweet,

when the people are left on the cross,

when it pays this tribute—

even the tax on the coffin.

In the time of these hardships

Masaniello is dressed as a dead man.

They think Masaniello is dead…

[2] The “Laborino dialect” is the local speech of the historical province of Terra di Lavoro (covering parts of northern Campania and southern Lazio), closely related to Neapolitan but marked by distinct regional features.

L'attualità della riflessione etica di Tommaso d'Aquino

In Napoli

Fragments from the Past and the Lessons They Hold

My father, with his older brother and sister, finding joy
in front of their "Charlie Brown Christmas tree"

“What the son wishes to forget, the grandson wishes to remember.”

~ Marcus Lee Hansen

I am a third-generation Duosiciliano (Southern Italian) American. My forebears—hailing from Campania, Sicilia, and Lucania—arrived at Ellis Island around the turn of the twentieth century. God only knows what hardships they endured. My parents and grandparents were mostly tight-lipped about their struggles and would probably bristle at me for airing our “dirty laundry.”

Yet a few stories slipped out, revealing just how poor they were—and how much our lot has changed, though not always in ways that brought greater happiness. My father once told me how, as a boy, he ran home from school, excited to show his mother a ballpoint pen.

“We were poor and didn’t know it,” he would say, “because everyone around us was poor too.” Then, with a sigh, he would add: “We had nothing, but we were happy; today we have everything and we’re miserable.”

He and his brothers would race to snatch up bits of coal falling from passing horse-drawn carts before other neighborhood kids could. In winter, they would wrap heated bricks from the potbelly stove in newspaper and tuck them under the blankets to stay warm.

One memory, though, haunted him his whole life. On his birthday, my grandmother took him to the local ravioleria for lunch. They could only afford three ravioli. His five siblings and my grandfather stayed home—just as he would always stay home on their birthdays. While sitting at the counter, my grandmother asked if she could have one of the ravioli. He refused. She said nothing and quietly watched him eat.

That moment's shame never left him. In many ways, he spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it—being generous almost to a fault, determined that no one under his care would go without. My grandparents lived with us until they passed, their presence a daily reminder of sacrifice and love.

Whenever I think of these stories, I feel grateful to have had such a loving family who passed down their traditions, even when they had so little. Nothing was ever promised to them—or to me. Maybe that’s why I find it hard to understand the sense of entitlement in many young people today.

It was less than seventy years ago. And judging by the way the economy is heading, and the decline of community, we will face hard times again—but this time without the close-knit families and strong communities that once helped people through hardship. In a low-trust society, dependent on an increasingly inept, corrupt, and overreaching nanny-state, survival may not be so easy.

The stories my father carried—and the silence kept by my grandparents—are not just fragments of the past. They serve as reminders that strength doesn't come from comfort, but from sacrifice. When tough times return, as they surely will, then perhaps what the son wanted to forget is exactly what the grandson needs to remember: that surviving is only possible when families and communities stand together in love, memory, and faith.

~ Giovanni di Napoli, October 1st, Feast of St. Remigius

Our Lady of the Rosary at St. Mary of Mt. Virgin in New Brunswick, New Jersey

Feast of St. Remigius

St. Remigius Baptizes Clovis I, by the
Master of Saint Gilles, C. 1500.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

October 1st is the Feast of St. Remigius, or Rémi, Bishop and Confessor. Bishop of Reims for over seventy years, he is best remembered as the “Apostle of the Franks.” Born around 437 in northern Gaul to a noble Gallo-Roman family, he was noted for his learning and piety from an early age. At just twenty-two years old, he was elected Bishop of Reims.

His most enduring legacy is his role in the conversion of King Clovis I, the pagan ruler of the Franks. After Clovis’s victory at the Battle of Tolbiac in 496, and under the influence of his Christian wife, St. Clotilde, the king sought baptism. On Christmas Day of that year, Remigius baptized Clovis along with three thousand of his warriors in Reims. This moment is considered the symbolic beginning of Catholic France, earning the nation its title as the “Eldest Daughter of the Church.”

Tradition holds that during the baptism, a holy vial of oil—known as the Sainte Ampoule—was miraculously brought by the dove of the Holy Spirit, and it became the sacred chrism used in the coronation of French kings for centuries.

St. Remigius shepherded his flock with wisdom and zeal, strengthening the Church in Gaul, promoting discipline among the clergy, and fostering the spread of Christianity among the Franks. He died on January 13, 533, at the age of ninety-five. His relics are enshrined at the Basilica of Saint-Remi in Reims. St. Remigius, ora pro nobis.

In celebration of his feast, we offer this prayer:

Prayer to St. Remigius

Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that the solemn feast of blessed Remigius, Thy Confessor and Bishop, may both increase our devotion and advance our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

Happy National Italian American Heritage Month!

October is National Italian American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the rich history, vibrant culture, and numerous contributions of Italian Americans. From the arts, science, and education to the cherished traditions of food, family, and faith, Italian Americans have left an indelible mark on these United States.

This month is not only about remembering the struggles and sacrifices of earlier generations who came to America seeking a better life, but also about celebrating the ongoing spirit of creativity, resilience, and community that continues to shape our nation today.

May this be a time of gratitude, reflection, and joy as we honor the Italian American experience.

A Prayer to St. Agatha of Sicily for Breast Cancer Awareness Month