TIBERIO MITRI Press kit INGLESE

But like Italy, the life of Tiberio Mitri, is also completely permeated with romantic,
irrational, utterly sentimental and poetic joie de vivre, bold irony, playful
individualism and that almost infantile brand of enthusiasm that is typical of the
Italian esprit throughout the world that distinguishes Italians wherever they go.
And the outcome of Tiberio’s greatest fight, the one against Jake La Motta,
provides a clear demonstration of this spirit, the story of two Italians abroad, one
with the dream of conquering America and the other, a son of immigrants, who
had already succeeded in doing so.
Summary
Tiberio Primo Mitri was born in Trieste on the 12 th of July 1926 from a family of
little means who had to make do with the paltry wage of the householder.
His father, a violent, dim-witted man with a serious drinking problem, died when
he was only 10, leaving his wife to bring up Tiberio and his younger brother,
seeing as she was the only adult left in the family capable of looking after the
two children.
Fulvia Franco was also born in Trieste from a lower middle class family, her
father was a meek and unassuming man who lived very much in the shadow of
his wife, a strong-willed and ambitious woman who having got nothing out of life
for herself could only project her own yearning for success onto her daughter.
The girl was therefore brought up with a overbearing dictate: to succeed in life
at whatever cost and without being too particular either.
The lives of the two children ran parallel to each other, marred by the war, the
Fascist regime and in Tiberio’s case, by extreme poverty, something that Fulvia
did not have to bear to such an extent.
As a kid, in order to make ends meet, Tiberio took to petty crime, he got by as
best he could, often getting involved in street fights and his conduct was
deemed so reprehensible that he and his brother ended up in the Trieste
reformatory, which was part something halfway between a college and a
borstal.