“La Mia Strada – My Road”… A History Narrative Addendum to a Brilliant Nostalgic Video Presentation
“La Mia Strada – My Road”… A History Narrative Addendum to a Brilliant Nostalgic Video Presentation
(October 30, 2013)
Surprisingly, the 2012 Italian American Studies Association (IASA) conference prominently featured the film “La Mia Strada – My Road”; a southern-Italian American’s story of his Patria Meridionale visit and quest, “To link ancient and contemporary Italian ethnicity and culture with its Italian American counterpart” (see:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zQKubXdK7Q) … Surprised because, dedicated as it is to post-Ellis Island history, there is nothing in the IASA’s scholarly history that remotely indicates a minutia of interest in the Patria Meridionale of near 17 million southern-Italian Americans (see the article “American Terroni…” in the related articles box). Could it be? There had been a dramatic historiographical mind-set change in the southern-Italian American literati? No! Not So! “La Mia Strada” was a non-representative anecdote, as evidenced by the scholarly papers presented at this year’s 2013 IASA conference: “Italian American Identity Politics”. Clearly, by the papers presented, the notion that the “Identity” of a [southern-] “Italian American” is devoid of pre-Ellis Island history and culture. Not a single paper dedicated to the pre-Ellis Island Patria Meridionale historic “identity” of near 17 million southern-Italian Americans (see:http://www.italianamericanstudies.net/sites/iasa.i-italy.org/files/IASA2013ConferenceProgram.pdf). The IASA post-Ellis Island mind-set coupled with its sister association the ‘Arno Valley Adoration Society’ (aka American Association of Italian Scholars) clearly demonstrates the Terroni-izing Piedmont-ization of southern-Italian Americana goes on unabated in the American university system, perpetuated by (savor the delicious irony) southern-Italian American literati – ‘go figure’. “La Mia Strada” is a wonderfully cool drink of water in the Patria Meridionale historiographic desert. This article embraces and expands on the “La Mia Strada” theme (“linking ancient [southern] Italian culture with its [southern] Italian American counterpart”); positing a modicum of historical facts demonstrating the profound historic length and depth of southern-Italian American history and culture. In short, we are a people with a history and culture before Ellis Island, and no were near the Arno River Valley!
Prefatory Note on Sources
All the factual history provided in this article comes from the renowned world historian and classical scholar Arnold J. Toynbee’s 1965 book “Hannibal’s Legacy Vol. II”. In that volume there are two Annex Essays:
1) “Varro’s description of the slave-herdsman’s life”, presenting the descriptions of “slave-herdsman’s life” in Roman times on “La Mia Strada”.
2) “Nomadic animal husbandry on the mainland of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”, presenting descriptions of life on “La Mia Strada” from Norman times circa 1100 A.D. to and after the 1860s Piedmont invasion of the Kingdom.
Both essays are ‘annexed’ to the book’s chapter: “The new economic opportunities and demands in Post-Hannibalic Peninsular Italy and its Cisalpine annex”. Toynbee’s presentation is based on dozens of footnoted references to source documents and earliar historian's writing on the subject.
This article will posit a very few of the facts largely drawn from the second ‘annex’ essay regarding the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. However, also a few facts will be taken from the first essay and main chapter of the book on Roman times in an effort to draw out the depths and continuity of the Patria Meridionale history and its American offshoot. In short, Toynbee’s work contributes to the La Mia Strada narrator’s objective:
“I set out to link ancient and contemporary Italian ethnicity and culture with its Italian American counter part.”
The ancientness of southern-Italian American history and culture is indubitable, albeit largely forgotten under the relentless onslaught of the Terroni-izing Piedmont-ization juggernaut.
Large Scale Animal Husbandry INDUSTRY
The image of the shepherd, it seems to me, in popular culture, is often a romanticized image depicting a boy shepherding a relative few sheep. Variations of the images below, for example.
While, the small scale representation of shepherding is not unrealistic, it is not representative of the what Toynbee characterizes as the “large-scale nomadic pastoral industry”; entailing very large numbers of animals moving over a very many miles from pasture to pasture, especially in southeastern Italy.
Toynbee makes the distinction between, “animal-husbandry sections of the traditional peasant economy of mixed farming …[and] large-scale nomadic pastoral industry.”
To appreciate the meaning of large scale, consider the follow industrial scale quantitative descriptions of southeastern Italy animal husbandry.
“The number of animals – “In 1684 the figure had been 5,500,000”
“The magnitudes of the trails: “Down to 1865 the trattui in South-Eastern and Central Italy [consisted of]: 15,000 hectares, total length 1,500 kilometres, width 111 metres, the bracci di tratturo 55 metres, the tratturelli 55-18 metres.
“The principla tratturi were:
- Foggia-Aquila
- Foggia-Celano
- Lucera-Castel di Sangro
- Fescasseroli-Candela
- Centarelle-Montesecco
- Melfi-Castellanetta
- Barletta-Grumo
Apart from the quantitative differentiating characteristics of “large-scale nomadic pastoral industry” vis a vis “animal-husbandry sections of mixed farming”:
The defining characteristic is the movement of herds long distances from highland summer grazing to lowland winter grazing.
“Pastures in different latitudes or at different altitudes are at the optimum at different seasons of the year, so that a large quantity of stock can be maintained, throughout the year. Herds winter in the lowlands and summer in the highlands.
The necessary political precondition for nomadic pastoral industry
In order to move herds in lowland – highland seasonal cycles, there must be a political unity of the low and highlands. If the people of the lowlands have an adversarial relation with the highlanders, then obviously the herds cannot be moved back and forth.
First phase Southern Italian nomadic pastoral Industry
Rome
After the Hannablic wars, Rome unified the peninsula of Italy.
“Between the years 343 B.C. and 266 B.C., Rome imposed political unity on the whole of Peninsular Italy.
Thus creating the necessary political and military conditions for a nomadic pastoral industry.
Prior to unification, people in the highlands of southern Italy such as the Samnites would regularly raid lowland people such as the Campanians, making movement of herds from the respective seasonal pastures impossible. All of that was brought to an end with Roman unification. Rome politically and militarily controlled and dictated to both highlanders and lowlanders.
Again, where popular culture may misrepresentative reality.
The Roman Aristocrat is often depicted as grossly over weight, having sex with young boys and giving speeches sounding like Charles Laughton (for those old enough to remember him).
While that may have been true for some aristocrats, it may not be representative of the Roman aristocratic class. Toynbee refers to them in the context of his discussion about pastoral industry as (would you believe, of all things) “capitalist”.
Nomadic pastoral industry as Capitalism
The “nomadic pastoral industry”, involving moving herds from one pasturing location to another, was not the product of some sort of natural economic evolution. Rather, Rome’s pastoral industry was willed into existence (like “Athena from the head of Zeus”) without evolutionary stages of development.
“In the second century B.C. (199-100) the Roman ‘Establishment’, together with the new rich who had accumulated capital as profiteers during the Hannibalic War, created an artificial nomad pastoral community, recruited from imported slaves.
In performing this ‘tour de force’ of social engineering, the Roman capitalist went to the expense and trouble of calling into existence an artificial pastoral nomad community with the objective of obtaining the profits that was offered by this from of capital investment …”
First phase of Southern Italian nomadic pastoral industry Ends.
In as much as the unity of southern Italy was a necessary condition for the nomadic pastoral industry and Rome was the unifying force, then it logically and empirically follows that with the demise of Rome, and the partition of the Italian peninsula, the pastoral industry would come to an end.
“This political unity was broken up again by the partial and piecemeal Lombard conquest in an after A.D. 568.
The Lombards nominally took control of a large swath of southern Italy, however never succeeding in unifying and controlling the high and low southern pasturelands. Thus, animal husbandry reverted to its pre-Hannablic Roman stage of mixed faming and small-scale husbandry.
Second phase of Southern Italian nomadic pastoral industry Begins.
Normans in Southern Italy
“In South-East and Central Italy, political unity was restored by the Norman Conquest which started at Malfi, on the edge of the Daunian plain in A.D. 1040….
“The South-Eastern parts of the Peninsula, together with the Abruzzi, were reunited politically by King Roger I (reign on mainland: 1129-1154) for the first time since the political disruption of Italy that had been a consequence of the Lombard’s irruption in A.D. 568
Revival of pastoral industry
“Large-scale nomadic husbandry was deliberately revived by the Crown…It is not surprising that the nomadic livestock industry, which requires unimpeded freedom of movement over a wide area, should have revived…Roger enacted a law permitting flocks and herds on the move to graze enroute for one day and night, on land that was private property.
After Normans
"Roger’s law was confirmed by the Emperor Frederick II and maintained by Charles of Anjou(reign: 1266-1285)
Alfonso I (reign: 1442-1458) imported a new breed of sheep from Spain and England. He provided a drove-road (tratturo) sixty paces wide, and guaranteed public security.
An English traveler in 1779 found the nomadic animal husbandry still in full swing. Wool was the staple product of the Abruzzi. He encountered endless droves of cattle on the move from their winter to their summer pastures … he found Abruzzesi sheep and shepherds on winter pastures at Taranto…
Unity of Southern Italy and Sicily
Very significantly, especially for southern-Italian Americans to understand about their pre-Ellis Island history, the unity of southern Italy and Sicily was continuous from the times of the Normans until it was militarily and brutally conquered by the Piedmont Italians.
Toynbee comments on the persistent unity of what came to be called the “Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”:
“The north-western land-frontier of the Kingdom remained at the line to which Roger II (reign: 1101-1154) had carried it until the Kingdom itself was absorbed in A.D. 1861 into the new Kingdom of Italy.
In ‘a picture worth 1,000 words department’: below are maps of 12th Century Norman Italy and Two Sicilies on the eve of Piedmont invasion – See the identity!
“During this period, which lasted for more than seven centuries [i.e. from Norman unity to Piedmont conquest], almost the whole of the mainland part of the Kingdom embraced animal husbandry which had established itself in the Post-Hannibalic Age.”
Again, it’s worth repeating:
Toynbee posits a geo-political sociological hypothesis to explain the origin and persistents of animal husbandry in the Patria Meridionale of southern-Italian Americans.
“This particular economic use of South-Eastern and Central Italy is possible on two conditions:
1) the potential winter and summer pastures must be united politically under a single government,
2) small-scale subsistence farming must have been at the least partially driven off the field by adverse social conditions.
From the twelfth century of the Christian Era onwards, these two conditions were fulfilled in that part of Italy that was included in mainland Kingdom of Sicily
In sum:
“From before the close of the thirteenth century until after the opening of the nineteenth century, nomadic animal husbandry was in the ascendant through out this region of south central Italy.
Napoleon forces a break in large-scale nomadic husbandry
Due to King Ferdinand IV fatal decision to ally Two Sicilies with Austria et al, in the war against Napoleon, the mainland part of Two Sicilies passed to Napoleon’s control after he defeated the so-called “Third Coalition”.
Upon taking control of the Mezzogiorno, Napolean tried to make an historic change in the historic husbandry economy of south-central Italy.
“The Napoleonic French regime (1806-1815) was the first to encourage a revival of agriculture on the Daunian plain at the expense of pasturage there.
The Daunian plain is the area around present day Foggia. On the map below notice how the mountains on the left (e.g. San Bartolomeo, Orsara, Delicto) give way to the flat lands going out to the sea.
Regarding the French, Toynbee cites the report of an English traveler in southern Italy in 1818.
“An English traveller in the Kingdom, who set out from Naples on 24 April 1818 and travelled from Troia to Lucera [see map above]. He published his account of his experiences in 1821 (R. Keppel Craven, “A Tour through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples”)
“ ‘By this time the interlude of French occupation (1806-1815) had already told in favour of agriculture on the Daunian plain (Capitanata) [aka Providence of Foggia]. Wheat, as well as wool, was now, once again, a staple product of Foggia and of Capitanata as a whole. In Lucera district, 14,000 versure [?] were now under cultivation, while only 13,000 were still used for pasture. The cattle wintering in the Capitanata were now all collected in farms (masserie) instead of grazing freely on the open range.
However, the Nepoleonic effort to change the husbandry economy was as short lived as Napolean’s occupation. Nevertheless, “waiting in the wings”, as it were, the Piedmontese.
Victor Emmanuel delivers coup-de-grace to large-scale nomadic husbandry
In 1861, the government of Victor Emmanuel (the so-called King of Italy) under the force of military occupation initiated what would become a permanent change in the centuries old husbandry economy of the Daunian to agriculture. Note: whereas the Romans and Normans used their military force to create the husbandry industry, the Piedmontese used their military to deconstruct the industry.
“It was not until after the absorption of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies into the new Kingdom of Italy in 1861 that the centuries old policies was decisively reversed by the government of King Victor Emmanuel of Italy.”
Brigandage
This profound change in the peasant's centuries old economy, way of life and culture was one of the causes of Brigandage (guerilla war), and in turn the holocaustic wrath that was unleashed upon the people of the Mezzogiono (describe in John Dickie’s book “Darkest Italy”), giving rise to the emotional dispora discussion in the “La Mia Strada” film.
“The royal demesne in the Daunian plain, was divided up by a law of 26 February 1865…this dividing up of the pasture-lands by the government of the new Kingdom of Italy was one of the causes of brigandage in the South-East, and this brigandage almost amounted to a social war.
“An example of the eventual consequence was a social transformation of Puglia…the number of livestock wintering in Puglia had been reduced from 5,500,000 in 1684 to 500,000 in 1905.
Mussolini
Following Victor Emmanuel’s policy, Mussolini continued with the agricultural development of the Daunian Plain
“From the time of Victor Emmanuel, a revival of agriculture was promoted by governmental action and eventually, under the Fascist regime, Mussolini activated this revival in his ‘Barrel of Wheat’ (Gattaglia del Grano), launched in 1926.
“This policy was effective … by 1953 nomadic pastoral husbandry in North-western Puglia, was in full retreat both in the Dunian plain, round Foggia, and on the Murge, round Minervino. (see map above)
The life of a shepherd
“ In 1818 Craven found that the shepherds down in the Daunian plain were Abruzzesi. Their families accompanied them in their annual migrations. …
“…the nomadic form of animal husbandry was still reigning in Calabria (i.e. Bruttium, not in the original Calabria in the ‘heel’ of Italy).
At that time the whole population of the ‘instep of Italy – not only the shepherds, but the land-owners too – was migrating twice in the year between the coastal lowlands and the Sila.
He met a land-owner on the move from his winter quarters at Isola (seven or eight miles west of Cape Colona, on the road from Cotrone to Cutro) This land-owner and his party were on their way up to their summer quarters on the Sila.
At the time of the great diasporic emigration
“The picture of the Abruzzese shepherd is presented in a book published in 1881 (A. de Nino, “Visi abruzzessi, vol. ii).
“ ‘ The Scannesi leave for Puglia at the end of the autumn and return to Scanno at the end of May or the beginning of June.
They have permanent houses in the highlands, and their families stay there when the shepherds themselves migrate to their winter pastures.
When they are up in the mountains, the shepherds come down to the inhabited area once in every fifteen days, for three days at a time, and for eight days at their last descent before their migration.
Boys start work when they are seven or eight years old.
The shepherds’ shoes and coats are made of hide, and they live in caves and in movable huts.
Conclusion
The above represents a very small part of the factual details Toynbee provides about the history of “La Mia Strada”. Toynbee’s work in turn is a summary of the vastly larger factual basis documented in the dozens of footnoted referenced volumes.
In short, this single infinitely small speck of Patria Meridionale history, could easily support Ph.D. level research. And, yet the Terroni-ized southern-Italian American is systemically denied their history. Because the only ones capable of bringing it to them, the southern-Italian American literati, insist upon acting out the role of Hesse’s “Magister Ludi” conjuring “Glassbead Games” in their Ivory Towers.
Forget-about-it … I look forward to the next book on Chicago’s Little Italy and another "new" translation of Dante.
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