Meridiunalata XI: "Hjumara" by Achille Curcio

Inspired by Cav. Charles Sant'Elia's Meridiunalata/Southernade,* an evocative bilingual (Neapolitan/English) collection of poetry written between 1989 and 2010, we offer the reader an accessible introduction to vernacular (Neapolitan, Sicilian, et al.) verse with the aim of awakening enthusiasm for contemporary and historical poesia Duosiciliano. 

In this installment we're featuring the poetry of Achille Curcio

Achille Curcio was born 26 May 1930 in Borgia (province of Catanzaro), where his father was county secretary, before moving to nearby Montauro, on the Ionian side of the province of Catanzaro. He became a school teacher in Catanzaro in the elementary school system, and then spent 40 years teaching in a juvenile detention center there. He began writing very young and chose to write in his native Calabrese dialect. He collaborated with various dailies and magazines. After the publication of his collections Lampari (1970) and Hjumara (1974), his home in Catanzaro and his other home on the Ionian Sea in Calalunga, became meeting places for many leading 20th century figures including Bigongiari, Bonea, Del Pino, Campus, Raul Maria De Angelis, Buttitta and Gerhard Rohlfs. In the mid 1970’s Curcio began a constant effort to bolster Calabrese poetry and he held readings of his work in various cities around Calabria, as well as in Florence, Zurich and Berne, and later in the 1990’s in Canada and Australia as well.

After publishing his personal collection in 1975, Visioni del Sud, which gained him a vaster readership, and his 1983 book Chi canti, chi cunti? he wrote a series of satires, an important collection of Calabrese proverbs, and a collection of short stories, L’eremita di Sant’Anna (1984). Curcio published two further collections of poetry, ’A vertula d’o poeta (1991) and ’U poeta non rida (2005), followed by works centered on the rediscovery and memory of his native land (’U morzeddhu, 2007, and La mia Cantanzaro, 2010). In addition to being translated into Hungarian (L’unda mi cunta/Hullámok dala, 2007), two conventions on dialect poetry were dedicated to him: 1981, La poesia dialettale del Novecento (in Catanzaro, with Ignazio Buttita), and in 2006, Il dialetto come lingua della poesia (in Trieste, with Franco Loi and younger generation poets). His work appeared in many anthologies, including Le parole di legno. Poesia in dialetto del ‘900 italiano, edited by M. Chiesa and G. Tesio (Mondadori, 1984). Luigi Tassoni wrote a critical monograph on Curcio, Lezione di poesia. Il dialetto contemporaneo di Achille Curcio (Bologna, Archetipolibri 2010). In March 2010 the University of Pécs dedicated an international seminar on poetry readings to Curcio, when Pécs was the European Culture Capital. On 26 May 2010, for his 80th birthday, the city of Catanzaro held a day of studies and presentations, and the mayor gave him the keys to the city. For his 85th birthday the MARCA museum of Catanzaro dedicated the La poesia che pensa event under the direction of Rocco Guglielmo and Luigi Tassoni.

Hjumara

De tutti li jochi chi fici guagliuna
non resta cchiù nenta nte chista sirata;
eppuru sti strati, stu vecchiu portuna
mi furu cumpagni nte chiddha jornata,
chi tuttu era jocu, chi tuttu era cantu
si u celu mustrava d’azzurru nu mantu.

De tutti i speranzi cuvati nt’o cora
non resta na scagghia cà tuttu spariu;
chist’anima trema videndu cà fora
na negghia passandu stu celu tingiu
e tuttu cumpara de niru velatu
stu mara, stu sula, stu nundu cangiatu.

Nte chista sirata domandu a lu ventu
duva iddhu portau la mia giovinezza;
e duva mo porta stu caru lamentu
de st’anima nira, cchiù nira ‘e na pezza.
Lu ventu respunda cà tuttu scumpara,
cà resta la vita na vera hjumara.

Hjumara chi porta luntanu l’affanni
d’o riccu signora, d’o peju sciancatu
li belli jornati, l’amuri e li nganni,
speranzi, suspire, nu sonnu spezzatu.
Hjumara maligna chi tuttu trascina
e poi cu nu vuddhu ti scriva la fina.

River
By Achille Curcio (1974)
Translated by Cav. Charles Sant’Elia

Of all the games I played as a child
Nothing is left in these evenings;
Even these streets, this old great doorway
Were my companions in those days,
When all was a game, when all was song
If the sky shown itself as a blue mantle.

Of all the hopes lodged in my heart
There is left not a splinter, for all disappeared;
This soul trembles seeing that outside
A passing fog stained this sky
And all appears veiled in black
This sea, this sun, this changed world.

In this evening I ask the wind
where he brought my youth;
and where he now brings this dear lament
of this blackened soul, blacker than a rag.
The wind responds that all disappears,
that life remains a true river.

River that brings afar the grief
of the rich lord, of the worst off beggar
the beautiful days, love and deceits,
hopes, sighs, a shattered dream.
Evil river that drags everything
And then with an eddy writes your end.

* Self-published in 2010, Meridiunalata/Southernade is a treasury of poems gleaned from Cav. Sant'Elia's previous collections (Nchiuso dint''o presente, 'A cuntrora, and 'O pino e l'éllera), which were circulated among friends in New York City and Naples. Special thanks to Cav. Sant'Elia for allowing us to reprint his poetry and translations.

Binging on Fiction: A Welcome Blast From My Geeky Past

Some choice reads from my bookhoard

Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of… (1)

Eating up a lot of fantasy and fiction of late, I revisited many old favorites, like Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, Ernst Jünger’s Eumeswil, and Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. I also tackled Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, both of which have been on my reading list for some time. 

Every now and then I go through these phases and glut myself on certain subjects or authors until I’ve exhausted the material or been taken with another topic. Inspired in part by the ongoing J.R.R. Tolkien exhibit at the Morgan Library, it was doubtlessly the recent loss of my father that really led me to reading all this escapist material. At first I just wanted something unchallenging, but well written and diverting enough to help distract my harrowed mind, then it quickly snowballed into an expansive menagerie of speculative fiction (Fantasy, SF and Grimdark).

Robert E. Howard’s The Ultimate Triumph, illustrated by Frank Frazetta and The Complete Chronicles of Conan, illustrated by Les Edwards

During this stretch, I especially enjoyed rereading the epic sword and sorcery tales of Robert E. Howard featuring Conan the Barbarian and the last Pictish king, Bran Mak Morn. It’s been awhile since I last leafed through them and almost forgot how graphic and “politically incorrect” they are. Included in these, of course, were the stories by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, who took on the Conan saga, somewhat controversially, after Howard’s untimely death in 1936.

While looking for something new, I unexpectedly stumbled upon L. Sprague and Catherine Crook de Camp’s The Incorporated Knight (Baen Books, 1988) and The Pixilated Peeress (Del Ray Books, 1991), which surprisingly enough are set in an alternative universe where Naples, not Rome, was the seat of Empire. Though they’re nothing like Howard’s pseudo-legendary Hyborian Age, the books are filled with action, adventure, and amusing mishaps and escapades.

Deluxe editions of Robert E. Howard’s Savage Tales of Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn: The Last King, illustrated by Gary Gianni

I always liked discovering stories with connections to southern Italy, even tenuous ones, like Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein being born in Naples (2) or Robert E. Howard’s proud kingdom of Aquilonia being named after a town in Avellino. Interestingly, Howard also named his proto-Celtic Cimmerians, the sturdy stock from which the "black-haired, sullen-eyed" Conan sprang, after the nomadic Indo-European tribe of troglodytes who settled in the “lonely lands” of Cumae near Naples. (3)

Strangely enough, I remember seeing both of the de Camp’s books at the Brooklyn Public Library when I was younger and passed them up for others with more appealing (i.e. explicit) cover art. Luckily for me Frank Frazetta, Sanjulián, Gary Gianni and others, illustrated some of the greats, like Tarzan, John Carter of Mars and Solomon Kane. However, one can’t help but wonder what other entertaining reads I missed out on because I didn’t much fancy the packaging. To be sure, this was just one of many unfortunate youthful indiscretions. 

L. Sprague and Catherine Crook de Camp’s The Incorporated Knight and The Pixilated Peeress

Without giving too much away, The Incorporated Knight is the story of Eudoric Dambertson, esquire, a budding nobleman from the Kingdom of Locania. It begins with the enterprising lad setting off on a quest to slay a dragon in the faraway lands of Pathenia, east of the Neapolitan Empire. He hopes the heroic deed, plus two yards of dragon hide, will help him get knighted and win the enchanter Baldonius' daughter Lusina's lovely hand in marriage.

The Pixilated Peeress recounts the tale of Sergeant Thorolf Zigramson of the Fourth Commonwealth Foot and the haughty, yet captivating Yvette, Countess of Grintz. While trying to escape the unwanted advances of Duke Gondomar of Landai, Yvette is accidentally transformed into a cephalopod by the slightly senescent sorcerer, Dr. Bardi. In an effort to change her back, Thorolf undertakes a series of hapless ventures, including a rather disturbing encounter with Bza, a monstrously ugly trolless.

Though not exactly what I was looking for, the de Camp’s books were worthwhile and fun.

A big fan of Marvel's old Savage Sword of Conan comics, I especially enjoyed the art of John Buscema and Tony de Zuniga. The issue on the right was the first comic book I ever bought without parental supervision. Ten-years-old, I used my allowance and it was at John’s Sweet Shop in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn

A welcome blast from my more geeky past, the stories afforded me the opportunity to temporarily lose myself during this trying spell and called to mind a simpler time, when my father use to take me to comic book conventions and flea markets around the city so I can buy old pulp magazines (Savage Sword, Weird Tales, etc.) and paperbacks. What’s more, this interlude has reminded me how rewarding “less weighty” material can be and that I need to make a concerted effort to read more fiction.  

                                         ~ John Napoli, Brooklyn, March 12, 2019, The Feast of San Gregorio Magno

My 1979 Comic Art Con button with detail of the premiere issue of the Savage Sword of Conan the Barbarian (August 1974) featuring the Cimmerian and Red Sonja, the "She-Devil with a sword," illustrated by the great Boris Vallejo

Notes:

(1) Robert E. Howard, “The Phoenix on the Sword,” The Complete Chronicles of Conan, 2006

Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet. ~ The Nemedian Chronicles

(2) Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, 1831 edition

From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles.

(3) Homer, Odyssey, Book XI

There, in a lonely land and gloomy cells,
The dusky nation of Cimmeria dwells;
The sun ne’er views the uncomfortable seats,
When radiant he advances or retreats.
Unhappy race, whom endless night invades,
Clouds the dull air, and wraps them in shades.

Photo of the Week: Marble Bust at Axel Munthe's Villa San Michele in Anacapri

Marble bust in the loggia at Axel Munthe's Villa San Michele in Anacapri, Capri
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Distributing Food to the Homeless on the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

Thank you to this month's volunteers

Thursday, March 7th, members of the Constantinian Auxiliary prepared and distributed food to the homeless in Chinatown and Two Bridges, New York on the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. Meeting at the Church of the Transfiguration (29 Mott St.), volunteers braved the frigid weather and prepared 20 care packages replete with winter accessories, toiletries and ready to eat food, including containers of freshly cooked penne marinara generously donated by our dear friends at Caffé Napoli (191 Hestor Street) in Little Italy.

Anna and Konstantinos

Once again, we want to thank Antonio, Anna and Konstantinos Mavrianos-Cesare for their hard work and dedication. You are an inspiration to us all. Thank you Louis Fontana of Caffé Napoli; Raymond Guarini of the Italian Enclaves Historical Society; Andrew Giordano of the St. Rocco Society; Robert Michael Surella of the East Harlem Giglio Society; Olya Brandon; and Cav. John Napoli for your continued assistance. Your heartfelt generosity and selflessness is greatly appreciated. And as always, special thanks to Pastor Lo for your support and blessings. It is an honor to serve with such an outstanding group of people. God Bless you all. IHSV

The next walk will be on Thursday, April 4th—the Feast of San Benedetto da San Fratello—at 7:00 PM. In addition to ready to eat foodstuff and daily necessities, we’re are asking volunteers to donate hats and scarves for the cold weather. Anyone interested in supporting this charitable endeavor can contact Cav. John Napoli at jnapoli@smocsg.org or Anna Mavrianos-Cesare at MsAnnaNY@aol.com.

Once again, our friends at Caffé Napoli donated a tray of penne marinara

Everybody pitched in

Konstantinos and Olya

Bobby

Originally posted in The Constantinian Chronicle

The Search for our Ancestry (LVII)

Names, Names, Names

By Angelo Coniglio

Over the past few years, several of my columns have dealt with the importance of our ancestors’ names, when researching their important records to extend our family trees. Because I continually receive questions about Sicilian and Italian given names, surnames, nicknames, ‘maiden’ names and so on, I’ll recap, with some details I’ve more recently learned about each of those types.

I’ll begin with the earliest presentation of names, those in sacramental church records, made before the time that ‘civil’ record-keeping began in Sicily and the northern duchies and civil states of the Apennine peninsula (that is, before the early 1800’s). The sacraments involved were baptism, chrismation (confirmation), marriage and extreme unction. Because extreme unction is the sacrament administered just preceding death, these latter church records are termed ‘death records.’ The earliest church records (as early as the 15th century), and in many cases those to this day, were written in the official church language, Latin. Here are points to remember about names in Latin records:

‘Given’, or ‘first’ names are usually different than they are in the Italian language. The Latin for Giovanni is Joannes; for Felice it’s Felix; for Orazio, it’s Horatio; for Vincenza it’s Vincentia; Grazia is Gratia, and so on. This is more the case for masculine names, where virtually all have differences between Latin and Italian. Many feminine names are the same in Latin and Italian: Maria, Angela, Rosa, etc.

Surnames or family names are usually the same in Latin as in Italian.

Given names vary with the usage of the name in the record. A marriage record for Antonio Russo, son of Angelo, e. g., would list Antonius and Angelus (the declarative forms) in the margin, but the actual record would say the groom was ‘filius Angeli’, where ‘filius’ means ‘son’ and ‘Angeli’ means ‘of Angelus’.  The ‘i’ ending on a masculine name that normally ends in ‘us’ is the ‘genitive’ form, carrying the meaning ‘of’ or ‘from’. For feminine names ending in ‘a’, the genitive ending is ‘æ’, usually handwritten to look like an uppercase ‘E’. So ‘filius Mariæ’ means ‘son of Maria’; ‘filius Rosæ’ means ‘son of Rosa’, etc.

A potentially confusing aspect of Latin names is that in many cases, they are different from the corresponding Italian names, but the same as the eventual ‘Americanized’ name. The Italian name ‘Giuseppe’ is ‘Joseph’ in church Latin; ‘Michele’ is ‘Michael’ in Latin; ‘Felice’ is ‘Felix’ in Latin; and ‘Elisabetta’ is ‘Elisabeth’ in Latin. See my web page at http://bit.ly/LatinGivenNames

Once civil records were kept for births, marriages and deaths, they were written in the official language of the region. Even though there was no nation known as ‘Italy’ prior to 1861, the official language was Italian. Many descendants of immigrants knew their nannu or nanna only by the short family-used versions of their Sicilian/Italian given names. A brief list of these follows. For more, see http://bit.ly/ShortenedSicilianNames

It’s important to search original records using the correct ‘proper’ name, as shortened names were never ‘official’. Also, often the diminutive forms of many feminine names were used by families. Angelina, Rosina, Concettina (little Angela, little Rosa, etc.) would be Angela, Rosa and so on in official records. Be open-minded. Don’t say “That “Angela” can’t be my grandmother, her name was Angeline.”  

Coniglio is the author of the book The Lady of the Wheel, inspired by his Sicilian research. Order the paperback or the Kindle version at www.bit.ly/SicilianStory Coniglio’s web page at http://bit.ly/AFCGen has helpul hints on genealogic research. If you have genealogy questions, or would like him to lecture to your club or group, e-mail him at genealogytips@aol.com.

Happy Women’s Day!

Nonna Pauline

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 of my paternal grandmother is part of the familial shrine I set up every year in honor 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

Photo of the Week: Bronze Head of Hypnos at Axel Munthe's Villa San Michele in Anacapri

Bronze head of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep,
 in the loggia at Axel Munthe's Villa San Michele in Anacapri, Capri
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

New Books (March 2019)

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

• The Neapolitan Lives and Careers of Netherlandish Immigrant Painters (1575-1655) by Marije Osnabrugge

Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Publication Date:
Hardcover: $137.75
Language: English
Pages: 416

Read description

• The Complete Poetry of Giacomo da Lentini translated by Richard Lansing

Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Publication Date: May 4, 2018
Paperback: $23.35
Language: English
Pages: 208

Read description

• The Girl Who Would Be Queen (The Kingdom of Naples Book 1) by Jane Ann McLachlan

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Publication Date: March 4, 2019
Kindle: $0.99
Language: English
File size: 1790 KB

Read description

Click here to see more books

Listing does not imply any endorsement

Photo of the Week: The Horse Tamer in Naples

One of two equestrian statues outside the entrance to the gardens of the Royal Palace in Naples. The statues are copies of the Horse Tamers from St. Petersburg, Russia, and were a gift to King Ferdinand II of Naples from Czar Nicholas I during a state visit to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1846

Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Happy Birthday Prince Carlo di Borbone!

HRH was born in Saint Raphaël, France on February 24, 1963 
Photo courtesy of Real Casa di Borbone

Happy Birthday Prince Carlo di Borbone – Two Sicilies, Duke of Castro and Grand Master of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George! We pray that your special day be filled with the glory and wonder of God’s abiding love, and may you feel His presence throughout the coming year. Peace be upon you. Auguri!

Photo of the Week: Diana, Temple of Apollo in Pompeii

Diana, Temple of Apollo in Pompeii 
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Farewell Nibs! Now With Our Ancestors

Requiescat in Pace John Napoli, Sr.
April 16, 1944—February 12, 2019

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

Photo of the Week: Statue of a River God on the Right Side of the Grand Staircase

Statua di Divinita Fluviale on the right side of the grand staircase in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Roman, second century A.D.
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

Distributing Food to the Homeless on the Feast of San Lorenzo Maiorano

Thank you to this month's volunteers: Bobby,
James, Tony, Ray and Anna (our photographer)

Thursday, February 7th, members of the Constantinian Auxiliary prepared and distributed food to the homeless in Chinatown and Two Bridges, New York on the Feast of San Lorenzo Maiorano. Meeting at the Church of the Transfiguration (29 Mott St.), volunteers prepared 20 care packages replete with winter accessories, toiletries and ready to eat food, including containers of freshly cooked Chicken Marsala generously donated by our dear friends at Caffé Napoli (191 Hestor Street) in Little Italy.

Once again, our friends at Caffé Napoli donated a delicious tray of food

Once again, we want to thank Antonio, Anna and Konstantinos Mavrianos-Cesare for their hard work and dedication. You are an inspiration to us all. Thank you Louis Fontana of Caffé Napoli; Raymond Guarini of Italian Enclaves; James De Silva; and Robert Michael Surella for your continued assistance. Your heartfelt generosity and selflessness is greatly appreciated. And as always, special thanks to Pastor Lo for your support and blessings. It is an honor to serve with such an outstanding group of people. God Bless you all. IHSV

Care packages were stuffed with ready to eat food,
toiletries and winter hats and gloves

The next walk will be on Thursday, March 7th—the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas—at 7:00 PM. In addition to ready to eat foodstuff and daily necessities, we’re are asking volunteers to donate hats and scarves for the cold weather. Anyone interested in supporting this charitable endeavor can contact Cav. John Napoli at jnapoli@smocsg.org or Anna Mavrianos-Cesare at MsAnnaNY@aol.com.

Originally posted in The Constantinian Chronicle

Briganti Field Trip: Maker of Middle-Earth Exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum

Lamppost banner on Madison Avenue
Photos by New York Scugnizzo

By Giovanni di Napoli

"It's like lightning from a clear sky!" ~ C.S. Lewis, review of The Fellowship of the Ring

For our first official gathering, members of Il Regno’s nascent Briganti Book and Gaming Club met Saturday afternoon at the Morgan Library & Museum (225 Madison Avenue) in Manhattan to view the newly installed J.R.R. Tolkien exhibit, “Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth.” Previously on view at the Weston Library in Oxford, England, the show will run from January 25 through May 12, 2019. 

Arriving early, our fellowship entered the Engelhard Gallery on the second floor through a replica hobbit hole doorway and leisurely perused it’s many wondrous objects. Displayed on walls and beneath glass cases, the space featured a nice selection of family photographs, memorabilia, illustrations, maps, manuscripts and designs connected to Tolkien’s Middle-earth (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion). Boasting 117 items in all, the exhibit is touted as “the largest collection of Tolkien material ever assembled in the United States.” Sadly, photography is strictly prohibited in the gallery.

In addition to the installations, a series of related programs are being offered for children and adults throughout the duration of the exhibit. During our visit, we were very happy to hear the cartography class geared for children ages 8-14 was sold out. The next event scheduled will be the “Tolkien and Inspiration: A Multidisciplinary Symposium” on Saturday, March 16th at 2:00PM. The full calendar of events is available online.

Having read (and loved) Tolkien’s books at an early age, they were very influential in my development. Along with the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Beowulf, the Brothers Grimm, et al., they were the fountainhead of my passion for fantasy and science fiction (SF) and led me to the works of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and H.P. Lovecraft, not to mention Homer, Virgil, and Snorri Sturluson.

The Hobbit DVD

Admittedly, my first exposure to Tolkien wasn’t from reading, but through the animated television special of The Hobbit (1977), directed by Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass (Rankin/Bass Productions). Though a young boy, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Feeling a little under the weather, my mother tucked me into my parents’ bed because their bedroom had a spare television set. She must have known about the premier before hand because the timing was just right.

Doing a little Internet sleuthing, I learned the cartoon aired on Sunday, November 27, 1977.

Unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, I watched in wonder as Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Wizard, and a company of dwarves battled giant spiders, trolls, warg riding goblins, and, of course, the dragon Smaug. Up till then, my experience with SF was limited to comic books and the old black and white movies I watched with my grandfather, like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, King Kong, and so forth. Much like Andy Serkis’ acclaimed portrayal in the later Peter Jackson trilogy, Gollum was one of the more memorable characters in the film.

A few years later, I would be able to watch the cartoon as often as I pleased when my father brought home an RCA Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) player. The Hobbit, as well as Ralph Bakshi’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (Warner Brothers, 1978), was among the handful of “video discs” I had before the outmoded system was replaced by the short-lived Betamax format. I believe my long-lost copy of The Return of the King (Rankin/Bass Productions, 1980) was on VHS.

The other CED discs I remember owning were Time Bandits (1981), The Bad News Bears (1976) and the highly inappropriate Barbarella (1968) starring Jane Fonda. The latter, unquestionably, was mistakenly conflated with Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, because there was no way my parents would have knowingly allowed me to watch a naked strumpet floating around in outer space, but I digress.

My autographed cel from Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings movie

Not one to collect pop memorabilia (books, stamps and art postcards are my weakness), I do possess two items of note. The first is an autographed cel from Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings film depicting the heroic hobbit Frodo Baggins holding his uncle Bilbo’s elvish blade Sting to Gollum’s exposed and cadaverous throat. The other is a limited edition Frank Frazetta "Women of the Ages" portfolio signed by the artist. Both items were a gift from an old friend.

Frazetta, like Tolkien, was very inspirational to me. His pen and ink illustrations of The Lord of the Rings in my, sadly falling apart, first edition copy of Frank Frazetta: The Living Legend (Sun Litho Print/Frank Frazer, 1981) are among my favorites. Ironically, Frazetta’s dark and sinister drawings are more how I envision Middle-earth to be than Tolkien’s own illustrations, despite how beautiful they are. 

An immodest Éowyn decapitating a Fell Beast 
from my copy of Frank Frazetta: The Living Legend

Having in the past only seen some of the amazing artifacts on display at the Morgan Library & Museum in books or magazines, it was a great thrill to actually view the originals in person—similar to when I got to see Otto Dix’s Der Krieg prints, which I was so fascinated with as an adolescent, at the “Chaos and Classicism” exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in 2010. While we can never underestimate the importance of reproductions in print and online galleries, they almost never do justice to the originals; nor can they take the place of experiencing art in the flesh.

Before leaving, I picked up few souvenirs: (L-R) Museum bulletin; Tolkien: Treasures by Catherine McIlwaine; crankshaft music box that plays "Happy Birthday;" and postcards (Hunting the Wild Boar; Running Eros, Holding a Torch; Bellerophon Killing the Chimera; Conversion of St. Hubert; and The Siren)

Be that as it may, I still bought myself a keepsake copy of Catherine McIlwaine's illustrated exhibition catalogue Tolkien: Treasures (Boldleian Library, 2018) and a few postcards for my collection.

If you are a fan, the “Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth” exhibit is definitely worth the trip. It brought back a lot of great childhood memories and has me itching to read the books again. See it before it leaves for the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris later this year.

For more on the Morgan Library & Museum and “Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth” visit www.themorgan.org.

Addendum

Afterward, we took the opportunity to explore the beautiful Morgan Library and Museum collection. Highlights included:

Ceramic relief by the Renaissance sculptor Lucia della Robbia (1400-1482) on the rotunda ceiling over the door opposite the library's grand entrance.

Pierpont Morgan's 1906 Library

The Guttenberg Bible

Jeweled cover of the Lindau Gospels, France,
workshop of Charles the Bald, ca. 870-80 

Running Eros, Holding a Torch,
Boscoreale, Campania, second or first century BC

Blast: Review of the Great English Vortex,
No. 2 by Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957)

The Search for our Ancestry (LVI)

A Flood of On-Line Records

By Angelo Coniglio

A belief of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (‘LDS’ or ‘Mormon’) is that reunion with family and ancestors in the afterlife is possible if those ancestors are properly identified and included in one’s ‘family tree’. This has led the church to find and record documents from all over the world, including birth, baptism, marriage and death records, as well as other ‘vital statistics.’ These documents were photographed or photocopied and reproduced in miniaturized form on microfiche or microfilm. A microfiche is a small (4 in. by 5 in.) sheet of celluloid that can hold many miniaturized images. A microfilm is similar, with the images on a roll of celluloid film. The microfilms have ‘still’ images of records, not motion pictures. Both 16 millimeter and 35 millimeter film was used. A magnifying viewer is required for both fiches and films, and usually such viewers are dual-purpose. 

Eventually, microfiches were phased out, and microfilm was the main resource for researching the records compiled by the LDS. These were available for rental to anyone (including non-Mormons) for a small charge, and once they were shipped to local Mormon Family History Centers (FHCs) they were viewable there for free, to any patron. The microfilms are organized by city or town of origin, then by civil or ecclesiastic records, then by year and type. The research approach was to determine one’s ancestral town, then order the microfilm for that town for the year(s) of interest and the type of record to be searched (civil birth, marriage or death, church baptism, etc.).

In recent years, the LDS church began uploading images of the records held on microfilm to its on-line site, www.familysearch.org and currently, all but a .few Sicilian and Italian records are available, to one degree or another, on line. This was done because of the ephemeral nature of microfilm: it won’t last forever. Before further discussing online images, the terms involved should be understood:

Digitizing is the process of scanning an image (whether from a sheet of paper or from a microfilm) and reproducing it in electronic format that can be stored on a computer, viewed, transmitted, etc. When you scan a photo that was made ‘the old-fashioned way’ with photographic film and printed on paper, and store that image on your computer or post it on Facebook, etc, you are ‘digitizing’ that photo. The LDS has on microfilm over 3.5 billion images of individual records that had to be digitized.

Once a microfilm film and its records are digitized, the images can be made available on line. These images, obviously, are in Italian, and researching them is no different in principle than scrolling through a microfilm. Image enhancement does make some of the records clearer than those on the original microfilm. To make searches less difficult, the LDS is in the process of ‘indexing’ these on-line images.

Indexing requires a person (in this case one of many volunteers) to view an image of each record and to enter summarized information in a predetermined format that can then be ‘searched’ by users. For example, from a detailed birth record, the indexer might record the birth date and place, the child’s name and the names of its parents. Then a researcher (you) can go to the desired town’s records on the familysearch site and enter, say, the child’s name to see the transcribed information, in English, often with a link to the image of the actual original record.

Using indexed material may make it easier to find information, but I recommend that even if indexed, you should always view the original record if possible. There are at least two reasons for this: 1) only bare-bones information is indexed. The summary of a birth, for example, won’t give the father’s age or occupation, nor the street address where the child was born, nor other facts that may be seen only on the original record; and 2) the indexed record is a secondary record. Someone has read the original and entered information as he/she interpreted it. Dates, names and places may be incorrect, because of the unfamiliarity of the indexer with the original language or handwriting. Often these errors mean that when you search by name, the record can’t be found, only because the indexer has misspelled the name.

Coniglio is the author of the book The Lady of the Wheel, inspired by his Sicilian research. Order the paperback or the Kindle version at www.bit.ly/SicilianStory Coniglio’s web page at http://bit.ly/AFCGen has helpul hints on genealogic research. If you have genealogy questions, or would like him to lecture to your club or group, e-mail him at genealogytips@aol.com.

Meridiunalata X: Notes on Coming Home by He Zhizhang

賀知章 (He Zhizhang)

Following the successful reception of his translation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven into Neapolitan, and in honor of Chinese New Year, Cav. Charles Sant'Elia takes the opportunity to translate 回鄉偶書, a poem by one of the "immortals" of the Tang Dynasty, He Zhizhang (659-744). The original and English translation of the poem comes courtesy of John Turner's A Golden Treasury of Chinese Poetry, Hong Kong: Renditions Books, The Chinese University of H.K., 1989.

回鄉偶書
賀知章
少小離家老大回
鄉音無改鬢毛摧(衰)
兒童相見不相識
笑問客從何處來

Notes on Coming Home*
By He Zhizhang (659-744, Tang Dynasty)

I come home an old man; I went away young.
My accent has not changed but my hair is now gray.
I meet some village children, I am a stranger to them.
Smiling, they ask me, "Where do you come from?"

Notarelle Ncopp’’O Turnà a Casa
De He Zhizhang (659-744, Dinastia Tang)

I’ mo torno a casa nu viecchio; ca gióvene i’ partette.
L’acciento mio nun ha cagnato ma ‘e capille mieje sò ghianche.
Veco ‘e ppiccerille d’’o pajese, pe chille songo nu forestiero.
Surridenno, m’addimánnano, “’Addò bbenite vuje?”

Translated by Cav. Avv. Charles Sant’Elia

Photo of the Week: Statue of a River God on the Left Side of the Grand Staircase

Statua di Divinita Fluviale on the left side of the grand staircase in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Roman, second century A.D.
Photo by New York Scugnizzo

New Books (February 2019)

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

• Sicily: Heritage of the World edited by Dirk Booms and Peter John Higgs

Publisher: British Museum
Publication Date: July 31, 2019
Paperback: $80.00
Language: English
Pages: 200

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• The Time Traveler’s Guide to Sicily: History for Visitors by Louis Mendola

Publisher: Trinacria Editions LLC
Publication Date: October 2, 2019
Paperback: $34.00
Language: English
Pages: 370

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