Return to Glow by Chandi Wyant

The subtitle of this book is A Pilgrimage of Transformation in Italy, and it falls in the genre “Women traveling to get over divorce/breakdown/depression/and or mid-life crisis”, within the sub-genre “Travel to Italy”. Actually, the book is less the purported memoirs of a walk along Italy's ancient pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena, and more an autobiography that includes the childhood, adolescence and adulthood of the author, and even background on the author's family.

The writing is educated and well-edited, with beautiful quotes from literature and poetry to illustrate many important points. At times the writing rises to the romantic lyricism of Marlena di Blasi in her famous A Thousand Days in Venice. At other times the subjects covered by the author seem less for romantics and more for fans of schadenfreude, or for armchair-analysts. Those latter parts were my least favorite. They always make me cringe and say a silent prayer that the author has at least changed the names of the people she exposes.

 Siena's Cathedral

As a pilgrim along part of the Catholic religious route of pilgrimage, the Via Francigena, we learn a lot from the author about the places she visits during her ill-conceived trip of healing, which leaves her physically worse off than at the start. Psychologically, she feels she has healed quite a bit through her ordeal, and the time it gave her to reflect critically on her life choices. We are given a front row seat to her ruminations and remembrances. Honestly, too many of them brought back bad memories of my own, so I can recommend the book only to those readers who won't suffer the same upsetting flashbacks.

So what exactly happened to set the author out to conquer her demons and rediscover her lust for life (her glow)? First, she did the very modern-day thing for worldly, well-educated women: she married down. It is such a common phenomenon these days that it is even a major plot element of the popular TV show “Modern Family”. The author belatedly realized her mistake and ended the ten year marriage. Second, she had a near-death experience coupled with a horrific, trauma-inducing stay in an Italian hospital that left her with lasting poor health. (If you have a hospital phobia, as I do, those parts of the book may be unreadable!)

 Cinqueterre, a detour for the author

Who comes off badly in the book? Airlines, doctors, the ex-husband, some friends and family, the hole-riddled U.S. social net, and the U.S. jobs market that can't provide secure, good-paying, full-time jobs with benefits for highly educated people. Italy comes off the best in the book. The sections set in Italy clearly show the author's love of the country, the Italian people and the culture. The author admits:

Learning Italian is the greatest gift I have given myself.

For Italophiles, there is much to enjoy in the book. You'll need to be a fan of this genre of book, Female Travel Therapy, however, to really enjoy the whole book. This is not a guide to the Via Francigena. This is an autobiography of an Italophile who endured the pilgrimage route, ill-prepared for its challenges, while attempting to jump-start her life.

 San Gimignano

From the book's description:

In her early forties, Chandi Wyant’s world implodes in the wake of a divorce and traumatic illness. Determined to embrace life by following her heart, she sets out on Italy’s historic pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena, to walk for forty days to Rome.

Weakened by her recent illness, she walks over the Apennines, through the valleys of Tuscany, and beside busy highways on her 425-kilometer trek equipped with a nineteen-pound pack, two journals, and three pens.

Return to Glow chronicles this journey that is both profoundly spiritual and ruggedly adventuresome. As Chandi traverses this ancient pilgrim’s route, she rediscovers awe in the splendor of the Italian countryside and finds sustenance and comfort from surprising sources. Drawing on her profession as a college history instructor, she gracefully weaves in relevant anecdotes, melding past and present in this odyssey toward her soul.

This delightful, transporting tale awakens the senses while inviting readers to discover their own inner glow by letting go of fixed expectations, choosing courage over comfort, and following their heart.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website where she offers great advice to those who wish to emigrate to Italy. 

Here's a short video to give you an idea of the route and travelers, made in English by a Dutch couple who start at the Via Francigena's beginning, in Canterbury, England.

I Am John, I am Paul by Mark Tedesco

This historical novel is a first-person account by the titular John of his adult life in the Ancient Roman Empire in the fourth century. The subtitle of the book is A Story of Two Soldiers in Ancient Rome, because John recounts much about the life of his friend and fellow soldier Paul, too. The story is focused on John's spiritual growth while doing his duty as a son, brother, soldier and friend, but that doesn't mean there isn't any action in the story. There is plenty, and it involves the royal family at times!

The writing is smooth, literate, and professionally edited, reminiscent of classic historical fiction set in the Roman era. The reader is not loaded down with details, but what is referenced is always spot on historically, showing that much research and learning was done by the author in preparation for telling the story. He even includes some interesting notes on elements of the story, which is based on the martyrs John and Paul of Rome, and mentions his main sources, for readers who are interested in furthering their study of the history.

Several Roman emperors rule during the course of the story. Constantine is probably the one that most readers will recognize, since he is closely associated with the Christian faith. He was the first Roman emperor to be of the Christian faith, the cult of Christos as it was called. Under Constantine, the cult was allowed to freely co-exist with the faiths that worshiped pagan gods and the emperors as gods.

I found it refreshing that the author alluded to many of the ancient faith myths that were incorporated over time into the fledgling religion. As historians have explained for centuries, certain iconic elements from the beliefs that were present and studied in the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, Egypt, were adopted by followers of emerging faiths, including the cult of Christos. Even the early leaders of the newer faiths encouraged the adoption of those iconic elements. I won't go into them here, but there are many books on the subject for those interested.

After retiring from soldiering, John and Paul turn away from the Ancient Persian cult of Mithras, that was favored by the military, to the cult of Christos, to find “a more joyful way of living”. The feeling of belonging, and the classless, egalitarian organization of the Christos followers appeal to the men. They then experience a growth in compassion for their fellow man, followed by altruistic efforts to relieve the suffering of others.

The steps depicted in their conversion are convincing, and give an idea of how the cult of Christos spread, and of how it forced the brutal Roman society with its institutionalized sadism, to face up to its lack of humanity. Some elements of the early cult and of Roman society may surprise readers, but they are based on fact, such as the easily recognizable Eucharist service by the cult followers, and the societal acceptance of same-sex relationships.

The cult and John and Paul are threatened when Justinian becomes emperor, later called Julian the Apostate for his attacks on Christianity. It is Emperor Julian who brings about the end of John and Paul's life story, when the emperor unleashes a backlash against the new faith that he blames for Rome's misfortunes.

Julian was on the wrong side of history, as we now know, but there were many in Ancient Rome who agreed with his belief that the lack of sacrifices to the ancient gods had brought down a retaliation by the neglected gods. The story is a gentle reminder that there will always be a faction of society that depict change and minority beliefs as destructive forces.

The faction resists advancements in thought and human understanding, and blame those advancements for any and every thing they dislike, or makes them feel uncomfortable. The book is a reminder that our progress from primitive, violent society to enlightened, peace-loving society was one of starts and stops because of those foot-dragging elements.

Sadly, that struggle is played out today in our globe of dispirit societies forced to co-exist, and dispirit elements within societies that struggle to co-exist. The message of the book is really the old one, that a house divided cannot stand, so consensus and tolerance must be achieved to survive and move forward.

The last chapter of the story is from the perspective of John's sister, Fulvia. In it she recounts things that she can't possibly know, but I overlooked that anomaly because I enjoyed the rest of the book so much, and it was done to provide the reader with closure.

Readers may be interested in researching the Basilica of Saints John and Paul on Rome's Caelian Hill, since it was the inspiration for this author's book. If you follow the links out from the article, you'll read about the inspirations for many of the sights and characters in this novel.

Here is a virtual tour of the Case Romane del Celio, the Roman houses excavated under the Basilica of Saints John and Paul, said to be their home that was also their burial place, and then converted into a place of worship (the images on this page are from there).

Here is the book's description:

"Adventure, intrigue, faith, commitment, love and hate and everything between! Mark Tedesco has done it again, fashioning what is arguably his best work yet! He entices you on a phenomenal journey into the fascinating lives of two 4th century Roman soldiers, John and Paul, in a tale of loyalty and love that grabs you by the throat from the very first sentence and holds you spellbound, gasping for air as you're swept from chapter to chapter with barely a moment to breathe. An unbelievable marriage of fact and fiction that will leave you applauding or appalled but never bored or indifferent. A must read!"
-Tony McEwing, KTTV News

And here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

In the Name of Gucci by Patricia Gucci and Wendy Holden

In the Name of Gucci is a heartfelt recounting of several lives and one iconic business through the lens of Patricia Gucci, the daughter of the family-firm Gucci's powerhouse behind the company's growth into an international luxury goods firm, Aldo Gucci.

Aldo Gucci's daughter by his second wife Bruna, Patricia is now a mature woman with a mature understanding of human nature, and is informed by her mother's strong memories.  The author sets out to do three things:  to honor her father, to honor her mother, and:

to give my children a unique and truthful memento

There are some omissions to spare feelings, and to avoid lawsuits, no doubt, and there is spin on things that could be viewed from a very different, unsympathetic perspective.  If you set those things aside, the book is highly readable, often fascinating, fluidly written, and gives the reader a close-up view of people who filled the newspapers for decades.  That many members of the Gucci clan would not be out of place in a recent book about psychopaths in boardrooms, makes the book compelling reading.

The spinning in the book generally relates to 53 year-old Aldo Gucci's sexual harassment of a 20 year-old employee.  What makes the egotistical assault by the old-man-with-an-infatuation on the young woman most damning is that the young woman was very immature, and emotionally and psychologically weak and vulnerable.  Hounded into a relationship with a married man old enough to be her grandfather, left the fragile woman scared for life.  She is the author's long-suffering mother.

Other spinning in the book involves the disgusting wealth that went to the Gucci family from their luxury goods business, rather than to their employees or the tax authorities, to the former for their hard work and long hours and having to put up with the vicious abusive tantrums of the company's owners, and to the latter what was their due by law.  The conspicuous consumption, of especially the 1980s, turned this reader's stomach.

If you are someone who prefers non-fiction reading to fiction reading, like me, you'll enjoy every word in the book.  Truth is stranger than fiction, and the truth of the Gucci family is especially strange.

From the book's description:

The gripping family drama—and never-before-told love story—surrounding the rise and fall of the late Aldo Gucci, the man responsible for making the legendary fashion label the powerhouse it is today, as told by his daughter.

Patricia Gucci was born a secret: the lovechild whose birth could have spelled ruination for her father, Aldo Gucci. It was the early 1960s, the halcyon days for Gucci—the must-have brand of Hollywood and royalty—but also a time when having a child out of wedlock was illegal in Italy. Aldo couldn't afford a public scandal, nor could he resist his feelings for Patricia's mother, Bruna, the paramour he met when she worked in the first Gucci store in Rome. To avoid controversy, he sent Bruna to London after she became pregnant, and then discretely whisked her back to Rome with her newborn hidden from the Italian authorities, the media, and the Gucci family.

In the Name of Gucci charts the untold love story of Patricia's parents, relying on the author's own memories, a collection of love letters and interviews with her mother, as well as an archive of previously unseen photos. She interweaves her parents' tempestuous narrative with that of her own relationship with her father—from an isolated little girl who lived in the shadows for the best part of a decade through her rise as Gucci's spokesperson and Aldo's youngest protégé, to the moment when Aldo's three sons were shunned after betraying him in a notorious coup and Patricia—once considered a guilty secret—was made his sole universal heir. It is an epic tale of love and loss, treason and loyalty, sweeping across Italy, England and America during the most tumultuous period of Gucci's sixty years as a family business.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website. Here is a direct link to the photo page at that website.

The Painter of Souls by Philip Kazan

This is the first of a series of books that will be issued, each imagining a phase in the life of the early Italian Renaissance painter Fra Filippo Lippi.  We know only about some of his artworks and some basic points about his life.  The author imagines the rest, and presents this biography of the artist's early years in great detail, often from the artist's perspective.

In this book you might be deceived by the simple style into thinking this book is written for teens.  When you encounter the first vulgarities in English and in Italian, you'll realize the book is written for adults.  There is even a sex scene.

Lippi self-portrait
 

Historical novels tend to be told in the present tense these days, to bring the past to life in the reader's mind, and this novel is no exception.  Please don't complain about this in the reviews.  I'm very tired of reading people's complaints because they don't want to read more than a few pages written in present tense.

If you read ten pages plus, you won't even realize it is in present tense any more, and you'll just enjoy the intimate closeness the tense creates with the events and the main character.  Give it a try.  You might actually enjoy it, like so many others, especially younger readers who devour whole popular series in the present tense.

Just because it is unfamiliar to you doesn't make it wrong, or deserving of terrible reviews or terrible ratings.  Okay, enough said...

Fra Lippi was not a very good friar, but this first book only covers his life up to his parting with early Renaissance artist Masaccio, his mentor and surrogate father figure.  All the really scandalous things occur later.

The book's Prologue is deceptive, suggesting that the artist's whole life will be covered in the book.  That is not the case.  Future volumes will cover the later periods. 

Each volume will presumable present the artists and local bigwigs from that era, along with some major artworks, just like this first book does.  How those artworks came to be created is covered in quite a bit of detail.

From the book's description:

An extraordinary story of passion, art, and intrigue, this novel journeys to a time and place in Italy where desire reigns supreme—and salvation is found in the strangest of places.

Beauty can be a gift—or a wicked temptation. So it is for Filippo Lippi, growing up in Renaissance Florence. He has a talent—not only can he see the beauty in everything, he can capture it, paint it. But while beauty can seduce you and art can transport you—it cannot always feed you or protect you.

To survive, Pippo Lippi, orphan, street urchin, budding rogue, must first become Fra Filippo Lippi: Carmelite friar, man of God. His life will take him down two paths at once.

He will become a gambler, a forger, a seducer of nuns; and at the same time he will be the greatest painter of his time, the teacher of Botticelli and the confidante of the Medicis. So who is he really—lover, believer, father, teacher, artist? Is anything true except the paintings?

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website/blog.

For those who would like to know more about Lippi:

Fra Filippo Lippi at Wikipedia.

Fra Filippo Lippi in Vasari's Lives of Artists (free e-book,and free to read on-line).

Fra Filippo Lippi actually has his own website.

The Enthusiast by Jon M. Sweeney

The Enthusiast: How the Best Friend of Francis of Assisi Almost Destroyed What He Started.  The best friend in the title is Elias of Cortona, who was in from the start of the Franciscan movement, an attempt to bring the church back to the people and to the poverty of Christ, to make religious figures more humble and to have them live in Christ's poor footsteps.

This is a biography of St. Francis of Assisi "through the lens of the relationship that most consoled him", with Brother Elias of Cortona.  Elias is called "Francis's friend, confidant, and source of strength."  Elias often played the role of social buffer for iconoclast Francis, and many other traits of the men melded well so that Elias could be called Francis's soul mate.

The reader gets a front row seat for the conflict in the real medieval world between an idealist and a realist, Francis the idealist, Elias the realist.  Today's pilgrims to Assisi know mainly the monuments created by the realist to honor the idealist, even if the basilicas in Assisi are the last things Francis would have wanted built.

Elias could envision the future for Assisi as "the world's pilgrimage destination" to honor the "greatest saint since the apostles".  The first basilica was designed by Elias, and built under his supervision so he could do something special for his late friend, Francis:  "make his name great on earth, as it is now in heaven".

The author set out to show the "complexities of a relationship between two men and shows how it changed their world...how idealism can be undone by the enthusiasm of one devoted follower."  An understanding of fame and the growth of a business along with human psychology informs the author's work.

While a visionary, charismatic person can start a revolution, it is the strong, practical administrator with a sound, realistic vision who guides a revolution through to the established phase.  As a new venture grows, the founder is often pushed aside for a new leader to run the show during the consolidation phase.  The author shows that that applied to Francis's movement, and Elias was the leader who replaced him.

But when a revolution has to do with morality and faith, as in the case of St. Francis's new, modest religious orders, the risk is that the needs of politics and secular society will undermine the original intent of a movement.  In many ways that did happen, and Elias repented of that later in life, and of his own vanity, greed and self-importance.

The reader learns along the way of Francis's childhood and some of the history of the era in which he lived.  Francis's struggle to found an order of poverello brothers, poor brothers living as Christ preached, not as the contemporary church lived, in luxury, is detailed.  This is Francis's story told with a greater focus on the people around him.

The author uses some conjecture and invents dialog to tell his story, attempting to humanize the caricatures that have crept into the history of Francis.  The reader is reminded that real historical people surrounded Francis as he built his movement from the ground up.  This book has a literate yet approachable style, with a strong novelistic feeling.  The overall result is very entertaining.

I enjoyed most the clear view of the types of people who are drawn to a charismatic figure.  True believers are there, as are those who see an opportunity for personal advancement.  Sometimes, as in the case of Elias, those people are one and the same.  The reader is treated to an account of how the central focus of a new movement, like St. Francis, can lose his position when his movement becomes bigger than him.

From the book's description:

Popular historian and award-winning author Jon M. Sweeney relates the untold story of St. Francis’s friendship with Elias of Cortona, the man who helped him build the Franciscan movement.  Sweeney uses the complexities of their relationship in a gripping narrative of how their efforts changed the world and how Elias’s enthusiasm betrayed the ideals of his friend.

Few biographies of St. Francis have examined his complicated relationship with close friend Elias of Cortona.  In The Enthusiast, award-winning author and historian Jon M. Sweeney delves into this little-known partnership that defined and then almost destroyed Francis’s ideals.

Blending history and biography, Sweeney reveals how Francis and Elias rebuilt churches, aided lepers, and entertained as “God’s troubadours” to the delight of everyday people who had grown tired of a remote and tumultuous Church.  At the height of their spiritual renaissance, however, Elias became “the devil” to many of the other friars; they believed him to be a traitor to their ideals.

After Francis’s premature death, the movement fractured.  Scorned by most of the Franciscan leadership, Elias followed a path that would leave him a lonely, broken man.  Sweeney shows how Elias’s undoing was rooted in his attempts to honor his old friend.

This is the book's lovely trailer:

 

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

I review other books by the same author on this site:

- The Complete Francis of Assisi

- When St. Francis Saved the Church

And I review a walking guide of Assisi too, that is FREE!: Assisi Walking Adventure Guide

Mamma Mia…That's Life! by Valerie Barona

This entertaining memoirs documents some of the highlights of the author's ex-pat life in northern Italy over the past forty years.  An English woman married to an Italian man, the couple have made a living in Italy and reared two children together.  That may not sound like a big deal, but it is, when one considers how difficult it is for ex-pats to make a successful life in Italy.

The author describes some of the difficulties, like getting one's educational qualifications recognized, a lack of jobs, making friends, dealing with an entrenched mono-culture, handling separation from family and friends and conveniences that one took for granted, and speaking a language other than Italian to one's children to the disapproval of pretty much everyone.  Add to that the fact that they live in a village, and she had many, many things to overcome.

Humor helped, and that is evident in the book.  A pleasant character comes from behind the words, and it is fun to spend the time reading her anecdotes.  That she was so close to the south of England, where she was from, helped enormously.  Her family was able to visit.  She often spent the summers in England with her children "re-charging" to be able to face more life in Italy.  There were even doctor visits and shopping in England that helped save her from Italian dentists and the high prices in small Italian shops.

The life of an immigrant is the same everywhere, only differing in the details.  Feelings of isolation, loneliness, depression and regrets come with the life.  Having friends who understand one's frustrations helps, so we hear much about her English friends in Italy.  They certainly made her life there possible, just as she certainly helped them.  The author's strong character comes through too, as a reason for her remaining in Italy.

The story begins in the early '80s and continues through to the present.  Much change comes to Italy and the village during that time.  The Internet has connected the world, the European Union has made it easier for Europeans to work and live outside of their birth country within the Union.  As the author says:

"Very subtly, the antiquated hamlet had become a modern day village or so it seemed."

I found this book to be an entertaining read.  If you are someone who had a "what if" moment with Italy, considering attempting to make a life there, you should enjoy this woman's account of moments from her forty-year "what if" that came true.

From the book's description:

A light-hearted look at life in a sleepy Italian village which slowly awakes to the twenty-first century.

In 1977, Valerie Barona made the decision to join her husband in Piussogno, a small mountain village in northern Italy.  An English teacher born and raised in Dorset, she told of her early years in Piussogno in That’s Amore!, (Matador, 2013) and now revisits her life as a mother and housewife in the 1980s, trying to give her two children an English upbringing thousands of miles from home.

Both children, Alex and Elisa, were bilingual by the age of two and enjoyed annual wet summers in Poole while their friends visited the Adriatic coast.  Valerie herself took an active part in village life, singing in the church choir and giving English lessons, not to mention shooing the occasional stray cow from the garden.

She takes a light-hearted look at her attempts to recreate English cooking and her gradual adjustment to a rural way of life which no longer exists in Italy. As the book draws closer to 2015 and Valerie becomes a grandmother, she marvels at how Piussogno has changed and how quickly her children have grown up.  As the title of the book says, Mamma Mia... That’s Life!

Valerie’s writing is light and peppered with very English humour.  It’s a book to pick up and flick through to relax, and picture an Italian village as it was over thirty years ago. It will appeal to fans of travel writing, particularly lovers of Italy.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Francesco's Song by C. M. Furio

Ever wonder what it was like to live in Italy before and during WWII?  This book gives the best idea I've come across, probably because the author based it all on her own family's experiences and accounts of other people they knew personally. 

Francesco's Song is only lightly fictionalized, so the truth shines through about the author's father, Francesco, and her mother, Francesca.  They were children near Bari in Italy's south when Mussolini and his black shirted Fascists came to power.

The brainwashing of the children began early, and the Fascists worked hard to build a cult around their leader, Benito Mussolini.  It is interesting to see that the older people were often more skeptical of the political bombast.

By 1929, when Italy was having its love affair with Il Duce, Francesco was eight years old.

Because the story follows her parents, and Italy, from 1928 through to the post war era, we get to see how the children grew up to see the harsh reality of their leaders' militarism.  They were left with great skepticism of any political leadership and any -ism.

Francesco is the main person we follow from a Fascism inculcated childhood in a household run most of the time by his mother, a white widow, as the neighbors called a woman whose husband spent most of the year abroad to earn a living.

So many men in town had left.  Some had gone to South America, to cities in Argentina and Brazil, but Francesco's father had gone, like so many others, to New York City.

We go with Francesco to young adulthood when he falls in love with Francesca.  That is when we pick up her story, and learn that she struggles more under the paternalistic traditions of Italy, and especially of southern Italy.  As her mother says:

You'll get married and you'll have a family.  What do you need school for?

Marriage comes young for a woman in that sort of society.

At eighteen years of age, Francesca had already received marriage proposals from several suitors who had sent go-betweens to her mother's house.

Then comes Francesco's required military service.  Like all clever young men, he chose his branch of the military just before getting drafted, so he served in the prestigious Carabinieri Reali. 

That brought him to Dobrovna, Yugoslavia, where fought and suffered from the violence, with traces of that suffering trailing him all his life long.  The life of the soldier is well described.  The author makes good use of her father's letters to his fidanzata in this section of the book.

The post war period is interesting for the cultural frustration Francesco suffered when he returned to the very socially and religiously repressive south of Italy.  Like all people who've spent time away from a repressive society, or who enjoyed some relief from it, like Francesca during the difficult war years, it was impossible to be happy back in that environment.

Once away from the small universe of his childhood, his eyes had been opened and now he was not so quick to accept what had once seemed carved in stone.  This was true especially regarding the church...

That's when the choice came to go either to the north of Italy, or abroad.  Since both of them had fathers and even a sibling in the United States already for years, their emigration to America was simpler than trying to find a good job anywhere in Italy. 

The description of how looking for work in Italy operated in the 1950s  rings true with my experiences when living there in the 1980s.  Exams, competitions, recommendations, friends of friends needed, political juice...  What I hear from friends in Italy, the situation has still not improved much, and it still pushes talented young Italian to emigrate.

The story is told in the classic omniscient narrative style, but it is done with a light touch, and at times the author limits the point of view of the narration to just one character.  It is a wonderful choice for this story.  It lets us get to know so many interesting people intimately.

Don't worry if you are not up on your WWII history.  The author fills the reader in on what he needs to know along the way.  The result is a very personal story that also has a wide appeal. 

Francesco and Francesca's story is theirs, and it is also the story of thousands of other Italians who chose to leave Italy after WWII.  If you have relatives among the Italian diaspora of that era and age, reading this book is a good way of connecting with their experiences.

 

From the book's description:

Set amidst the drama of Fascist Italy, Francesco’s Song is the gripping story of one man’s struggle to survive.  Based on family history, C.M. Furio tells the poignant story of young Francesco as he grows up in the small seaside town of Mola di Bari.  The saga of birth, love and death in rural southern Italy unfolds as Italy becomes involved in the cataclysm of world events.  

Francesco’s carefree youth ends when the oratory of Mussolini and the false sense of patriotism seduces him and he joins the military police of the Italian armed forces, the Carabinieri Reali.  Stationed in Yugoslavia and later in Milan, everything he treasures is threatened as he confronts events during the war and witnesses firsthand the destruction of his homeland.  

Fleeing from the occupying Nazi, Francesco is sheltered by sympathizers of a growing resistance movement.  He enters the darkest period of his life where his only dream is to be reunited with his family and the love of his life, Francesca.

Based on letters and war-time documents found in the author’s family home Francesco’s Song is a moving portrayal of the struggles of the Italian people during the war years and the customs that bound them.  It is the story of an immigrant who never lost the love for his homeland and who valued family above all else.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

 

Mola di Bari, Francesco's hometown is seen here from above, today:

 

Carving a Niche for Himself by Douglas J. Gladstone

The subtitle of this non-fiction book is The Untold Story of Luigi Del Bianco.  The journalist-author sets out to "correct an egregious injustice" and to get for the Italian-American stonemason/sculptor, who was the Chief Carver on the Mt. Rushmore project from 1933-40, the "kudos" which he "rightfully and richly" deserves. 

It is a commendable goal, and the story of that struggle by the author and the man's family continues beyond this book, with progress being made each day.

The author presents his case well, with help from the Del Bianco family's research among the papers of Gutzon Borglum, the Master Sculptor of the Mr. Rushmore project, in the Library of Congress, where Borglum praises his Chief Carver above all the other people on the project, stressing Luigi Del Bianco's importance to the project's artistic success. 

Many fascinating interviews, correspondence, facts and varied background information collected by the author provide a broad picture for the reader of who Luigi Del Bianco was, what he did, and why he and other Chief Carvers have not been included in the story of Mr. Rushmore written by other authors and the park service, which manages the site.

Luigi Del Bianco

Like many Italian immigrants who contributed significantly to their new countries, Luigi Del Bianco is recognized in his hometown in Italy.  The story of Italian stonemasons and sculptors who emigrated to America could fill a whole book by itself. 

The author does a good job telling the reader about where those men came from in Italy, where they often went to in America, and what they accomplished in their new country.  An immigrant journey to a new life is, as always, a fascinating one.

"History has not treated Luigi Del Bianco very kindly."

No, it hasn't. 

So, why have the Chief Carvers of Mt. Rushmore been put in the back seat very far behind the Master Carver Gutzon Borglum?  There are many reasons, mainly valid ones, for that, since the Master (Maestro) Artisan always takes full credit for art created with the help of apprentices. 

Why has Luigi Del Bianco been written out of the history of Mt. Rushmore, even in books purporting to be about the team behind the Master Carver?  There are more complex reasons for that, into which the author bravely delves.

Luigi Del Bianco on Mt. Rushmore

Real history is usually ugly, and for that reason people tend to clean it up for modern consumption, through the romanticization of it, the editing of it, and even the obliteration of it.  There is much ugliness in the real history of the Mt. Rushmore project.  The romanticization, editing and erasure of history has happened there by the wagon-load.

The carved mountain face was conceived by the Ku Klux Klan leader Borglum to be a piece of monumental art dedicated to the Manifest Destiny nonsense U.S. politicians and businessmen invented to validate their greedy push to take all the territory between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Borglum fought to have Teddy Roosevelt included on the rock face, because Roosevelt was a hero for many greedy businessmen, who saw President Roosevelt as a man who would extend U.S. Manifest Destiny to lands beyond the North American continent, to create a U.S. Empire. 

 

Gutzon Borglum

The Mt. Rushmore project began in South Dakota just when the Klan, which had been revived to fight immigration, especially of Catholics, and even more specifically of Italian Catholics, had been elected to offices throughout the western states. 

Luigi Del Bianco, a U.S. citizen since 1928, and his family, moved there at precisely that time, and they suffered bigotry and ostracism from the white local residents and many of the local workmen on the Mt. Rushmore project.

As you can imagine, many locals wouldn't want to wash their dirty linen in public, especially when that linen contained a pointed hood.  If they were to give Luigi Del Bianco his due in the project, the evil, bullying treatment he and his family received would have to be recognized as well, along with the Klan's history in South Dakota. 

The Del Biancos found friends in the local Native Americans, who welcomed the family who was ostracized just as they were.  That too would have to be recognized if Luigi Del Bianco were written back into the history of Mt. Rushmore. 

Of course, that would bring up the upsetting history of Mt. Rushmore being a holy site for the Natives, that was cruelly defaced with the representations of four people who symbolically represented the centuries long massacre of Native Americans.

From the late 1400s to the late 1800s, 20 million Native Americans died from disease, war and starvation.  If that were put in modern terms, in relation to the population at the time of the massacre, it would be as if 92 million people were killed today to free up land. 

As a side note, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which occurred over the same period, took 18 million lives, which in today's terms would be 83 million lives.  That is an awful lot of death for one nation to have on its conscience, so it is no wonder that the ugly truths of that history have so often been romanticized, edited, and obliterated.

Some strides have been taken very recently to put the real history back into the flag-waving, rah-rah monument, the so-called Shrine to Democracy, that Mt. Rushmore was made into for the modern car-tourism era, obliterating some ugly history so the locals and the Federal Government could earn some money.  That is commendable. 

The author of this book aims to have more strides made, more quickly, and that is commendable too.  With the family's help, and the help of many Italian-American organizations, and with some politicians, and some park service employees, it may come to happen.  This book is part of that effort.

On another level, the book presents an intelligent study of the three forms of human response to threats of change to their romanticized, edited and obliterated histories:

1. wonderfully enlightened cooperation,
2. self-serving co-opting of the issue, and
3. dogged obstructionism involving passive ostracism and active hostility.

Three Books

 

Here are the descriptions and Amazon links for three books that together present an intelligent image of Mt. Rushmore and Luigi Del Bianco, with as little historical romanticization, editing and obliteration as possible.

Carving a Niche for Himself by Douglas J. Gladstone

Luigi Del Bianco may not be a household name to many historians, but he should be.  He played an integral role in the creation of Mount Rushmore, specifically, that of chief carver.  Was Del Bianco slighted due to his Italian heritage?  Gladstone more than suggests he was.  This book will be an inspiration to Italian Americans everywhere, and sheds new light on the role of Italians in America's history. 

 

In the Shadow of the Mountain:  Luigi's Story by Lou Del Bianco and Camille Cribari-Linen

The year is 1935. Italian immigrant Luigi Del Bianco, a classically trained artist, is the chief carver on Mount Rushmore.  Luigi brings his wife Nicoletta and his three small sons out to South Dakota to live with him while he assists sculptor Gutzon Borglum do what has never been done before: carve a mountain.  As “Bianco” climbs 500 feet in the air to bring “refinement of expression” to the faces, he is met with nothing but resistance and resentment from the powers that be on the project.  

His pay is withheld for weeks and in the words of Borglum, Luigi has had “chronic sabotage” directed against him by the office staff in Rapid City. When Luigi quits the work, all carving on the faces comes to a halt. Borglum persuades Luigi to stay because “he is worth more than any 3 men in America for this kind of work”. Luigi’s family fares no better. His sons are ridiculed for being “greaseballs” by the local bullies and Nicoletta finds herself a stranger in the far reaches of her own country.

“In the Shadow of the Mountain” gives Luigi Del Bianco long overdue recognition for his invaluable contribution to our nation’s most iconic memorial. Co- authors Lou Del Bianco (Luigi's grandson) and Camille Cribari-Linen tell a story about fulfilling a dream; dealing with intolerance; forming unlikely friendships and family connections. It’s a story emerging from of the shadow of the mountain …Luigi’s story.

Great White Fathers by John Tagliaferro

Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, hoped that ten thousand years from now, when archaeologists came upon the four sixty-foot presidential heads carved in the Black Hills of South Dakota, they would have a clear and graphic understanding of American civilization.

Borglum, the child of Mormon polygamists, had an almost Ahab-like obsession with Colossalism--a scale that matched his ego and the era. He learned how to be a celebrity from Auguste Rodin; how to be a political bully from Teddy Roosevelt. He ran with the Ku Klux Klan and mingled with the rich and famous from Wall Street to Washington. Mount Rushmore was to be his crowning achievement, the newest wonder of the world, the greatest piece of public art since Phidias carved the Parthenon.

But like so many episodes in the saga of the American West, what began as a personal dream had to be bailed out by the federal government, a compromise that nearly drove Borglum mad. Nor in the end could he control how his masterpiece would be received. Nor its devastating impact on the Lakota Sioux and the remote Black Hills of South Dakota.

Great White Fathers is at once the biography of a man and the biography of a place, told through travelogue, interviews, and investigation of the unusual records that one odd American visionary left behind. It proves that the best American stories are not simple; they are complex and contradictory, at times humorous, at other times tragic.

 

 

Some Interesting Links

Luigi Del Bianco's family has a wonderful website dedicated to their relative.

The author Douglas J. Gladstone is on Facebook.

A man in South Dakota did find a pointed hood in the family linen, literally, and that led to his digging up some of the buried ugly history in his state about the Klan and his family and his neighbors' families involvement with it.  Here is an article about that man.

Gutzon Borglum was a brown-nosing, fame-seeking, ego-driven man, who associated with some very nasty types to get his name in the history books.  His other attempt at a monumental piece of art carved into the side of a mountain, was in Atlanta, Georgia, to commemorate the Confederate leaders who fought to keep slavery, and to commemorate the Klan who succeeded in keeping the freed slaves subservient during Reconstruction.  The Klan was resurrected again during the Civil Rights Era when their Reconstruction Era efforts were overturned.  Here is an article of interest about the Klan's involvement in the Stone Mountain Monument.

Stephen Pinker, of Harvard University, is the author of the study comparing deathly events from history in terms of the population at the time of the deaths.  Here is an interesting article.

Mt. Rushmore is the subject of quite a few documentaries and books.  Here is a link to the PBS documentary that you can view on-line.