Feast of the Pupazze

Photos of the Pupazze courtesy of Made in South Italy Today

Every year on Palm Sunday (Domenica delle Palme) in Bova Superiore, a scenic commune in the Province of Reggio Calabria, the locals celebrate the Messiah’s triumphal entrance into Jerusalem with a unique ritual known as the Feast of the Pupazze.

On Palm Sunday, as the name suggests, it is traditional for devotees to weave palm leaves into religious symbols. However, in southern Italy palm was hard to come by, so during the feast celebrants used olive branches instead. In Bova, this art form was taken to new heights. Townspeople skillfully weave ornate female figures out of the branches and adorn them with flowers and local produce. The verdure effigies are carried through the town in a colorful procession to the shrine of St. Leo, Bova’s beloved patron, where they are blessed.

After Mass, the figures are stripped of their bounty and distributed among the revelers. The blessed branches are brought home and fastened to doorways or mantels for good luck and to ward off evil. The dried fronds of the previous year are burned and the ashes buried to help reinvigorate the crops and fields.

While the origins of the rite are lost in antiquity, some believe the Pupazze are allegorical figures symbolizing Lent, which is sometimes depicted as a woman. In Greece, for example, cookies are made in the image of Kyra Sarakosti, or Lady Lent, to help children learn about their religion. There is also a similarity to Lady Maslenitsa of Slavic tradition, who’s straw effigy is immolated before the Russian Orthodox Great Lent. The ashes are used in a similar fashion.

Others say the custom dates back to pre-Christian times and the images actually represent the Greek goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone (Kore), thus celebrating the transition from winter to spring. According to legend, the god Hades spied the maiden Persephone picking flowers on the slopes of Mt. Etna in Sicily. The earth shook and a great chasm opened beneath her. Up sprang Hades in a chariot, whisking the surprised goddess away to his underworld realm to be his wife and queen.

In her grief, Demeter (the goddess of fertility and agriculture) threatened to make the earth barren unless her daughter was returned to her. After a period of famine and woe, Zeus intervened and mediated a compromise begrudgingly accepted by Hades and Demeter. Persephone would spend part of the year with her husband in the underworld, and during those months Demeter would withdraw her gifts from the earth, causing the seasons of autumn and then winter. When she was returned to her mother, the goddess would once again restore her gifts and spring would begin and pass into summer. Oddly enough, Persephone and Hades were supposed to have been very happy together while she was with him in the underworld, but as every married couple should know, a mother-in-law is not something to be taken lightly.

Terracotta hydria (water jar) depicting

the abduction of Persephone by Hades.

Greek, Apulian, red figure, ca. 340-330 B.C.

Found at Canosa, Puglia before 1878

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Whatever the origin of the Pupazze, the feast is very special. It is practiced only in Bova, which incidentally is one of the few remaining pockets of Griko speakers in Calabria. It is quaint and fun, but more importantly it symbolizes ideas that are ancient and widespread. Any agrarian population understands the importance of spring and the seasonal agricultural cycles. The harvest is your life, surviving winter depends upon it and the seeds planted in the spring is where that harvest begins. In the seasons of the Church, it is also when the Son of God died, descended to Hades and was resurrected.

Even in this modern world we are not so different from our ancestors; the bread we eat and wine we drink remain products of the seasons and the harvest. Symbolism and ritual have been helping people express concepts since before written history. If we see ourselves as seekers of knowledge, then instead of turning away from these practices we should be trying to understand them, and understand ourselves through them.

Photo of the Week: Il Duomo di Vietri sul Mare

A look at the ceramic dome of the Duomo di San Giovanni Battista in Vietri sul Mare. Photo by New York Scugnizzo

A Look at the 2015 Festa di San Giuseppe in Ridgewood, Queens

Viva San Giuseppe!

Photos by New York Scugnizzo

Hundreds gathered at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church in Ridgewood, Queens on Sunday (March 22nd) to celebrate the annual Festa di San Giuseppe. Mass was held in Italian by Father Thomas, followed by a procession through the neighborhood with marching bands and the saint’s statue.

Sponsored by the Associazone Cattolica Italiana di Miraculous Medal, there was a terrific turnout with plenty of support from several other Italian American societies. As always, it was great to see our friends from the Congrega San Gerardo Maiella di Brooklyn, Società Concordia Partanna, Maria SS. Delle Grazie di Montevago, St. Rocco Society of Potenza and New York City's Sicilian Food, Wine & Travel Group.

After the procession, the marchers returned to the Notre Dame Catholic Academy gymnasium behind the church for the benediction. We warmed-up inside with some caffè and lite fare, and were treated to a few more songs by the Giglio Band. Guests mingled and spoke Sicilian, but sadly no one recited poetry this year. After the raffle, blessed loaves of bread were distributed to the attendees and flowers from the statue were given to the ladies.

Special thanks to President Tony Mulé and members of the Associazone Cattolica Italiana for their warmth and hospitality. My friends and I had a great time and we look forward to celebrating with them again next year. Viva San Giuseppe!

Making our way to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church

After Mass, our beloved patron is carried out to the expectant crowd

The color guard leads the way

The procession makes its way through the neighborhood

Members of the Congrega San Gerardo Maiella di Brooklyn show their support

Numerous devotees brave the cold

Halfway through, we stopped by the Società Concordia Partanna clubhouse to honor San Francesco di Paola

Members of the Associazone Cattolica Italiana di Miraculous Medal take turns pulling the vara, or cart

The Giglio Band kept the festivities rolling

Afterward, we returned to a packed gymnasium for the party

A foolproof (and fun) way to keep the raffle drawings fair 

Boxes of blessed bread were distributed to attendees

(Above and below) Men give flowers to the ladies

Photo of the Week: Mt. Vesuvius in the Distance

A view of Monte Vesuvio looming in the distance, taken from within the Parco Regionale dei Monti Lattari, Corbara (SA). Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Ponderable Quote from “Terroni” by Pino Aprile

“The South has been deprived of its institutions; it has been deprived of its industries, its riches and of its ability to react. It has also been deprived of its people (with an emigration that was induced or forced unlike any other group in Europe). Lastly, through a cultural lobotomy, the South was deprived of its self-awareness; its memory. 

“We no longer know who we were. It happened similarly to the Jews in the Holocaust (the comparison is not exaggerated: hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even a million, Southerners were killed by the Savoy troops; thirteen to twenty million people, according to records, were forced to abandon their land over the course of a century). Many who were able to survive the concentration camps began to wonder whether the evil that was inflicted upon them was perhaps deserved. When the damage becomes intolerable one seeks a cause to blame it on, even if the cause is inexistent or absurd, in order not to lose one’s mind. The historian Ettore Ciccotti spoke of ‘a sort of Italian anti-Semitism’ referring to the treatment of Southern Italians. The Lega, an expression of local comical nationalism, were it not so tragic, is the most sincere example of this." 

[...] 

“It is in this manner that the resistance against the invaders, rapes as well as the loss of wealth, life, identity, and of one’s own country becomes ‘shame.’ It is only now, after a century and a half, the Southern families are beginning to recuperate their pride in their ancestors, who had previously been labeled as brigands by their aggressors (Naturally this phenomenon has also caused the moral redemption of those who effectively were brigands as well. There were other criminals: those mafia members that were enlisted by Garibaldi and the Piedmontese, but they were considered ‘good Italians.’ To be deemed a criminal it does not matter what you do, but for whom).”

* Quoted from Terroni: All That Has Been Done to Ensure That the Italians of the South Became “Southerners” by Pino Aprile, Bordighera Press, 2011, p. 8–9

Around the Web (March 2015)

Items of interest from around the web.

Courtesy of YouTube

• Io Non Festeggio at Sanfedisti: Altar & Throne

In opposition to the Anniversary of Italian Unification (commemorated every March 17th), and to remind everyone of southern Italy's rich and independent past, our friends at the Sanfedisti: Altar & Throne blog posted a YouTube video of Eddy Napoli's anthem MalaUnità, a scathing indictment of the Risorgimento and Italian "unity."

Courtesy of Briganti

• Faccio Parte del Regno delle Due Sicilie at Vesuvio Live

During a recent interview at the Convento di San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, popular Sicilian actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta (star of “Il Postino”) declared her affection for the Neapolitan people and stated emphatically, “I am part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.” Visit Vesuvio Live to read the article in Italian.

Photo of the Week: The Cathedral of Montecassino

A look inside the Cathedral of Montecassino Abbey
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Photo of the Week: The Sea Giants of Capri

Stella, di Mezzo and di Fuori, the isle of Capri's breathtaking faraglioni, or giant rock formations, in the Bay of Naples. Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Happy Women’s Day!

Shrine to my foremothers

March 8th is La Festa della Donna (Women’s Day), a time to recognize and celebrate the invaluable contributions women have made to our community. In southern Italy, bouquets of bright yellow mimosa (and sometimes chocolates) are given to women as a sign of love and respect. To commemorate the occasion, I’m posting “Lace,” a poem by Maria Terrone.* The accompanying photo is this year's familial shrine I set up in memory of my beloved foremothers.

Lace

In small Mediterranean towns
women, stooped, and girls
with rag-soft bodies
are making lace intricate as brain circuitry.

See how the light spins through,
imprinting the wall—
not with a maze, but a map
to trace your way home

to women yet unborn who’ll find
the lace at the bottom of a cedar chest,
and marvel.

When the world is like a skein
unravelling, look again to the lace: see
how absence forms its pattern,
and purpose fills even the smallest space.

* Reprinted from Eye to Eye: Poems by Maria Terrone, Bordighera Press, 2014, p. 104

The Search for our Ancestry (X)

Details, Details!

By Angelo Coniglio

When perusing individual census listings, note the township, county and state in which the census was recorded.  You can contact churches, courthouses or public offices in those localities for other records: naturalization, birth, death or marriage records, etc.

Questions varied over the years.  I’ve previously listed all the questions from the 1920 census.  Here are selected ones, with hints to look for when reading the census.

Address: Distinguish between house number (address) and the number indicating the order in which the census was taken.  Street names and house numbers identify the actual property where your ancestor lived, and can help to find churches, cemeteries, schools, etc., where  other pertinent records may exist.

Name: Remember that to search on-line or digitized census records by name, you may have to use innovative or imaginative spellings of the name.  Usually the head of household’s given name and surname are listed, with only given names for the rest of the family.

Relationship to head of family: Study the family members’ names and relationship to the head.  A woman with a different surname than the head may be listed as “mother-in-law”, thus giving you the “maiden” surname of the wife of the head of household.  When a surname listed for a “daughter” is different from that of the head of the family, it’s probably the daughter’s married surname.

Sex:  Errors here are not uncommon.  Young children with “foreign-sounding” names may have been attributed the wrong gender.  So your grandfather Andrea may have been incorrectly listed as a girl, or your aunt Carmen as a boy!  Use census information as a guide, not as gospel.

Age: The person’s age at last birthday. Infants’ ages may be given as years and fractions: 2 ⁷/₁₂ means the child was two years and seven months old at the time.  The date when the census was taken is at the top of the page, and by subtraction, a year of birth can be calculated.  Don’t be surprised if ages on the census are different than what was recorded elsewhere.

Marital status, including that of children, helps confirm previously found information.  Year of immigration and country of birth help in locating passenger manifests, which may list town of birth.  Notes reading al, pa, and Na stand for ‘alien’, ‘papers applied for’, and ‘Naturalized’.

Occupation is noted on the 1920 census, and also on many passenger manifests.  Matching a person’s name, year of birth, occupation and year of immigration, as given on a census, with the information on a ship’s manifest can corroborate that the records are for the same person.

Make note of the other names on the census, neighbors of your ancestor.  They may be his  relatives or friends, and research on their backgrounds may unveil otherwise unknown information about your ancestor, or ways to find it.

The censuses prior to 1920 and for subsequent years provided essentially the same information, with some variation.  The 1900 census, rather than giving a person’s age, lists the month and year of birth, while the 1910 and 1930 censuses list “Number of Years Married” or “Age at First Marriage”, from which you may determine whether the couple was married in the US, or before they came here, aiding in the search for a marriage record.

US Censuses carry meaningful data about our immigrant ancestors, especially censuses of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  They are a valuable source of information.   Depending on the state, you may also find information in the State Censuses, performed by individual states every ten years “on the fives”, as in New York, taken from 1825 through 1935; or the New Jersey State Census, every ten years from 1855 through 1915.  Unfortunately, many states did not take separate censuses.

Coniglio is the author of the book The Lady of the Wheel (La Ruotaia), based on his genealogical research of Sicilian foundlings.  Order the book in paperback or on Kindle at www.bit.ly/racalmuto. Visit his website, www.bit.ly/AFCGen, and write to him at genealogytips@aol.com.

A Brief Sketch: Onorio Ruotolo

The old headquarters for the Italian Labor Center, Manhattan

Photos by New York Scugnizzo

By Giovanni di Napoli

“While he worships the heroic his sympathies are with those whom life has maimed and oppressed.” — John May

Meeting friends for Sunday dinner in Manhattan over the weekend, I stumbled across an interesting facade at 231 East 14th Street half-hidden behind some trees and the building's fire escape. Unsure of its history, I snapped a few photos and continued on my way. Later that night I went online to try and learn more about the work.

Thanks to Ephemeral New York, I discovered that the old marble sign and bas reliefs are attributed to the sculptor Onorio Ruotolo (1888–1966), nicknamed the "the Rodin of Little Italy.” The building, now home to Beauty Bar, was once the headquarters for the Italian Labor Center and Cloakmakers Union in the now long-gone East Village Little Italy.

Only vaguely familiar with Ruotolo’s work, it was great to see an example in person. Before this, I’ve only seen his bust of Enrico Caruso at the Metropolitan Opera House and a few images published in the catalogue for the 2004 exhibit at the Italian American Museum entitled, The Art of Freedom: Onorio Ruotolo and the Leonardo Da Vinci Art School (Sciorra and Vellon). 

The left panel relief

The subject of the two relief panels reminded me a little of Anthony de Francisci’s Independence Flagstaff at nearby Union Square. Like de Francisci’s memorial, the contrasting allegorical figures represent the decline and triumph of civilization, respectively. 

The panel on the left depicts a downtrodden family. In the forefront we see a despondent woman entangled by a serpent, which is feeding from her breast. Her child reels away in horror as her husband toils in the distance. This, I believe, symbolizes the debilitating effects of tyranny and the hopeless plight of the worker in a corrupt society.

In comparison, the panel to the right portrays an idealized hardworking, loving family. Naked and free, the robust figures undoubtably personify family, labor and a promising future. 

Like many of Ruotolo’s works, the obscured marble facade clearly shows the artist’s understanding of the worker's hopes and fears.

The right panel relief

I’ve passed the area countless times over the years and never noticed the sign hidden in plain sight, but on that snowy day it was simply there waiting for me; just in time for me to post on his birthday.

Life and Work*

Born on March 3, 1888, in Cervinara, a small town in the Province of Avellino, Onorio Ruotolo was raised in nearby Bagnoli Irpino, where his father worked as an engineer. He studied for six years at the prestigious Reale Istituto di Belle Arti in Naples, apprenticing for two years under the great Neapolitan sculptor Vincenzo Gemito.

In 1908 Ruotolo moved to the United States from Naples, joining the vibrant, but poor, immigrant community. Quickly making a name for himself, Ruotolo sculpted from life, often depicting the injustices of poverty and the horrors of war he witnessed.

Best known for his portraits, some of Ruotolo’s more notable subjects included inventor Thomas Edison, Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin and Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, the last perhaps explaining why the artist was accused on several occasions of holding an “ambiguous attitude” toward Fascism by Carlo Tresca, a popular labor activist and anarchist leader. In addition to sculpting, Ruotolo wrote poetry, illustrated books, published his own journal, and was a teacher. 

The 2004 exhibit catalogue

In 1923 he founded, with Attilio Piccirilli, the Leonardo Da Vinci Art School, which “diffused among the children of workers, the Light of Art.”  Ruotolo, Piccirilli and the rest of the faculty (e.g. Pietro Montana) all volunteered their time and services to teach art to impoverished children. The school, after moving to several locations, ultimately closed in 1942.

Disillusioned with politics, Ruotolo would eventually go on and renounce his earlier political beliefs as well as distance himself from many of his old affiliations, including those with Arturo Giovannitti, Helen Keller and Carlo Tresca, among others.

Suffering a stroke, Ruotolo spent the last two decades of his life writing poetry and published several collections. He passed away on December 18, 1966 at the age of 78 in his home in Greenwich Village.

* The following source proved invaluable to this post: The Art of Freedom: Onorio Ruotolo and the Leonardo Da Vinci Art School, Joseph Sciorra and Peter Vellon, 2004

Further reading: Italoamericana: The Literature of the Great Migration, 1880-1943 edited by Francesco Durante, Fordham University Press, 2014

Photo of the Week: La Sala dei Cavalieri

A view from inside the Sala dei Cavalieri, or Knight's Hall, at Villa Rufolo in Ravello. Photo by New York Scugnizzo

New Books

Some new and forthcoming titles that may be of interest to our readers. All are available at Amazon.com

• The Neapolitan Recipe Collection: Cuoco Napoletano by Terence Peter Scully

Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication Date: January 12, 2015
Paperback: $31.08
Language: English
Pages: 264

Read description

• The House by the Medlar Tree by Giovanni Verga

Publisher: Dover Publications
Publication Date: May 20, 2015
Paperback: $9.45
Language: English
Pages: 272

Read description

Click here to see more books

Photo of the Week: Marina Grande, Capri

Pulling into the port of Marina Grande in Capri 
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Ponderable Quote from “The Bourbons of Naples in Exile” by Guy Stair Sainty

“Garibaldi consecrated his triumph by a plebiscite on 21 October 1860 but this failed to confer legitimacy upon the new regime in the eyes of those who observed its execution. In the provinces, local officials simply falsified the records but this was more difficult to accomplish in the principal cities, where only a minority of those qualified actually voted. The voting was open, so dissent was immediately identified and the turncoat Romano himself oversaw the ballot in Naples, monitored by Piedmontese troops and Garibaldi irregulars. Even those qualified to vote were often semi-literate and lacking in experience of the democratic process. It was sufficient for soldiers simply to invite the electors to vote for annexation, their weapons a visible threat to those who dared demonstrate their loyalty to the Bourbons. Six months later, a former Piedmont Prime Minister remarked that ‘there must have been some mistake about the plebiscite as we have to keep sixty battalions in the south to keep the people down.’ 

“The British Minister in Naples reported that ‘the corruption which has prevailed in every branch of the administration during [Garibaldi’s] dictatorship has far surpassed anything that was known even in the corrupt times which preceded it.’ Garibaldi cannot be exempted from responsibility for the ‘kleptocrats’ with whom he surrounded himself and whose profiteering he ignored. Alexandre Dumas, for example, the author of a tedious but oft-quoted panegyric to the dictator’s virtues, managed to be appointed curator of the archaeological museum, which he apparently perceived as his own personal reservoir of antiquities. The private fortune of the royal family, some 11 million ducats, the equivalent of about £40 million in today’s money, disappeared within a few days of the occupation of Naples, and soon thereafter, the entire gold reserves, which represented more than 60 per cent of the reserves in all of Italy, were removed by the Savoy government.”

* Quoted from “The Bourbons of Naples in Exile” by Guy Stair Sainty in Monarchy and Exile: The Politics of Legitimacy from Marie de Médicis to Wilhelm II edited by Philip Mansel, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, p. 258

Photo of the Week: Cupid with Fish

Cupid with fish at Dr. Axel Munthe's Villa San Michele in Anacapri, Capri

Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Sanguinaccio di Carnevale

Photo courtesy of Lopes Sausage Co.

With Carnevale winding down and Shrove Tuesday (Martedí Grasso) coming up, there’s little time left to make the traditional dishes connected with the season before Lent. For some Neapolitans this means sanguinaccio di Carnevale, a rich, delicious pudding made with pigs blood.

Thanks to Danielle Oteri's popular "Sanguinaccio: From Mexico, Naples to Brooklyn" (see Il Regno, March 26, 2014), we've received several inquiries from our readers where they can get the hard to find ingredient necessary to make authentic versions of this "exotic" dish.

Since my friend Patrick is absolutely bonkers about the pudding and makes his own familial version each year, I contacted him and asked where he gets his. Happy to oblige, he swears by Lopes Sausage Co. (304 Walnut Street), a Portuguese butcher shop located in Newark, New Jersey. Established in 1965, Lopes is famous for their chorizo and linguica, but they also sell pasteurized pig's blood for morcilla, a Spanish-style blood sausage. Pat says they offer it by the gallons, but if requested before hand they will sell it in smaller quantities.

For the history of sanguinaccio and Elena Loguercio’s recipe see Sanguinaccio: From Mexico, Naples to Brooklyn.

Feast of San Corrado di Baviera

San Corrado di Baviera, ora pro nobis

February 9th is the Feast of San Corrado di Baviera, Cistercian Monk, Hermit and patron Saint of Molfetta, Puglia. His dies natalis, or birth into heaven, is commemorated on March 17th. In celebration, I'm posting a prayer to San Corrado in Italian. The accompanying photo was taken at the The Madonna Dei Martiri Social Club in Hoboken, New Jersey. Evviva San Corrado di Baviera!

Preghiera a San Corrado Patrono di Molfetta

Penitentissimo mio S. Corrado la divina provvidenza che vi chiamò da Francia in Palestina, e poi da terra Santa vi guidò fino a Bari, a singolarizzare con tanti lunghi pellegrinaggi, e con romitaggi sempre più aspri la vostra penitenza. Per quell'amore ardentissimo col quale visitaste quei Sacri luoghi, santificate colle pedate, coi sudori, e col sangue del Redentore, per quelle penitenze colle quali voleste divenire tutto somiglianti al Redentore Crocifisso; Per quell'affetto col quale emulaste le virtu, ed onoraste il sepolcro di S. Nicolò, impetratemi; vi supplico gratitudine di corrispondenza operative alle piaghe di Gesù Cristo vera contrizione dei miel peccati, e tempo e modo da farne dovuta penitenza.

Photo of the Week: Fresco inside the Castel Nuovo

Fresco inside the front entrance of the Castel Nuovo in Napoli
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

The Search for our Ancestry (IX)

On-Line Census Searches

By Angelo Coniglio

If you still live in the place where your immigrant ancestors settled, your local public library probably has hard copies of the US Census covering your location.  However, if you live elsewhere, you must search on-line censuses.  I find that even for local information, using on-line searches is easier than using hard copies, which must be searched by town, enumeration district, ward, etc.  On-line venues permit searching by name of the individual, so knowing the street address, or even the city, is not required, to do a broad search over many years of censuses.  

Many public libraries have free access to subscription sites holding these records, and Mormon FamilySearch Centers allow patrons free access to subscription genealogy sites.  There are dozens, if not hundreds, of sites.  Here are the most popular ones dealing with censuses. 

https://www.familysearch.org/ is the site maintained by the Mormon church.  It’s free and allows users to order microfilms containing US Federal Census records, as well as a host of other federal, State, local and foreign records.  Many records are now also available there on-line, as images of original documents. The site offers many free on-line lectures and tutorials. Henceforth, I’ll refer to this site as familysearch.org. 

Free sites that include information about federal censuses and/or access to records include the US National Archives site at http://www.archives.gov/ which features pages for each decennial census and lists the questions asked on each; and  http://stevemorse.org/census/ which allows searching of the latest census available, that of 1940, in several different ways. 

http://www.Ancestry.com is a subscription site which has all the released US Federal Censuses, from 1790 through 1940.  They can be searched by inputting a person’s name.   It offers free two-week trial subscriptions and a variety of monthly or annual subscriptions, depending on the region of interest (US, world, etc.)   Many public libraries, as well as Mormon FamilySearch Centers, allow free access.  In my columns I’ll refer to this site as Ancestry.com. 

While searching on-line, many new researchers are frustrated when they can’t find information using an ancestor’s name they ‘know’ to be correct.  Let’s consider the problem. 
 
Misspelling on original records: One of the ways that the Sicilian populace was suppressed, through the early 1900s, was that public education was limited.  Many of the Sicilians of the ‘Great Migration’ to America were illiterate.  That, plus the fact that often American census takers, clerks, and other officials did not speak the immigrants’ language resulted in errors even on official documents.  This can include misspelling by sound: ‘Gelia’ instead of Giglia, etc. 
  
Misspelling by computer transcribers: Even if the name is correct on the original record, indexers unfamiliar with the name may record it in the data base incorrectly.   This can include misspelling by looks: (‘u’ instead of n; ‘j’ for i; ‘i’ for e, and so on.

Switching given names with surnames:  Immigrants often gave their surnames first.  A clerk or transcriber might not know if the name should be ‘Alessi Rosa’ or Rosa Alessi. 

Be prepared to look for ancestors using wide variations from the presently accepted names.  If you have no luck on one site, try a different one; the name may be mispelled and indexed incorrectly on one site, but correctly recorded on another.  If you know that a neighbor of your ancestor had a simpler name, try searching for the neighbor.  Your ancestor may be recorded on the same census sheet as the more easily found neighbor.

Coniglio is the author of the book The Lady of the Wheel (La Ruotaia), based on his genealogical research of Sicilian foundlings.  Order the book in paperback or on Kindle at www.bit.ly/racalmuto. Visit his website, www.bit.ly/AFCGen, and write to him at genealogytips@aol.com.

Feast of the Madonna di Montevergine and the Purification of the Blessed Mother

Madonna di Montevergine, ora pro nobis

February 2nd is the Feast of the Madonna di Montevergine and the Purification of the Blessed Mother. One of the so-called "Seven Sisters of Campania,” an appellation given to the region's seven major Marian devotions under different titles, she is also venerated on September 12th, the Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Enshrined in the hilltop sanctuary in Mercogliano, Avellino, the miraculous icon depicting Mamma Schiavone in the Greek Galaktotrephousa (Nursing Madonna) style is traditionally attributed to St. Luke and possibly the first icon of Our Lady.

In celebration, I'm posting a Prayer to Our Lady of Montevirgine. The accompanying photo was taken at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Pontifical Shrine in East Harlem, New York. Evviva Mamma Schiavona!

Prayer to Our Lady of Montevergine

O Blessed Virgin who have deigned, centuries ago, to choose and consecrate Montevergine as your sanctuary, turn your eyes of mercy upon us kneeling at your feet, honoring you and invoking you in this Holy Image.

O most loving Mother of all the faithful, be always for each one of us a true Mother as you have been until now; and obtain for us the grace to be always your true, loving, respectful and devout children. – Hail Mary.

O Beneficent Treasure of divine graces, give us abundantly the favors we ask of you with confidence; you know well what are the many needs of our souls. – Hail Mary

O most powerful Advocate of poor sinners, assist us in dangers, fortify us in temptations and guard us from all sins; and do not cease to intercede with your Divine Son for the salvation of our souls. until you have led us with you into Heaven. Hail Mary

Photo of the Week: The Cloister at Villa Rufolo

The Moorish style court or cloister at Villa Rufolo in Ravello 
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

New Books

Some new and forthcoming titles that may be of interest to our readers. All are available at Amazon.com

• Calabria: The Other Italy by Karen Haid

Publisher: Mill City Press
Publication Date: January 7, 2015
Paperback: $14.12
Language: English
Pages: 280

Read description

• Vici Vindiciae: The Vindication of Giambattista Vico: Ingenuity and Laughter by Giorgio A. Pinton

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Publication Date: January 11, 2015
Paperback: $9.00
Language: English
Pages: 162

Read description

• Secret Naples by Valerio Ceva Grimaldi and Maria Franchini 

Publisher: Jonglez Publishing 
Publication Date: February 7, 2015 
Paperback: $17.97 
Language: English 
Pages: 400 

Read description

• Baltimore's Little Italy by Suzanna Rosa Molino

Publisher: The History Press

Publication Date: February 23, 2015

Hardcover: $14.68

Language: English

Pages: 160

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• The Ethics of Ornament in Early Modern Naples: Fashioning the Cerosa di San Martino (Visual Culture in Early Modernity) by J. Nicholas Napoli

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing Limited
Publication Date: April 28, 2015
Hardcover: $99.69
Language: English
Pages: n/a

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• Inventing the Pizzeria: A History of Pizza Making in Naples by Antonio Mattozzi

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication Date: November 19, 2015
Paperback: $24.65
Language: English
Pages: 160

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Photo of the Week: “The First Pearl of the Amalfi”

A view of the Amalfi Coast from Vietri sul Mare, the “First Pearl of the Amalfi.” Photo by New York Scugnizzo