492 Great Things About Being Italian By Boze Hadleigh Table of Contents: - Showbiz celebs: the funnier half of Abbott and Costello, Leonardo DiCaprio, De Niro, Pacino, Travolta, Stallone, Sal Mineo, Jay Leno, Ray Romano, Rudolph Valentino (the movies‟ first Latin Lover) and on and on - Cuisine: spaghetti, pizza, lasagna, macaroni and minestrone, also bologna, cannelloni, ravioli, chicken cacciatore, focaccia, pannini, polenta, tortellini and mozzarella, gorgonzola, ricotta and parmiggiano—aka parmesan cheese—plus breadsticks and Caesar Cardini, who invented Caesar‟s Salad! - Filmmakerss: Fellini, Scorsese, Visconti, Francis Ford Coppola, Lina Wertmuller, Antonioni, Brian De Palma, Sergio Leone; producer Dino Di Laurentiis - Places: Venice, Vesuvius, Florence, Rome, Naples, Capri, the sites of many of Shakespeare‟s plays—Padua, Verona— etc. - Automobiles: FIAT, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Lamborghini - Classic Italian films: “Shoeshine,” “Bicycle Thief,” “La Dolce Vita,” “Divorce, Italian Style” and “8½”—source of the Broadway musical “Nine”—plus spaghetti westerns, which made a star of Clint Eastwood after Hollywood had tossed him aside - Drinks: espresso, cappuccino and caffe latte to macchiato and the martini, Grappa, Amaretto and other liquors and liqueurs - “Hidden” Italians: Anne Bancroft (nee Anna Maria Italiano), Paula Prentiss (nee Paula Ragusa), Connie Stevens (nee Concetta Ingolia), Connie Francis (nee Concetta Franconero, formerly the world‟s top-selling female singer), Steve Carell (Caroselli), horror icon Christopher Lee, teen idol Don Grady of TV‟s “My Three Sons,” etc., etc. - Desserts: cannoli, tiramisu, gelato (world‟s best ice cream!), tutti frutti, zabaglione, cassata, biscotti - Cultural artifacts: cement, arches, the pianoforte (aka the piano—means softly in Italian); Roman numerals, italics and Latin words and phrases from et cetera and via to in flagrante delicto and corpus delicti; commedia dell arte, forks (introduced to western and northern Europe by Italians) and more! - Fashion: Armani, Prada, Pucci, Gucci, Versace, Valentino, Ferragammo, Dolce & Gabbana, etc. - Art: Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Giotto, Tiziano (aka Titian, like the hair color), Caravaggio, Cellini, Bellini (but not linguine), etc. - Italian stars: Loren and Lollobrigida to Mastroianni, Anna Magnani, Claudia Cardinale, Roberto Benigni, more - Inventors and pioneers: Galileo, Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Marconi, Olivetti, Pirelli, Enrico Fermi, Galvani (as in voltage), Torelli (fireworks, in the 1600s), the Vespa, Pininfarina (to automobile design what Dior is to fashion design), more - Music: opera, castrati singers, divas and divos, composers Verdi, Puccini, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, etc.; Caruso, Mario Lanza, Pavarotti, Guy Lombardo, Jerry Vale, Frankie Valli, Frankie Avalon, Fabian, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Henry Mancini, Madonna, Lady Gaga (who knew?) - Expatriates: rich and famous people who could live anywhere but chose Italy, from Sweden‟s Queen Christina and Anita Ekberg (of “La Dolce Vita”) to George Clooney, Anthony Quinn, Ursula Andress, Audrey Hepburn, Gore Vidal (and assorted deposed dictators) - Literature: Dante‟s “Divine Comedy,” Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Italo Calvino, the characters Romeo and Juliet, Francesca in “The Bridges of Madison County,” et cetera - Pop culture: Joe DiMaggio (baseball legend whose second wife was Marilyn Monroe), Italian soccer, Topo Gigio, the Italian mouse (variety-show host Ed Sullivan‟s most frequent guest); TV‟s “Jersey Shore,” Hollywood stars who‟ve played Italians on screen (sometimes a scream), more! - Icons: the Colosseum, the Mona Lisa, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, St. Peter‟s in Rome, Italian popes, Michelangelo‟s David, Casanova, Venice‟s Grand Canal, gondolas, Venice, California (built to duplicate Italy‟s city of canals); tarot cards (from tarocchi), universal words like “ciao” (means hello and goodbye!) - American cultural figures: Geraldine Ferraro, first female vice-presidential candidate of a major party; Mother Cabrini; A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of America, once the world‟s largest; Lee Iacocca of Chrysler (ironic, no?), Chef Boyardee, Simon Rodia, the Italian immigrant who single- handedly built the Watts Towers in Los Angeles, etc. Thirty sample entries: Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) couldn‟t have dreamed that his first name, in feminized form, would become the most famous geographical name—for two continents and one superpower—in modern history. (By contrast, Columbus only got a nation, Colombia (sic), and a federal district (of Columbia) named after him. And a movie studio.) A Florentine merchant, explorer and cartographer, it was Vespucci and not Columbus who first realized that the lands west of the Atlantic Ocean were separate continents, not the eastern edge of Asia. (Incidentally, Vespucci, who financed ships sailing to the “Indies,” helped supply the beef rations for at least one of Columbus‟s voyages.) Manuel I, king of Portugal, invited Amerigo to be an observer on several voyages exploring the east coast of (South America). It was on one such that Vespucci discovered the geographical truth, so in 1507 cartographer Martin Waldseemueller proposed that a part of Brazil which Vespucci had explored be named after him. The name stuck, and was later applied to all of Brazil, then to the entire southern continent, and eventually to both continents. Fortunately, the German employed the mellifluous “America” rather than “Vespuccia.” Viva Amerigo! Armani is synonymous with clean, tailored lines in menswear—and with success. In 2001 Giorgio Armani, born 1934, was pronounced Italy‟s top designer, achieving sales of $1.6 billion (his personal worth exceeds $8 billion). Originally intended for a medical career, he switched to window dressing, then selling menswear. In 1975 Giorgio and his younger partner (who died in 1985 at 40) launched “Armani.” The “Michelangelo of Menswear” has also designed costumes for over 100 films (e.g., The Untouchables, 1987) and for performers like Italian-American Lady Gaga. In 2008 Armani established a healthy precedent when he banned models with a body mass index below 18, following the death from anorexia nervosa of model Ana Carolina Reston. Benito Juarez, a native Zapotec and former shepherd, became, against all odds, Mexico‟s president in 1861. The idealistic reformer is widely considered that nation‟s greatest leader. Who can ever know how their kid will turn out, but at least the parents of a future fascist dictator (from 1922 to 1945) were informed and open-minded enough to name baby Mussolini after a progressive foreign pioneer. (Juarez is sometimes labeled a “Zapotec Indian,” but Indians are from India. Columbus got that one wrong—yet the error was allowed to flourish until “native” and “Native American” came into frequent usage. Had Christopher believed he‟d landed in China instead, many people would still be calling Cherokees, say, red Chinese!) Cannoli is the plural of cannolo, little tube, and they hail from Sicily (in Italy they‟re known as cannoli siciliani). Originally they were a Carnevale treat, but their popularity promoted them to year-round status. The tubular shells of fried pastry dough housing a sweet, smooth filling typically containing ricotta cheese range in size from fist-big—especially in Palermo—to finger-sized (cannulicchi). In the U.S. cannoli are often filled with mascarpone cream cheese or custard sauce, and often contain chocolate bits, chopped pistachios, candied citrus peel or festive cherries at the open ends. Due to their shape, cannoli are sometimes theorized to have begun as fertility symbols. Chi sa? Never mind. Food, comfort, enjoy. Christopher Columbus wasn‟t the first seafarer from the eastern hemisphere to discover the western hemisphere‟s Americas—and of course he never landed in what is now the USA—but he made it News and received the credit. Cristoforo Colombo had both vision and persistence. The major seafaring nations at the time were Spain and Portugal, but the redheaded Italian nabbed the assignment and got the job done. (Interesting that in English we call him not by his Italian name but by its Latin version.) Too, Italy didn‟t colonize the Americas and start killing off its native peoples. That was left to Spain, Portugal, France and England. Chrysler, long the United States‟ #3 automaker, is 100% Italian-owned since 2014 (FIAT assumed majority control in 2011). Today, Europe‟s second-largest automaker sells a dozen brands: Abarth, Alfa- Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Ferrari, FIAT, FIAT Professional, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Ram Trucks and SRT. Ironically, it was Italian-American Lee Iacocca—born in Allentown, PA—who in the 1980s helped save Chrysler from bankruptcy and reversed its fortunes. Chrysler was then able to take over the fourth-placed U.S. car manufacturer, American Motors, plus Jeep. Ciao is easy to pronounce (chow) and is cool because it means both hello and goodbye—like aloha— without being an oxymoron. (In much of Spanish-speaking Latin America ciao has become part of the language, considered more chic than the local equivalent.) Colosseum is the nickname of Rome‟s Flavian Amphitheatre, the world‟s largest, able to accommodate 50,000 to 80,000 spectators. It was begun in the year 70 (Common Era) by the emperor Vespasian, patriarch of the Flavian dynasty, and completed in 80 by his son, the emperor Titus. Its inaugural ceremonies lasted 100 days. The site was most famous for its brutal gladiatorial contests, which lasted until at least 435 C.E., when they were last recorded. The concrete and stone building‟s nickname may owe to its size or to a huge statue of the hugely egotistical emperor Nero that stood nearby—the Colossus of Nero, eventually destroyed by angry Romans. Cole Porter‟s classic list-song “You‟re the Top” begins with “You‟re the top, you‟re the Colosseum.” Today it‟s a ruin that still impresses—and somehow manages to look modern. Et cetera. Yes, it‟s Latin—which makes it Italian, if not Italian-language. It‟s such a clever way of expressing what it does, from et (and) and cetera (the rest), that several languages, including English, use it. It certainly rolls off the tongue easier than German zum Beispiel.