Tonight I’ll be at New York City’s Italian American Museum at 6:30PM, talking about what’s going on in Palermo, previewing our upcoming Experience Sicily tours, and performing a couple of Sicilian folk songs (part of Villa Palagonia). Plan to join me with Eszter Vajda of You, Me & Sicily for dinner at Capri restaurant at 8PM for our Prix-fixe dinner ($45 cash please).
Happy Liberation Day Italy! After 20 years of fascist dictatorship under Benito Mussolini and 5 years of war, Italy became a democratic republic in 1946. Today, April 25, Italy celebrates La Festa della Liberazione, or Liberation Day, in order to pay tribute to the freedoms Italians couldn’t enjoy when it was a monarchy and under the fasciat regime prior to 1945. It is also a day to recognize those who lost their lives fighting to free their country.
(Image: Renato Guttuso’s La Strada (1956))
That’s a lot to celebrate! I didn’t know Italy was a monarchy, so I have some reading to do. I hope your presentation and dinner went well. That painting from 1936 looks like it accurately represents the emotional atmosphere in 1936 – people are dressed beautifully but their faces are all so sad. I love the vivid colors and the contrasts.
Actually, that’s a typo! It should be 1956. But I concur… This is when Italy moved into the industrial revolution… And the move towards a city life versus agricultural one, I imagine, wore on people.