Author and actor, Maurizio Igor Meta works mainly in theatre and in the last few years in art installations. Drama, poetry, sound, video, light and scenography, are some of the means he uses in a dramaturgical composition to create a symbolocal imagery. In November 2015 he sailed by a cargo ship from Naples to New York to retrace the steps of his great grandfather Domenico, who left Italy in the late 1800s to the United States, where he worked, pick and shovel, for the Pennsylvania Railroad. So he started his multidisciplinary project “Ellis Island”, which includes the Journey, the theater Solo with the same title – opened in the Napoli Teatro Festival Italia in July 2017 – the exhibition “On my great grandfather steps. Toward Ellis Island” – which includes several installation, as “The first ship”, opened in 2018 at the Madre Museum – a documentary and a book.

Maurizio Igor Meta on the Presentation:
“Ellis Island” is the Journey of Life. It is not only a project related to my memory, my identity, and to the deep connection with my land and roots, but it is something that affects every human being: it is a Tribute to the Origin, a tribute to that inborn ability of the human being to challenge the unknown. At the Origin of our lives, when we are born, we face that challenge for the first time. Immigrants face it again, taking a “leap in the dark to leap in Life”.

In the Presentation we will open a time-gate on the late 1800s Italian immigration, we will talk about the origin of the project and how the experience of retracing the steps of my great grandfather turned in artworks, and we will listen to the sound composition of the installation “The first ship” to experience the ocean crossing of our fathers and the many immigrants of that age.

Isnello, Piccolo e Bello
by Jane Cottrell

On the great wall of the Vatican Library is a mural of Sicily that was painted in 1580-1583 based on the drawings of friar and geographer, Ignazio Danti. All the wall maps are considered to be about 80% accurate. There are not many villages or towns portrayed on the Sicilian map, but Isnello is clearly one small site located just south of Cefalù. Isnello is nestled among high limestone walls. At the top of one of the foothills is the ruin of a castle that dates from the 13th century. Records show that the community had been a Greek and Arab settlement and remains from an Arab excavation have been found.

My mother and father were both born and raised in Isnello although they really didn’t know each other growing up. My siblings and I grew up hearing “Isnello, Piccolo e Bello” from my mother whose heart remained in this medieval village of Isnello in the province of Palermo. It is roughly 39 miles to Palermo from Isnello. Access to the village that is south of Cefalu, is up a winding, switchback mountain road into the interior of the Madonie Mountains.

The town remains pretty much like it was when my parents lived there in the early 20th century. Most of the residents were farmers, whose farms were a good walk or horseback or donkey ride out of town. There might be a small cabin built on the farm. I visited our family’s little farm and stayed overnight at the little 2 story house when I visited back in 1952. My distinct recollection of eating a raw egg there has never left me.

I started returning to Sicily in 1996 and have been back almost a half dozen times since. I can say that Isnello has not changed much in the almost 65+ years since I first went there as a child. I’m not sure what the present day livelihood of the villagers is. The houses are centuries old and the streets are narrow and laid out in an enigmatic pattern. There are about 2,800 people who currently reside there.

I have first cousins who live in Sicily and I visit them whenever I get the chance. I have maintained a closer relationship with those on my mother’s side. Somehow or other, maybe because my father never went back to Italy after 1925, I don’t have contact with his nieces and nephews.

One of my cousins lives in Isnello on an estate that overlooks the village. His joy is the garden and the animals that he raises there. He and his wife have a restaurant in Piano Battaglia, Il Ristoro dello Scoiattolo. It gets rave reviews on  Trip Advisor. The restaurant also provides a webcam look of the hills around it.  Check it out, especially if you are traveling there. We never had the time to dine at their restaurant but we have been guests in their home. Mama Mia!  Meals to dream about.

Some members of our CAI group have stayed at the Refugio that the brothers used to run in the Parco delle  Madonie.

The people of Isnello are very proud of the fact that the mayor of New York City, Vincent Impellitteri (1950-1953) was born in Isnello, even though he and his family left when he was a year old. In fact, after World War II, while he was mayor of NYC in 1950, he visited and his parting gift to the village was to have a bath house or a place for people to shower built for them. As a youngster, I was there two years later and I was never sure if the villagers were grateful or amused. Even today though, they will proudly point out the strada that is named for him. Carlo Levi, the great Italian author, wrote an essay in Words Are Stones: Impressions of Sicily, about that visit.

A small square with a fountain unofficially called Il Ponto that overlooks a small rivulet caused the villagers to fear that they would be bombed during WWII.  My mother often read that in their letters to her. Truly, il Ponto is not a strategic site.

But like many hill towns, Isnello is losing its young people to a more modern lifestyle or better opportunities outside.  The rest of my cousins have moved to Cefalu or Palermo. Some of the their children reside in Milan and Syracusa. A big boost to the economy is the GAL Hassin, International Center for the Astronomical Sciences, that I was lucky enough to visit in 2019. It is unlike any planetarium that I have been to. The telescopes which are probably human sized are housed in a garage like building. When researchers study the stars, the building moves forward on tracks to view the open sky. The stationary telescopes track asteroids, monitor space debris, gamma ray bursts and gravitational wave sources. They also study variable stars and active galactic nuclei. Excerpted from their brochure, “No telescopes of comparable capabilities exist in the whole European continent as of now and none are foreseen to be built in the near future.” There is an auditorium and study areas for visitors. Wikipedia claims that NASA built this astronomical center, but I did not see reference to that in their pamphlet.

In gratitude to the village, GAL Hassin has named Asteroid 6168 “Isnello,” a minor planet in the Asteroid Main Belt.

If you should be in the vicinity of Isnello, the Madonie Mountains, or Cefalù, the nearest big city, I would like to recommend Il Ristoro dello Scoiattolo, and Agrodolce B&B in Cefalù, run by my young cousin. She gets rave reviews, as well, on Trip Advisor. If you go, be sure to tell them I sent you.

Linda Bavisotto and Bill Lemcke have passed through Isnello and I would like to thank Linda for directing me to this half hour video about a festival of food, what else, in Isnello.

“Live from Isnello, Part 2” – things to do around Isnello:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=1755999194531843&ref=watch_permalink

Photos for Isnello, Piccolo e Bello, left to right, top to bottom:

I cannot believe that we began already our third quarter of our Italian language program during which our students will work to reach their proficiency level in order to advance in the fall to their next level.

We closed spring quarter registration with 73 students with an excellent retention from last quarter when we had a total of 78 students.

Among the numerous continuing students, we had the students who presented at the last Italian language meeting on the occasion of the Dantedì  to whom, along with their instructors Laura Ciroi, Nicla Riverso, Francesca Giambartolomei, Damiano Pinton, Paola Alberti and Roberta Punzi, go once again our congratulations.  Bravissimi!

For those who were not able to attend the Dantedì celebration, we had the following program:

The A1 (Sec. II) students provided a brief presentation of some relevant characters of the Commedia using the illustrations by Gustave Doré.

Students of the A2 level showed the enormous impact that Dante’s Divina Commedia had and continue having on the Italian (and world’s) culture through the many traces it left on contemporary Italian language. They presented a selection of expressions used in Dante’s work, from Inferno to Paradiso, that are still used in everyday speech and provided a brief explanation of meaning, usage, and context in which they appear in the poet’s original work.

The B1 level students read and explained a sonnet from Dante’s Vita Nuova and Rime and part of Canto XXVI from the Inferno

The students of the B2 level read and explained the first verses of Canto III from the Inferno and focused on the relationship between La Divina Commedia and the arts. The students presented a selection of artworks and musical masterpieces, which have been directly inspired by La Divina Commedia and explored subjects that can be associated with the poet’s work.

To conclude the program, we watched a video with the A1 (Sec. I) students reciting in Italian the most famous verses of the Commedia.

Students highly valued this experience as you can read from some of their answers from the end of winter quarter evaluation form where, among the other questions, we asked to comment about it:

We all put a lot of effort into it and it is a great satisfaction to see the positive results. I am thankful to Dan DeMatteis for putting the Language Program on the calendar of events and for his enthusiasm that motivated us to do our best. We will continue in the future with similar events and as we say in Italian le idee già bollono in pentola.

Music and literature have always been related to each other. Many composers have been inspired by literary works for their compositions. With Momenti Musicali musicians and actors work together to accompany you on a fantastic journey through notes and words. The musicians will play the pieces linked to the literary passages that will be read in Italian and in English.
In this performance, we will explore how Liszt musically interprets three of Petrarca’s sonnets. Featured will be Pianist: Luana Struppa  and Actors: Viviana Dragani and Steve Dooner.
This event is sponsored by the Società Dante Alighieri – Roma in collaboration with Dante Alighieri Society – Michigan and under the Auspices of the Consulate General of Italy in Boston and the Consulate General of Italy in Detroit.
To register, go to – https://www.events.dantemass.org/event-details/momenti-musicali-ferenc-liszt-and-francesco-petrarca