Annual Wine Dinner
Annual Dante Alighieri Society Wine Dinner.
December 11, 2019 Festa di Natale
Our annual Festa di Natale is Wednesday, December 11
As usual we’ll celebrate the season with the traditional Italian game of tombola – a kind of Italian Bingo for those not familiar with the game. There are several prizes to be awarded so you might be a winner! It’s lots of fun for all.
Bruce Leone will be our tomboliere this year.
And of course we’ll have Italian Christmas music. Be prepared to sing as Joyce Ramee will lead us in a few Italian Christmas songs.
Traditionally the Festa meal is a potluck. In the spirit of the Italian love of food, please bring along a main course, antipasto or dessert. And a bottle of vino to share is always a good addition. The microwave and oven are available if any of the dishes need to be heated up at the last minute. You can always count on a lot of great food to add to the holiday merriment at our Festa.
And to toast the spirit of the season, there’ll be a few bottles of prosecco to start things off in style.
If you plan on attending, please indicate by:
- registering online here or,
- calling our Reservation Line at our NEW number, (206) 289-0419 or
- emailing your request to our NEW reservation email, reserve@danteseattle.org.
And let us know how many are in your party.
Festa will take place in the Parish Social Hall at St. Patrick’s Church, 815 East Edgar Street, on the North side of Capitol Hill.
Parking is available in St. Patrick’s parking lot, off E. Edgar street. The meetings take place in the Parish Hall, located in the basement of the church which is entered from the West side of the church from the parking lot.
To reach St Patrick’s from the North, follow I-5 S. Take exit 168A for Boylston Ave toward Roanoke St. Merge onto Boylston, turn left at light onto E Roanoke St. Turn left at the first cross street onto Harvard Ave E. and then take the first right onto E. Edgar Street.
To reach St. Patrick’s from the South, follow I-5 N. Take exit 168A for Lakeview Blvd E. Turn left onto Lakeview Blvd E, and continue onto Boylston Ave E. Turn right at the light onto E Roanoke St. Turn left at the first cross street onto Harvard Ave. E. and then take the first right onto E. Edgar Street.
The festivities officially start at 6:30. Your help setting up before the meeting (and especially in cleaning up afterwards) is always appreciated. So come early to start celebrating.
A presto –
Dan DeMatteis,
Presidente,
Dante Alighieri Society of Washington
May 8, 2019 English Language Meeting
Rob Prufer Topic: A Bellini in Venice: Seeing the paintings of Giovanni Bellini in Venice, like sitting in a Venetian campo and enjoying the cocktail named after him, is a special treat. What makes Bellini a master of the Venetian Renaissance? And what can we know about his long life and career, given that so little documentary evidence survives? Rob Prufer is a long-time participant in Dante Alighieri Society of Washington activities, including serving several years as vice-president. He isan avid student of the Italian language and Italian art history. He shareshis passion for art history with his students at Newport High School and the wider public in his lecture series at the Bellevue Arts Museum, The Loggia Lectures.
September 25, 2019 Italian Language Meetiing
Robert Thomson
Florence, Dante, and Me
Robert Thomson from Victoria, Canada will be presenting his recently publishedbook, Florence, Dante and Me. Thomson spent the 1960-61 year in Italy ona scholarship from the Italian government. During the year he wrote many detailed letters to his fidanzata in Canada, telling her about Italian customs and habits, the Italian friends he made, the cities he visited, the operas he attended, his singing lessons, etc. Early in the year Thomson decided to speak Italian only for the whole year. This served him well throughout his life.
In 2017 he took the letters and photos and made theminto a book. He will be reading passages from his book and showing some ofthe best photos. To read passages and see some of the photos visit Thomson’s site: www.godwinbooks.com
Robert Thomson was born in Vancouver, B.C. in 1940. He fell in love with Italian in 1951 when he saw “The Great Caruso” starring Mario Lanza at his local movie theater. In 1962 he took his B.A. in French and Italian at the University of British Columbia then received his PhD from Yale in 1966.
Thomson had a long and varied career in teaching (e.g. The Universityof Toronto, The University of Illinois and various high schools). He tookearly retirement in 1995.
His main books are: “Italian for the Opera” (1990), “Operatic Italian” (2009). Both books use extracts from operas to illustrate their language points; Thomson’s main goal was to analyze them in detail to show the richness of Italian librettos. The reader will also find chapters such as “What is lost in the translation?”; “How do you appreciate a libretto?”; “The influence of Dante”; and “A quick look at Neapolitan.” In 2015 Thomson published “Love Songs in Spanish” which comes with a CD and is useful as a tool to improve pronunciation.
At the moment he is finishing a book on how to teach English using audio-visual tools and multi-media sources. He now lives in Victoria, B.C. Asked who his favorite Italian authors are, Thomson replied “Dante and Alberto Moravia.”
November 13, 2019 English Language Meeting
Dante Alighieri Society English Language Meeting Chris Kelly Topic: Italy Invades Italy Invades is an action packed history of Italy’s military involvements throughout the ancient and modern worlds. From the empire building of the Romans, through the globe-spanning Age of Exploration, to the multinational cooperation of NATO, Italy has conquered andexplored countries as diverse and far-ranging as Cape Verde and Mongolia and Uruguay. With the additional guide of maps and photographs, the reader can visually follow the Italians as they conquer the world. Christopher Kelly, the former chairman of Chyron Corporation, has had a lifelong passion for military history. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Kelly is Italian by marriage. He lives in London and Seattle, when he is not invading new cities to promote his published works.
Gabriella Vagnoli was born in Pisa, Tuscany, home of the famous Leaning Tower. She grew up in a multicultural family thanks to her Brazilian mom and remembers teaching Italian for the first time as a child to her Brazilian cousins. She obtained a Laurea in English and Spanish Language and Literature at the Università degli Studi di Pisa and during her college years spent a year in the University of Reading, UK, studying mainly the works of Shakespeare. After obtaining a Certificate as a Teacher of Italian (DITALS II) at the Università per Stranieri di Siena, she has taught in a full immersion school in Florence, a children's full immersion program in Chicago and a Community College in Illinois.
Tiziana was born and raised in Sardinia, a beautiful Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. She has always been passionate about foreign languages and cultures, and studied French and German at the Scuola Superiore Interpreti e Traduttori in Milan, where she obtained her first Foreign Languages and Interpreter BA degree. She then pursued her MA in English and German Language and Literature at IULM, one of the most prestigious universities in Milan, Italy for Language and Communication studies.
Nicla is a native of Napoli, Italy. She has a Laurea in Materie Letterarie (degree in humanities) and a Laurea in Pedagogia (degree in Education) from the Università degli Studi di Cassino. She earned her M.A in Italian and her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington. She has published articles and book chapters on gender and theater as well as politics and religion in Counter-Reformation Italy and in the last years, has been teaching Italian literature, language, and culture in different institutions. In addition to teaching in our program, Nicla is authorized to cover the role of esaminatrice and intervistatrice in our PLIDA Examination Board.