As you all know, we have a blogger in Salerno, Antonia, who gives us great pieces on her ex-pat adventures in Italy.  See a quick update on the current situation there.  We have also heard from our friend in Rome below. “Cases are constantly growing as it is expected for the next 10-14 days. The good news of yesterday is that in Bergamo ( currently the epicenter of the infection) the number of recovered people was higher than the ones arrived at the hospital. Unfortunately the age of the infected people is lower now as , unlike the elderly, the young (40 and more) resist at home until they cannot breath and so they are in very bad conditions and very hard to care. There are a lot, however, that have high fever for 4-5 days and that recover naturally but what is important to know is that this virus is so aggressive that potentially more people are infected than officially known (no symptoms, not yet tested) and extremely contagious. Therefore, the only prevention is to stay at home.  As of today, this is the situation. We strongly hope that the virus spread doesn’t arrive in the center southern Italy the way it arrived in the north as hospitals and healthcare services there are less organized and equipped.  We can only pray and be very careful not only for ourselves but above all to respect the others.” To all my dear friends and family who are all concerned about me here in beautiful downtown Salerno. I’m fine, no symptoms, streets are empty, markets still have food. Pollution is down from no cars or motorcycles on the streets. Yay! I’m cleaning, binge watching Madmen -again-and clearing off my desk of all those post-its of things to do. It’s eerie for sure, to not feel the energy of Italy on the streets or smell the perfume of the restaurants, caffe bars and bakeries. But I pray that with our efforts the virus will be contained and we will all live happily ever after.  Love to all my peeps out there. Thank you for your concern.  Antonia.

Finding Sicilian roots with Al.  Al talks about getting a ancestry.com test kit as a gift from his daughter and how that led to his starting his research.  Al talks about his amazing discoveries through ancestry in America and his desire to research his roots in Sicily. Click here to join our group on Facebook

Click here to join Italian Genealogy Group on Facebook I went to NOLA several times in the 1970’s, but never new the rich history of Italian, specifically Sicilians in the French Quarter.  This is the third Little Italy highlighted in our series. Little Italy New Orleans, or more accurately “Little Palermo” was the first major population center for Sicilians in America.   Economics in Louisiana and Sicily combined to bring about what became known as the Great Migration of thousands of Sicilians. The end of the Civil War allowed the freed men the choice to stay or to go, many chose to leave for higher paying jobs, which in turn led to a perceived scarcity of labor resources for the planters. Northern Italy enjoyed the fruits of modern industrialization, while southern Italy and Sicily suffered destitute conditions under the system of absentee landowners. The peasant was still essentially the serf in the system. Emigration not only offered peasants a chance to move beyond subsistence living, it also offered them a chance to pursue their own dreams of proprietorship as farmers or other business owners. On March 17, 1866, the Louisiana Bureau of Immigration was formed and planters began to look to Sicily as a possible solution to their labor needs. Steamship companies advertisements were very effective in recruiting potential workers. . Three steamships per month were running between New Orleans and Sicily by September 1881 at a cost of only forty dollars per person.[6] In 1890 the ethnic Irish chief of police, David Hennessy was assassinated.[7] Suspicion fell on Italians, whose growing numbers in the city made other whites nervous.[8] The March 14, 1891 New Orleans lynchings were the largest ever mass lynchings in Louisiana history.[8] The use of the term “mafia” by local media in relation to the murder is the first-known usage of the word in print. “Little Palermo” was established by recent immigrants in the lower French Quarter. So many Italians settled here that some suggested the area should be renamed as “The Sicilian Quarter” in the early 20th century. As time passed and they became established, many Italian-Americans moved out of New Orleans and to the suburbs.[4] Historically many corner stores in New Orleans were owned by Italians. Progresso Foods originated as a New Orleans Italian-American business.[4] The business established by the Vaccaro brothers later became Standard Fruit.[5] After they first arrived, Italian immigrants generally took low-wage laboring jobs, which they could accomplish without being able to speak English.[5] They worked on docks, in macaroni factories, and in nearby sugar plantations. Some went to the French Market to sell fruit.[4] Italian workers became a significant presence in the French Market.[5] Wikipedia Here’s a great piece on “Little Palermo”  Country Roads Magazine For the “Foodies” another great article from Jovina Cooks Sad day in New Orleans History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y-Dji6Mx_U

Coat of Arms of Pope Paul III Click here to join Italian Genealogy Group on Facebook Without question Pope Paul III was one of my most interesting finds of all the grandparents I have found to date.  He is one of two popes that I have a direct line into.  He was a very interesting figure in history, as you will read below.  [3d-flip-book id=”131218″ ][/3d-flip-book] Paul III, original name Alessandro Farnese, (born Feb. 29, 1468, Canino, Papal States—died Nov. 10, 1549, Rome), Italian noble who was the last of the Renaissance popes (reigned 1534–49) and the first popeof the Counter-Reformation. The worldly Paul III was a notable patron of the arts and at the same time encouraged the beginning of the reform movement that was to affect deeply the Roman Catholic Churchin the later 16th century. He called the Council of Trent in 1545. Alessandro was the son of Pier Luigi Farnese and Giovannella Gaetani. In service to the papacy since the 12th century, the Farnese familyhad extended its possessions from a stronghold on Lake Bolsena south and westward to include most of the fiefs between Perugia, Orvieto, Sermoneta, and the sea. In 1417 Ranuccio Farnese (the Elder), one of the most celebrated condottieri (mercenary soldiers) of his time, had been made a Roman senator by Pope Martin V. Ranuccio’s son Pier Luigi, by marriage with the Gaetani heiress, solidified the Farnese position in the Roman nobility. In 1489, Pier Luigi’s daughter Giulia la Bella married Orsino Orsini, a relative of the Spanish cardinal Rodrigo Borgia (Borja), and became a favourite at the papal court. Her brother Bartolommeo became lord of Montalto; her other brother, Alessandro, was destined for the church. Sensitive and talented, Alessandro Farnese was entrusted to the Humanist Pomponio Leto for his early education and then joined the Medici circle in Florence under Lorenzo the Magnificent. There he was associated with Giovanni de’ Medici(the future Pope Leo X) and attended the University of Pisa. Because of an obscure family quarrel, Alessandro’s early sojourn in Romewas interrupted by a short prison term under Pope Innocent VIII. But his career was assured when Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia became his patron. On Rodrigo’s election to the papacy (taking the name Alexander VI), he made Alessandro treasurer of the Roman Church and a year later, on Sept. 20, 1493, created him a cardinal deacon. Gossip traced Alessandro’s rapid preferment to the intimacy between his sister Giulia and the Borgia pope, and Alessandro was referred to as the “petticoat cardinal.” Although a prelate, Alessandro did not become an ordained priest until 1519. Meanwhile, he conducted himself like a Renaissance nobleman. Of wide artistic tastes and philosophic interests, he increased his revenues with multiple benefices. He travelled on diplomatic missions, enjoyed the hunt, and delighted in majestic religious and secularceremonies. Favoured also by Pope Leo X, he used his wealth to enhancehis family position and constructed the famous Palazzo Farnese, on the Via Giulia in Rome. Moreover, despite his unfeigned personal piety, the Farnese cardinal kept a wellborn Roman mistress by whom he fathered four children—Pier Luigi, Paolo, Ranuccio, and Costanza. (Later, as Pope Paul III, he provoked serious charges of nepotism by using his papal influence to further the interests of his children and their families, going so far in one celebrated incident as to appoint two of his grandchildren, still in their teens, to the cardinalate.)   In 1509 Pope Julius II invested Cardinal Alessandro Farnese with the bishopric of Parma. Selecting Bartolomeo Giudiccioni as his vicar general, the Cardinal took seriously the obligation of governing the diocese and decided to change his private way of life. In May 1512 he served as Julius’ legate for the Fifth Lateran Councilin Rome; then, having discontinued his liaisonwith his mistress in 1513, he put the reform decrees of that council into effect in Parma with a visitation in 1516 and, three years later, with a synod. In June 1519 he was ordained a priest and said his first mass on Christmas of that year. Thereafter, his private life was without reproach, and the Cardinal was identified with the reform party in the Roman Curia. The Farnese cardinal’s diplomatic skills made him an invaluable aid to the five pontiffs in whose election he participated—Pius III, Julius II, Leo X, Adrian VI, and Clement VII—before he himself emerged as the Roman pontiff on Oct. 13, 1534. At the age of 67, Pope Paul, though apparently frail, was a man of great charm and determination. He was described in diplomatic reports as shrewd and affable, deliberately slow of speech yet loquacious, expressing himself in an elegant Italian or Latin with learned allusions, and scrupulously refraining from tying himself down to a definite “yes” or “no” until the final settlement of an issue—but then able to act with swift, uncompromising dispatch. Of medium height, spare of figure, with an aquiline nose, ruddy complexion, and aristocratic hands, Paul III was portrayed by Titianin 1543 at age 75 in the full vigour of his pontificate. Two later Titian portraits depict the ravages of age on the pontiff but reveal the depth of intelligence and strength that accompanied him to his last breath at 82.The pontiff kept himself in good health by frequent excursions in Rome and the countryside, supervising urban projects and fortifications. He encouraged agriculture and provided for new food supplies. His coronation was accompanied by tournaments and pageants, signalling the end of the austerity imposed by the sack of Rome in 1527. In 1536 he authorized the revival of the carnival and rearranged the main thoroughfare in Rome for the visit of the Emperor Charles V, restoring the panoply of traditional ceremonies for the reception of princes and ambassadors. His lavish policies brought prosperity to Rome and the Papal States. Despite charges of paganism levelled against his pontificate for its secular extravagances—even astrologers were admitted to the papal court—Pope Paul was determined to reform the church. Aware, however, of the setback suffered by Pope Adrian VI’s precipitate reform policy a decade earlier, he proceeded, in the face of great internal opposition, with a slow but deliberate call for conversion of the Roman clergy and curia, as well as a reorganization of the papal offices. Immediately upon his election he announced his intention to hold a council and summoned the papal ambassadors Girolamo Aleandroand Pietro Paolo Vergeriofrom Veniceand Vienna, respectively, for consultation about the dangerous state of the church in the north. He then dispatched Vergerio to Austria and Germany on a two-year sojourn to enlist prelates and princes in the project of holding a council in Mantua or Turin. The Protestants for years had been clamouring for such an assembly on German soil, free of Roman domination. The papacy, however, had feared the calling of a general council would compromise its authority. Paul, however, proceeded with preparations for the council even after it was rejected by Martin Lutherand the Protestant leaders. In a series of consistories, or consultative assemblies, he created cardinals of proved virtue throughout Europe. He also encouraged the foundation of new religious orders and congregations, such as the Theatines, Somaschi, Barnabites, and the Ursuline nuns. Particularly important was his confirmation of the new Jesuit order, which was to provide the papacy with one of its principal instruments in promoting the Counter-Reformation.Pope Paul’s greatest problems were caused by his relations with Emperor Charles Vand the French king Francis I, whom he tried to persuade to cease their inveterate wars and turn their forces against the Ottoman Turks, who menaced the coasts of Italyas well as the outposts of Christendom in the East. He encouraged the Emperor to suppress the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League, urged the French king to eliminate the Huguenots, and employed tortuous diplomatic skill to avoid siding with either monarch. In 1538 he journeyed to Nice in an attempt to bring them together. That same year, he excommunicated the English king Henry VIII, who had declared himself head of the English Church. (An earlier sentence of excommunicationunder Clement VIIhad been suspended.) Using the military skill of Pier Luigi (his son by his former mistress) and the diplomacy of his grandson Cardinal Alessandro, Paul asserted papal control over central Italy, skillfully avoiding encirclement by both the imperial and French forces. In May 1536 Pope Paul published a bull of convocationfor his proposed council to be held in Mantua. He also authorized a select group of cardinals to draw up a report on the abuses within the church. Guided by Cardinal Gasparo Contarini, this group denounced the ordination of poorly prepared priests, the selection of incompetent bishops, the accumulation of benefices, and the decadence of the religious orders, preaching, and the care of souls. The report, however, fell into Protestant hands and was used by Lutherin a violent attack on the Roman Church and the papacy. Nevertheless, the Pope pursued his plans to hold the council, scheduled to open on May 23, 1537, at Mantua. With infinitepatience, Paul sought to overcome the opposition of Emperor, kings, prelates, and princes, proroguing and postponing the council’s opening again and again over the course of nine years, but finally succeeding in having it inaugurated by his legate, Cardinal Giovanni del Monte, in Trent on Dec. 13, 1545. In deference to the clamouring of the Protestants, the Emperor insisted that the council confine itself mainly to dealing with disciplineand reform. Nevertheless, the Pope’s decision that doctrinal matters be given precedenceprevailed, and, in its early sessions, the Council of Trent hammered out decrees on the canon of the Scriptures, original sin, justification, and the sacraments, as well as on reform. Fears of the plague and the menace of an attack by armed Protestant forces induced the Pope to accept the council’s transfer to Bologna in February 1548. But the Emperor forbade the Spanish and German prelates to go to Bologna, and the Pope had to suspend the Council on Sept. 17, 1549. Nevertheless, this first phase of the Council of Trent had achieved a substantial step forward, leading to a thorough reform of the Church’s teaching and discipline. Throughout his pontificate, Pope Paul frequently visited trouble spots in the Papal States and beyond. He was in Civitavecchia in 1535 and 1537; visited Lucca and Piacenzaon his way to Nice in 1538; appeared in Perugia to pacify the city after his forces broke the power of the Colonna familyin 1540; and in 1543 visited Bologna on his way to Busseto to meet the Emperor. As a patron of the arts, Pope Paul restored the University of Rome, increased the subsidies and importance of the Vatican Library, and showed favour to theologians and canonists but did not neglect the fine arts. He cajoledMichelangelointo finishing the fresco “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, decorating the Pauline Chapel, and completing the plans for the construction of the new St. Peter’s Basilica. He used Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and a host of architects to renew the fortifications of Rome and the Papal States, continued the construction of the Sala Regia (Royal Hall) in the Vatican, and ordered the reconstruction of the buildings on the Capitoline Hill. In the midst of grave family, political, and military setbacks, the Pope visited the Quirinal Palace in Rome in early November 1549 and was taken with a raging fever. Clear-minded to the end, he received the last sacraments and died on November 10, in his 82nd year. On his deathbed he is reported to have repented of his nepotism. Whatever the faults of his early career and the political intrigues of his pontificate, Pope Paul III was remembered by contemporaries as “good hearted, obliging and supremely intelligent . . . worthy to be described as magnanimous.” He led the church out of the decadentsplendour of the Renaissance into the austererejuvenation of the post-Reformation epoch. His grandiose tomb in St. Peter’s by Michelangelo’s pupil Guglielmo della Porta befits the place he occupies in the church’s history. Assorted References approval of Jesuits In Jesuit history of Parma and Piacenza In Duchy of Parma and Piacenza association with Charles V In Charles V: Imperialist goals, rivalry with Francis I, and fight against Protestantism In Germany: Religious war and the Peace of Augsburg Farnese family In Farnese Family Loyola In St. Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual awakening Michelangelo In Michelangelo: Other projects and writing Titian In Titian: Portraits Wikipedia   

Are you considering applying for Italian dual citizenship?  Antonia has written seven blogs for us about her “Big Fat Move To Italy”.  We now have her on our fifth podcast episode talking about why she moved, the dual citizenship process… and of course the food.  A great listen for anyone interested in getting dual citizenship or relocating to Italy.   Antonia’s Posts Cooking Class in Salerno The Manzoni Sister’s Takeout Seeking Asylum in Salerno Why I Still Love Italy Why I Moved to Italy Click here to join our group on Facebook