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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006 Italian American Heritage Month Children’s Party Sunday, October 1, 2006 12:00-3:00pm Ages 0-12 Columbus Day-Themed Arts and Crafts Scavenger Hunt Face Painting Balloon Creations Dance Contest Prizes for best-dressed Italian American participant $6.50 Per Adult $3.50 Per Child Children 3 and under are free Antipasti Pizza Salad Dessert Cash bar will be available R.S.V.P. by Wednesday, September 27, 2006 1731 E. 7th Ave., Tampa, FL 33605 (813) 248-3316 PAGE 4
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2006 Italian Perspectives: “Two Faces of Italy” Part 1 by John Iorio Italians have often succumbed to leaders whose visions have led them to creative heights or desperate disasters. A land of vast contradictions produces contradictions in its people and shatters the stereotypes too quickly used to explain Italy. Let’s mention two of these charismatic leaders It was a high mass. The light of the candles glowed and smoldered into an ominous chiaroscuro. The priest elevated the Host – at once a sign of Christ and a signal for murder. By the choir, two men attacked the unarmed Giuliano with a swift blow across his head, stabbing him as he fell, stabbing after he had died – a total of 19 wounds. Two others pounced on Lorenzo, wounding him in the neck. Using his cloak as a shield, Lorenzo fled into the sacristy where friends slammed shut the bronze doors against the assassins. Lorenzo de Medici A scene from ‘The Godfather” No. It was the attempt by the Pazzi family and Pope Sixtus IV to topple the Medici family from power in Florence in 1478. The conspiracy failed. What followed was fairly gruesome, the least of which was the immediate hanging of Archbishop Salviati and five others from the windows of Palazzo Vecchio and the killing of 26 conspirators on the staircase. Lorenzo’s power soared. Except for the sacking of Volterra, Lorenzo’s early reign was marked by festivities, pageants, Bacchic hymns, and money. Coming from a family that had made Florence the leading city in Europe in finance and art, he enhanced the legacy through his political gifts. But politics is never easy, and leave it to Italy to give it glass splintered edges. While nations were developing, Italy remained a case of political lockjaw. Every city state was hemmed in by other powers — Milan by France and Venice, Florence by Milan and Rome, Rome by Florence and Naples, Naples by Rome and Spain. Power was always one alliance away, always one assassination away. Power was the wanton mistress of kings, princes and condottieri. After the failed conspiracy, the Pope, grim-faced by the Salviati hanging, excommunicated all of Tuscany. War followed. Naples joined the Pope in attacking Tuscany. Florence was outmanned and lost town after town. Lorenzo saw one way out – diplomacy. He had to wean Naples PAGE 5 away from Rome. He had to visit King Ferrante of Naples. It would be a defining moment. Ferrante was not the kind of guy you slapped on the back and greeted with a “Hey, goomba” Known as the killer among killers, he would give elegant dinners and then imprison his guests, put them in cages and torture them. Some guests ended up in flames atop lamp posts to light up his garden. A roast at Ferrante’s was not a laughing matter. This was the man Lorenzo was to meet as he set forth at night in a small boat, without weapons, without guards. Ferrante, however, was impressed by Lorenzo, so much so that in a remarkable show of bi-polarity made him both prisoner and guest. The Turks breathing at his back and the Northern coalition had something to do with his this sudden leakage of benevolence. Mission accomplished, Lorenzo did manage to get back to Florence where he was hailed as a hero. Lorenzo had been 20 years old when he assumed power. Slowly mastering the chessboard of power, he never neglected his Florentine duties. Lorenzo led Florence to its greatest height and won the title of Il Magnifico. The Florin became the monetary standard of Europe. He supported artists and public works and achieved a high level of economic prosperity. People preferred material euphoria to democratic dullness, but his leadership forged an alliance with Milan, Naples and Continued on page 6.
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