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“Siciliana” … The Book Every Sicilian-American Should Read! … But Can’t! … Too Little Education – Too Many Terroni-ized Teachers

“Siciliana” … The Book Every Sicilian-American Should Read! … But Can’t! … Too Little Education – Too Many Terroni-ized Teachers

Tom Verso (September 7, 2014)

Legendary Italian-American scholar Fred Gardaphe, himself a candidate for beatification, says: “Gaetano Cipolla should be elected the secular saint of Sicily … the American saint of Sicily… Cipolla has dedicated his life to publishing works about Sicily, news about Sicily, information about Sicily… In this new book “Siciliana” he expands on what it means to be a Sicilian (i-Italy-NY Episode 15 Season 4) /// /// Believe it or not, that’s an ‘Understatement’ of Professor Cipolla’s contribution to bringing Sicilian history and culture to Americans generally and near five million Sicilian-Americans in particular. /// /// Apart from his personal scholarly works in the area of history, translations, literary criticism, linguistics; in his administrative roles at Legas Publishing and Arba Sicula, he has brought together and encourages a cadre of scholars bringing forth volumes of Sicilian scholarly and creative works, and Sicilian Language (Not Dialect!) study materials. /// /// Anyone who has read any history and cultural works of Sicily, I’m sure will agree; his most recent book “Siciliana” is truly extraordinary. On the one hand it revisits material covered in other history books (e.g. Greeks, Arabs, others in Sicily); but he does so in a culturally unique and insightful ways. At the same time he provides new ‘ground breaking’ scholarship (e.g. “Sicilian a Language or Dialect?”, critiques of Pirandello, translations of Meli, etc.). /// /// Tragically, this marvelous book is destined to collect dust on scholarly bookshelves. Aspects of it are a very challenging read (e.g. Pirandello & Meli literary criticism). Accordingly, given the relative low education attainment of southern Italian Americans, few will be able to read and learn from this pedagogic gem (see I/A education statistics at end of article). Unless and until southern-Italian American literati commit themselves as ‘teachers’ to bringing up the general education attainment level of ‘Their People’, and teach ‘Their People’ their pre-Ellis Island History, the mighty efforts of scholars like Gaetano Cipolla will be largely for naught.

Tools

 Preface “Culture”

Culture is THE most important object of social science, historic and psychological studies. Yet it is the most ignored because it is so illusive.

The material manifestations of Culture are readily observed, compared, comment upon, etc; accordingly, what passes for “Cultural Studies” is the study of cultural materials e.g. art, literature, etc.
However, culture per se is non-material. Culture is the ideology that binds diverse groups of individuals across space and time into a common unified social entity.
The word “Catholic”, for example, denotes both the material manifestations and the religious ideology. Churches, rituals, etc. are the material manifestations of the religious ideology that unifies Catholics over the world for two-thousand years.
The material of culture, by definition, may be observed, analyzed, critiqued, discussed, etc. However, the study of cultural ideology entails an inferential process. One observes, for example works of art such as a temple or painting and reads a book. Then one makes inferences about the cultural ideology that unifies the people in the society in which the art, etc. was produced.
Accordingly, “What is Sicilian Culture?”, i.e. what is the ideology that gives an individual Sicilian person a sense of  identity and unity with other Sicilians historically and contemporaneously? The answers to such questions begins with the study of the material produced by Sicilians and then inferences are made about Sicilian Culture.
Professor Cipolla’s book “Siciliana” is an excellent case study of the inferential process of coming to know a culture though a pains-taking meticulous study of Sicilian language and literature.
This book should be read not only as a study of Sicilian culture but also as a methodological manual about how to study culture.
There are two types of individuals who study culture: ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’. The outsider is a person who studies a foreign culture; e.g. an American studying Chinese. The insider is the person who is part of the culture being studied; e.g. a Sicilian studying Sicily. The insider not only comes to know the culture, but also comes to self-knowledge.
Socrates, following the Delphic Oracle’s admonition “Know thyself”, did not go off to a mountaintop to meditate. He immersed himself in the material Athenian/Greek culture. He joked about virtually never going outside the walls of Athens. Rather, he daily went to the Agora (market); the material center of Athenian culture in his quest for self-knowledge.
Plato writes:
“…Phaedrus responds that Socrates appears “totally out of place” outside of Athens’ walls —for Socrates habitually stays within the city, where he can learn from people. (“Phaedrus” 230c)
Sicilian-Americans should be required to pay twice the price of “Siciliana” because they will get two times more benefit than the non-Sicilian reader. Both readers will learn about Sicilian culture; but the Sicilian readers will also come to “Know Themselves”!
 
Siciliana … A (Socratic) Cultural History of Sicily
By the author’s own characterization, this book is a cultural history. He writes in the “Introduction”:
“The essays in this book are a record of my learning experiences. Through them I tried to educate myself about the issues confronting Sicilian culture. (Kindle Locations L 89-90).
Accordingly, in turn: “the essays in this book are a learning experience” about Sicilian culture also for the reader.
Nothing more clearly indicates this quest for Sicilian Culture than the title of the first essay: What Makes a Sicilian? [i.e.] … defining the essence of being Sicilian.” (L 94)
Thus, to know what it means to be a Sicilian is to know Sicilian Culture.
Cipolla writes:
On an emotional level, none was more difficult to write than “What Makes a Sicilian?
It was difficult because defining the essence of being SicilianIn trying to define Sicilians I was also coming to terms with who I am[Know Thyself].   (L93-95)
“… basically all I have managed to accomplish with these essays: to provide the reader with a mirror reflection of the Sicilian ethos [a definien of culture]. (L97-98)
 
Siciliana’s First Section … hybrid ‘event’ / ‘culture’ history
The first six chapters of Siciliana are an interesting blend of event and culture history. In those chapters, Professor Cipolla posits the significant material events and people in Sicilian history that can be found in traditional event histories of Sicily such as Denis Mack Smith and Giuseppi Quatriglio’s respective histories of Sicily.
For example, there are the obligatory references to the many (sixteen) dominations/ invasions of Sicily from circa 800 B.C (e.g. Phoenicians) down to the 1860 (i.e. Piedmontesi). Cipolla writes:
“While many people have dominated Sicily, most of them have come and gone without leaving any trace of their presence on the people of Sicily.
Nothing remains of the Goths and Ostrogoths, of the Vandals and the French, of the Austrians and the Piedmontese.
Even the Normans, the Aragonese and then the Spaniards whose role in Sicilian history is a lot more important, cannot be said to have added much to Sicily’s genetic pool. Their numbers were relatively few and represented the ruling hierarchies who did not mingle with the general population. (L 1102-1106)
Although the first six chapters of Siciliana read in part like traditional material event history, Cipolla is not content with the traditional event history narrative form: ‘and then … and then … and then…’ Rather, he strives to find in those material events the effects that events and people had on Sicilian culture and in turn what it means to be a Sicilian.
For example, while there is an extensive narration about the “sixteen foreign dominations” in Sicily’s history, from a cultural point of view only two have had a profoundly formative effect on Sicilian Culture: the Greeks and the Arabs.
The people who have left an indelible mark on the native Sicilians… are the Greeks and the Arabs. (L 1110-1112)
The Arabs, like the Greeks before them, and unlike all the others, came to Sicily to stay, and after the turbulent and bloody period of the conquest, they set to work to make the island a wonderful place in which to live. (L 1121-1122).
Accordingly, there are dedicated chapters on the Greeks and Arabs in Sicily. While the ancient Greek’s have left an “indelible mark” on Sicilian culture that can be seen today in such things as the monuments at Agrigento; it is the effects of the Arabs that is the most pervasive; effects present in architecture, music, language, food, folk wisdom, etc.
Margin note 1: The title of the chapter about ‘Arabs’ is “The Muslims in Sicily”, which I find perplexing.
‘Muslim’ denotes a religion embraced by all types of ethnic/national groups (e.g. Indonesians). Yet the specific Muslim group in Sicily in the first millennium A.D. was Arabic. Indeed, Arab and Arabic are used though out the chapter.
However, it should be noted that there is a mighty scholarly precedent for using ‘Muslim”: Michele Amari’s “Storia dei Mussulmani in Sicilia”.
Margin note 2: I don’t quite understand why the analysis of foreign domination affects on Sicilian Culture is virtually devoid of reference to Northern Italian domination of Sicily post- 1860. 
For example, while there is a great deal of discussion about the effects of Arabic on the Sicilian Language, nothing is said about the fact that the Sicilian language was obliterated and replaced with the Tuscan dialect by the “piramuddisi” (an intentional pejorative corruption of “Piemontesi” - L 218).
What greater foreign cultural effect can one find than that?
Indeed, Cipolla quotes Lotman: “…no culture can exist which does not have at its center, the structure of a natural language.” (L 3794) [i.e. no language – no culture]
I can’t help but wonder if “Siciliana” tacitly bares the mark of the Terroni-ization process that culture south of Rome has undergone … as discussed in Pino Aprile’s brilliant “Terroni
 
Having completed the more traditional form of event history narrative albeit significantly modified by cultural history analysis, Prof. Cipolla then plays his strong suit – literary criticism. He is not an historian by trade. He describes himself:
…as a scholar with a predilection for Jungian psychology (my Ph.D. dissertation was entitled “The Archetype of the Labyrinth and Its Manifestations in Petrarch”). (L 70-72 emp.+)
As we shall see, the operative concept in his dissertation, “Labyrinth”, is not limited to Petrarch. It plays a very significant role in his critique of Pirandello’s work, with equally significant implications for the interpretation of Sicilian culture.
However, before discussing his literary critique chapters, it should be noted that there is an absolutely brilliant and fascinating seguing chapter between the first (event history) and second (literary criticism) sections of the book: “Is Sicilian a Language or a Dialect?”
Professor Cipolla says “I am not a linguist’!  Well you could have fooled me! If this chapter is not a linguistic study I don’t know the meaning of the word!
In short, Professor Cipolla, following and greatly expanding upon Joseph Privitar's excellent work “Sicilian: The Oldest Romance Language”, presents a brilliant, comprehensive and fascinating analysis of the history and etymology of the Sicilian language (Not Dialect!!).
And then, the proverbial icing on the cake, there is a follow-up chapter: “The Sounds of Sicilian / A Pronunciation Guide”. Truly, the price of the book is worth these two gems.
 
Siciliana’s Second Section … Literature as a window to the Sicilian Culture
The second section of Siciliana consists of six chapters discussing the works of four Sicilian writers and the implications their works have for understanding the culture of Sicily; essentially an expansion on the above-mentioned first chapter, “What makes a Sicilian?”
Two chapters are about the late eighteenth early nineteenth century poet Giovanni Meli; two chapters about early twentieth century Pirandello; and single chapters on Nino Martoglio (early twentieth century) and Vitalian Brancati (mid-twentieth century).
 
Giovanni Meli“The most accomplished Sicilian language poet”
Professor Cipolla dedicated two chapters to Meli. First, “The Sicilian Muse” is a classic piece of literary criticism drawing out broader cultural implications manifested in Meli’s work. 
The second, “On Translating Giovanni Meli’s Poetry”, is an absolutely fascinating report on the process of translating. This is a very important chapter that goes far beyond the book’s Sicilian culture objective.
Translators are the unsung heroes of inter-cultural studies. Without them there would be no inter-cultural studies. Yet, apart from an occasional annotated footnote about a translating decision, there is little systematic discussion about the ‘translator’s craft’.
Cipolla shines a bright light on that ancient, mysterious and culturally vital craft. To my mind, no inter-cultural study can be considered complete without a comparable chapter on the process of translation; i.e. the logic of decisions about what words and phrases constitute an appropriate translation. There is much much more to translating then substituting denotative dictionary definition of one language for another.
For example, Cipolla reports that it took him, Sicilian born and fluent, four years to translate Meli’s Sicilian language Don Chisciotti e Sanciu Panza. (L77)
In short, Cipolla notes:
Translation studies have not as yet developed a comprehensive theory of the processes of translation that can be utilized as a tool of description as well as of prescription.(L 3691-3692)
 
However, more to the point of “Siciliana’s” general theme, and the present discussion, the first Meli chapter “The Sicilian Muse” is the most relevant.
 
Sicily … Mediterranean or European Culture?
Most of the discussion in the long chapter on Meli’s poetry (“The Sicilian Muse”) deals with his biography, the poetics of his poetry and the political and cultural ideas circulating in Sicily in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and how they affected his poetic themes. A discussion of such would be far beyond the range of the present article and would be of most interest to poetry aficionados.
However, to my mind, there was one ‘passing thought’ Cipolla makes that has cultural significance far beyond the limited comment he made and perhaps, from the cultural history of Sicily point of view, more important than the discussion of Meli’s aesthetics/poetics.
Specifically, he writes:
“Meli’s European connection is easily demonstrable. (L 2819)
“… it would be erroneous to think of Meli as a “Sicilian poet” if by that we mean a person whose intellectual concerns were entirely of a regional or provincial nature.(L 2823-2824).
“… this Sicilian poet’s spiritual world cannot be comprehended unless it is framed against the background of the history of ideas in Europe.(L 2826-2827).
As Professor Cipolla demonstrates in the first part of the book, and consistent with virtually all histories of Sicily, from Sicily’s primordial inception down to the eighteenth century, Sicily was a Mediterranean Culture. Indeed, after the fall of the Roman Empire, when northern European and northern Italian culture was coalescing under the aegius of the Carolingian and Holy Roman Empires, Sicily came under the Arabic sway. Cipolla writes:
“…the impact of the Muslim presence on Sicily was enormous. For one thing, it severed Sicily from the orbit of the West, separating it from the other Italian provinces on the main land. (L1135-1137 emp.+)
Juxtaposed to Sicily’s historic Mediterranean culture, the ideological milieu that influenced Meli and other Sicilian aristocrats of his time was the French Revolution.
Cipolla discusses at some length the impact of the French Revolution on Sicilian aristocrats generally and Meli particularly (emphasis on ‘aristocrats’ … we are not talking about the Sicilian culture of the illiterate masses … i.e. the progenitors of Sicilian Americans).
The influence of the French Revolution ideology and the many other northern European philosophers that Cipolla points out having had influenced Meli, is significant because it was the cultural trickle that led to the cultural floodgate’s opening with the 1860 “piramuddisiconquest, and ultimately complete northern domination of historic Sicilian Mediterranean Culture. All of which is captured in the contemporary concept Terroni, as explicated by Pino Aprile in his book by that title.
 
Pirandello’s “Labyrinth”the essence of Sicily?
 
Professor Cipolla’s Ph.D dissertation, as noted above, was “The Archetype of the Labyrinth and Its Manifestations in Petrarch”. He then carried the Labyrinth concept forward into his analysis of Pirandello’s work. Indeed, the word appears eighty times in the chapter “Pirandello’s Poetics of the Labyrinth”. He writes:
“The labyrinth represents a metaphor of Pirandellian poetics.” (L 4141)
For readers not very familiar with Pirandello’s work and who are generally literature challenged (c’est moi), this is an extremely challenging chapter to read. However, the idea of explicating one of Sicily’s greatest literary figures in terms of the labyrinth concept is interesting and significant because, to my mind, the whole of Sicily’s history and culture may be conceived as a Labyrinth. The macrocosm of Sicilian culture is captured in the microcosm of Pirandello’s labyrinthine literature.
Studying Sicilian history and culture is like wandering though a labyrinth from episode to episode, personality to personality, era to era and yet one keeps coming back to the place where the study began. Similarly, Cipolla refers to:
 “… the Pirandellian tendency to see the world as a place of constriction in which the only movement possible is circular(L 4185 emp.+)
Certainly the above mention history of sixteen invasions and occupations meets the test of ‘circularity’ (see Related Articles #2).
Also, a recently translated book by Professor Cipolla “History Of Autonomous Sicily (1947-2001)”, to my mind, leads one to the conclusion of Sicily unable to escape its political labyrinth. (see Related Article # 1)
 
Perhaps the best example of the “labyrinthine” nature of Sicilian history and culture is the Mafia
For one hundred and fifty years no study of Sicily (to include “Siciliana’) is complete without some reference to the mafia. Scholar after scholar; legal authority after legal author; journalist after journalist keep writing and rewriting the history, sociology, political economy of the mafia and yet does anyone really understand it?
A definitive comprehensive conclusion about what it is, where it came from, is it still here any why is it uniquely Sicilian, seems to escape all the studies. The Mafia like Sicily is a metamorphous; depending on what place in the labyrinth one sees it, it looks differently.
For example, consider the works of three eminent highly qualified scholarly works:
“History of the Mafia” (Salvatore Lupo);
“Mafia Brotherhoods” (Litizia Paoli);
“Reversible Destiny” (Jane & Peter Schneider)
Lupo is an historian; Paoli worked for a police agency specializing in organized crimes; and the Schneiders are social scientist. All brought to bear their formidable education, experiences, research skills and dedication to ‘truth’. And, yet all seem to arrive at a different truth; or at least one common denominator: the Mafia is a Pirandellian labyrinth.
Cipolla characterizes a Pirandellian labyrinth as: “internal confusion embracing constant becoming (L 4141).
Similarly the Mafia is a metamorphic being with no essence, in a constant state of becoming. Each scholar or commentator reports what they see at their respective point in the labyrinth, and all ultimately return to the point of origin in the labyrinth – the point of perplexity.
 
Also, the more general history of Sicily is labyinthine: how unlike the history of England, for example, that moves linearly from royal family to royal family and class to class; all the politics and economics follow logically from one era to the next in a cause and effect sequence. Nothing of that sort with Sicilian history! Churchill’s characterization of Russia is more applicable albeit slightly modified for Sicily:
“A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an [labyrinthine] enigma”
In short, certainly Pirandello can, should and is appreciated for aesthetic delights. However, Professor Cipolla is suggesting that there is much more to his work than a great night at the theater. His art captures a fundamental characteristic of Sicilian culture. It is a vehicle to know that culture and one’s Sicilian self.
 
Martoglio and Brancati twentieth century Sicilian pop culture
For the high-brow poetry and literature challenged, passing from Professor Cipolla’s chapters on Meli and Pirandello to those on Martoglio and Brancati is like “coming up for air”.
Whereas Meli and Pirandello’s work is directed to the literati, Martoglio and Brancati’s work ‘seems to me’ is closer to pop-culture. Indeed, both were involved with movie productions ... as low-brow as it gets – save Vaudeville.  
Cipolla’s discussion of their work is more readable and accessible to those without a literature background. Reading his chapters on Meli and Pirandello demands concentration, and highlighting and margin notes are appropriate; not to mention coffee. Chapters on Martoglio and Brancati are lighter and may even serve as pool-side reading.
All of which is not to imply that the works of Martoglio and Brancati are a lesser contribution to the understanding of Sicilian culture. On the contrary! Naturally, the literati would have us believe that the high-brow works they love and with which they build careers are the ultimate measure of a society’s culture; even though the masses of the culture are completely oblivious to those high-brow works.
Indeed, Cipolla notes:
“[Martoglio] complained that his poetry had not been given any attention by the ‘varasapi allittricuti’ (literary big-wigs) … (L 4774)
Because Martoglio and Brancati write about and for the masses, they represent a greater cross section of Sicilian culture … the “pop-culture”, if you will; the historic culture of Sicilian-Americans.
Nino Martoglio
Martoglio is especially interesting for Sicilian-Americans seeking their cultural roots. Born in 1870, he came of age during the great Sicilian emigration to the Americas (1880-1920). Accordingly, his work is a snapshot, so to speak, of some aspects of the prevailing pop-culture our forebearers left behind and perhaps in some small part brought with them to Ellis Island.
Sicilian-Americans, like all others, should read Martoglio for aesthetic pleasures. However, more importantly, when seeking their cultural roots, they should read him for hints and remnants of their ‘lost cultural heritage’.
For example, and perhaps most importantly, Martoglio was a promoter of Sicilian Language (Not Dialect!) poetry and theater. Language is the essence of culture, when our language passed out of existence, so to did a major component of our culture.
Of course, Sicilian-Americans will not be able to read Martoglio in Sicilian. But, hopefully, the southern-Italian American literati (aka teachers) will someday experience a Patria Meridionale Renaissance, rejecting their Terroni-ized love affair with Tuscany, and bring THEIR historic languages and culture to THEIR people.
One can only imagine how Sicilian American students would react to a course where the Sicilian language works of Martoglio, not to mention Pitre, are taught!
 
Vitaliano Brancati
The works of Brancati are important, if for no other reason, because the most formidable prevailing cultural affect in contemporary Western culture is the Second World War. One can hardly get through a day without hearing some reference to Hitler, Fascism, Munich, etc. 
Brancati had, as did all of Italy, a Fascist affair and then turn against it. And, his personal internal political struggle, a microcosm of the Italian macrocosm, seems to be presented in his literary works.
For example, Cupola writes:
“Evidence of the rift between Brancati and the Fascist ideology can be deduced by the events surrounding the publication of a short novel, Singolare avventura di viaggio, (Singular Journey Adventure) written in 1933. (L5032-5034)
“Brancati came to be consider the years spent following the Fascist ideology as Gli anni perduti (The Lost Years), a novel written in 1936. (L 5037-5038)
Apart from political issues, Brancati develops broader cultural themes, which I should think will ring true with Sicilian Americans. For example, “Gallismo”, which seems to be similar to what Americans call machismo or just macho.
“In his 1941 novel “Don Giovanni in Sicilia” presents men suffering from a disease that affects Sicilian men in general that Brancati called gallismo.
“Defined as a common disease of the men of the South for whom the word “honor” has its highest meaning in the sentence “to gain honor with a woman”; it consists primarily in making people believe that one is endowed with extraordinary sexual power.”(L 5106-5109)
 
Conclusion
Professor Cipolla’s book may not qualify him for sainthood (still waiting on Pius XII); however, it renders him a great teacher of the Sicilian history and culture to Americans.
Sadly, if the past is a guide to the future, “Siciliana” will lay fallow and not make it into the classrooms of Sicilian Americans. It is a well document fact on this blog (e.g. here, here, here, here, here, etc.) that the Italian American literati fall into one of two categories:
- Philo-Tuscani who teach or aspire to teach in university “Italian Studies” programs dedicated to the “piramuddisi”cultural ideology.
- Post-Ellis Islanders who teach or aspire to teach in university Italian American  Studies programs dedicated to Little Italy nostalgia and post Little Italy anecdotal studies such as Italian American writers.
In both these categories, the pre-Ellis Island history and culture of near 17 million Americans of southern-Italian decent, to include near five million of Sicilian decent, is completely ignored and de facto denigrated by the “piramuddisi” in American’s foremost universities, mass media outlets and cultural centers.
Apart from the cultural education of southern-Italian American youth, as the Census Department education data below demonstrates, the overall education attainment level of southern-Italian Americans is nothing to brag about (near 60%, over age 25, less than an Associates degree). No doubt there are many complex variables that would go into an explanation.
However, southern-Italian American literati should at least consider that teaching southern-Italian American students their history and culture might serve as a motivator to go on to more advance study.
The southern-Italian American student who sleeps through English / Irish / German / French / Oriental / Jewish / African-American, in short literature & history classes about virtually every culture except their own, is not likely to go on to study more literature and history.
However, it might be that those same students, instead of reading the literature of a foreign historic cultures, having an opportunity to read the literature and history of their own historic culture may want to read and study more. Just a thought!
Meanwhile Professor Cipolla and his colleagues at Legas Publishing and Arba Sicula are destined to act out the role of Sisyphus scholars; repeatedly push the rock of Sicilian scholarship up to great heights only to have it roll back down to the bottom classroom oblivion.
No language … No Culture … No History … Surprise! No Students


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