Author's Notes
I was born and raised in blue-collar Detroit, Michigan, in the 1950s, followed by a career in school administration that spanned forty-some years. I researched and wrote, "The Last Italian: A Saga in Three Parts" - my first novel - over eighteen months, self-publishing the current version in 2020. My wife and I both hold dual Italian and American citizenship and live in the western USA.
My intention with this book is to make an intriguing piece of Italian history come alive for historical fiction readers seeking a good story a bit off the beaten path. The years of the Kingdom of Italy, 1861-1945, aren't that long ago, but I doubt many readers know much about them. Yet the Italy of those days was alive with issues and hardships that resonate now: epidemics, class tensions, emigration, fascism, bigotry, wars of invasion, to name a few. And, as in present days, many who lived during those dangerous times found the means to survive and even thrive. Love, rage, sacrifice, greed -- the driving forces in play then are relatable now. It's a recognition that creates relevancy, and it's relevancy and realism and a character-driven plot, I am hoping, that will bring this story home for you.
Thank you very much for your interest in "The Last Italian" and, if you are so inclined, for your kind endorsement of the title to your family and friends.
Saluti--
Anthony
Research Notes for The Last Italian: A Saga in Three Parts
BOOK ONE: GOD'S TEETH
The fear of cholera that drove the characters of God's Teeth was well-known to the Italian population in the 19th century. The Fourth Cholera Pandemic that raged through Europe from 1863 to 1875 was followed within six years by a sequel lasting another fifteen. Experimental medicine was a matter of trial and error as desperate researchers applied the latest scientific discoveries, some barely tested, to affect a cure. The inadequate sewerage and waste management described in the story was a reality throughout Europe and beyond. It was only after the relationship of cholera with contaminated water was finally established that the disease was finally put on the road to eradication.
Milan of the late 19th century was very much a center of growth and construction in the late 1800s. Entrepreneurs teamed with Italian and foreign investors to vastly expand the country's rail and road systems. Upward mobility, stagnant for centuries, gradually became possible for the bold and the enterprising, regardless of birth status.
For decades, smuggling and brigandage were rampant particularly in the mountains; though waning to a degree by 1886, vestiges of lawlessness still remained.
I. THE ROCKS
Under Control: Life in a nineteenth-century silk factory
Carol Adams, Paula Bartley, Judy Lown, Cathy Loxton
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1983)
Immigrants on the Hill
Gary Ross Mormino
University of Illinois Press, Chicago, Ill. (1986)
Who are Servants?
Raffaella Sarti
Proceedings of Servant Project, vol. 2, pp 3-59
Wastewater Management through the Ages
Giusy Lofrano, Jeanette Brown
Science of the Total Environment (October 2010)
Notes on Fourteen Cases of Cholera Treated by Hypodermic Injection of Strychnine
Surgeon G.K. Poole, MD, 18th Bengal Cavalry
Indian Medical Gazette, pp 260-261 (Dec. 1, 1869)
The Controversial Experiments on the Intravenous Administration of Drugs (and Air) during the Cholera Epidemic of 1867 in Italy
Marco Cascella
Rev. Med. Chile 2015; 143; 1593-1597
The Pottery, Glass, & Brass Salesman
Wm. S. Pitcairn Corporation
O'Gorman Publishing Co., New York (August 2, 1917)
Continua La Nostra Storia: Via 'valle cave' e il suo prolungomento
Giuseppe Leoni
Corriere AltoMilanese.com (Feb. 6, 2017)
II. THE ROAD
Second Industrial Revolution in Italy (1860-1913)
Renato Giannetti, Margherita Velucchi
Banca d'Italia pdf. GIANETTI, 1860-1913
History of the Road Network of Tuscany
Texts by Elena Fani
Posted on Website of
Museo Galileo - Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza
Firenze · ITALIA
Brigandage after 1860
Heritage Ezine, April 2001
Road materials and road construction in Italy between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century
C. Paola Scavizzi, CNR
History and Technology, Vol. 7, pp 197-210 (1991)
Brigandage in South Italy
David Hilton
London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston
14 Ludgate Hill (1864)
English Travelers and Italian Brigands
William J.C. Moens
Harper & Brothers, New York (1866)
Remarks on the Present System of Road Making; With Observations, Deduced from Practice and Experience (8th ed.)
McAdam, John Loudon
London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster Row (1824)
BOOK TWO: FATE'S RESTLESS FEET
Fate's Restless Feet. Part I finds the main characters in the middle of the Kingdom of Italy's war with the Ottoman Empire and its invasion of Tripoli. True accounts of the Battle of Sciara Sciatt and its aftermath are varied; while journalists were on the scene shortly afterward, the "spin" of their accounts depended on the political affiliation of their home countries. As author, I tried to strike a balance in my narrative; to this end, Stephenson's A Box of Sand was very helpful. The military units named were those actually deployed, and except for the name of the fateful cemetery, which I kept fictional to allow for narrative creativity, the various locations included in the battle are real ones.
Historically, the role of the 8th Bersaglieri Regiment on October 23, 1911, was of prominent importance. My grandfather served at Tripoli during this time, and I have a photograph of him in his uniform and long-plumed vaira. He died before I was born, so I know little of his service, but I must surmise he was part of the 8th Bersaglieri. I do not know if he was with the regiment on October 23rd or deployed afterward. But for his sake and that of all the combatants on that harrowing day, I strived for accuracy of historical detail in my narrative.
Work in the rice fields of Piedmont and Lombardy was grueling but eagerly sought-after by the local populace. Emigration to the Americas was no walk in the park; my account of life in cross-Atlantic steamship steerage is a typical version of such passages. The tragedy I describe in the fictional town of Terrouge, Michigan, was inspired by true events that took place on December 24, 1913, in Calumet, Michigan. In his meticulously researched book, Death's Door, author Steven Lehto has written the definitive history of the heartbreaking calamity that occurred on that night, later memorialized by Woody Guthrie's angry ballad, The 1913 Massacre.
Part I: THE OASIS
A Box of Sand
Charles Stephenson
Tattered Flag, Chevron Publishing, UK (December 19, 2014)
To the Fourth Shore: Italy's War for Libya (1911-1912)
Bruce Vandervort
Roma: Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito, Ufficio Storico (2012)
Quattro eroici Bersaglieri abruzzesi nella sanguinosa e feroce “ battaglia di Sciara Sciatt"
Kim Redy
Zaffiro Magazine
Il Giornale di Montesilvano
06 maggio 2020
Turco‐Italian War (1911–1912)
Bruce Vandervort
WILEY ONLINE LIBRARY (Nov 13, 2011)
Religious Traditions and Domestic Architecture: A Comparative Analysis of Zoroastrian and Islamic Houses in Iran
Sanjoy Mazumdar and Shampa Mazumdar
Journal of Architectural and Planning Research
Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 181-208
Published by: Locke Science Publishing Company, Inc.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43030208
Battaglia di Sciara Sciatt
Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera
The Italians at Tripoli
"Kepi"
Blackwood Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. CXC (Jul-Dec 1911)
Dispatches from the World: The Life of Percival Phillips, War Correspondent
William R. Black
AuthorHouse, Bloomington, Indiana (10/09/2012)
Luoghi della Memoria e Culto dei Caduti Italiani in Tripolitania (1911-1914)
Marco Bizzochi
Storia e Futuro
Revista di Storia e Storiografia On Line
Numero 50, Giugno 2019
Come Siamo Andati a Tripoli
Giuseppe Bevione
Fratelli Bocca Casa Editrice, Torino (1912)
Article segment
Gaston Leroux
Le Matin Journal, Paris (August 23, 1917)
Between Acceptance and Refusal - Soldiers' Attitudes Towards War (Italy)
By Vanda Wilcox
1914-1918 Online: Internal Encyclopedia of the First World War, (03 March 2016)
La storia delle colonie italiane: la conquista della Libia
Francesco Signorile
ilforconedeldiavolo.blogspot.com/2015/12/la-storia-delle-colonie-italiane-la.html
Diario di un Bersagliere
Felice Piccioli
Edizione il Formichiere, Milan (1974)
Empires at War, 1911-1923: C. 2 The Italian Empire
Richard Bosworth, Giuseppe Finaldi
Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom (2014)
Italy's War for a Desert
Francis McCullagh
FG Browne, Chicago, Il (1913)
Sciara Sciatt, 1911. Fatti e misfatti del colonialismo italiano
Gianluca Gatti
ILSUDEST.IT
14 novembre 2014
Tripoli Italiana, La Guerra Italo-Turca
Antonio de Martino
Societa' Libraria' Italiana, Italian Book Co. New York (1911)
The History of the Italian-Turkish War
Commodore W.H. Beehler USN
Copyright, 1913
Printed by the Advertiser Republican
Part II: THE HALL
Miners, Merchants, and Midwives; Michigan's Upper Peninsula Italians
Russell M. Magnaghi
Bell Fontaine Press, Marquette, MI (1987)
Ellis Island National Monument: The Immigrant Journey
American Park Network
ohranger.com/ellis-island/immigrant-journey
Death's Door: The Truth Behind Michigan's Largest Mass Murder
Steve Lehto
Momentum Books; Second edition (June 1, 2013)
How Women Weeding Italy's Rice Fields Took on Fascism and Became Heroines of the Left
www.thelocal.it (March 8, 2018)
Stieglitz, The Steerage
Essay by Dr. Kris Belden-Adams
Khan Academy, khanacademy.org
Passage to Liberty
A. Kenneth Ciongoli, Jay Parini
Harper Collins Publishers (2002)
Examining patterns of Italian immigration to Michigan's Houghton County, 1860-1930
Master's Thesis by Cristina Menghini
Michigan Technological University, 2004
https://doi.org/10.37099/mtu.dc.etds/292
BOOK THREE: DEATH TO THE WOLF
Death to the Wolf takes place during the last three years of the Second World War amid the decline and fall of the Kingdom of Italy. The plight of soldiers fighting and retreating with the Italian 8th Army in Russia are well-documented. In particular, the books by Eugenio Corti and Hope Hamilton provide many survivors' eyewitness accounts, some of which inspired various scenes in the novel. The retreat of Donato's fictional 118th Engineering Battalion among an unidentified mix of German and Italian units is imaginary and does not describe the historical path of the bulk of the 3rd Ravenna Division in its effort to avoid encirclement.
Italian partisan attacks against Fascist forces became especially active in the later stages of the war; reprisals on both sides were brutal. Alessandro Portelli's book, The Order Has Been Carried Out, describes the reprisal massacre carried out in Rome that I allude to in my novel. The Savoia monarchy ended with the war; Italians voted in 1946 to establish a republic.
Part I: THE DON
Few Returned: 28 Days on the Russian Front, Winter 1942-1943
Eugenio Corti
University of Missouri Press (1997)
Sacrifice on The Steppes
Hope Hamilton
Casemate; Reprint edition (June 8, 2011)
Retroscena della disfatta italiana in Russia nei documenti inediti dell 8a armata
Filonenko, Sergej Ivanovich, Scotoni, Giorgio.
Published by Casa Editrice Panorama, Trento, Italia. (2008)
Twenty-Fourth Tank Corps of 1st Guards Army in the Tatsinskaya Raid, December 1942
weaponsandwarfare.com
Blog at WordPress.com (March 2, 2017)
Italian Order of Battle, World War II, Vol. 1 : An Organizational History of the Italian Army in World War II: Armored, Motorized, Alpini & Cavalry Divisions
George F. Nafziger
Nafziger Collection (April 20, 1996)
Ultimi Giorni di Mussolini
L'Unità
Anno 62 n. 85 Quotidiano
(Domenica 21 Aprile 1985)
1943 Cronache di Uno Anno
Sergio Lepri
www.sergiolepri.it'1943-chronachediunoanno/
10 Settembre 2016
Part II: THE PIAZZA
Among the Italian Partisans: The Allied Contribution to the Resistance
Malcolm Tudor
Fonthill Media (April 11, 2016)
Women Entrepreneurs and Italian Industrialization: Conjectures and Avenues for Research
Barbara Curli
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Enterprise & Society
Vol. 3, No. 4 (DECEMBER 2002), pp. 634-656 (23 pages)
Published by Cambridge University Press
The OSS and Italian Partisans in World War II: Intelligence and Operational Support for the Anti-Nazi Resistance
Peter Tompkins
C.I.A. Historical Document (April 14, 2007)
Posted on C.I.A. library website: Apr 14, 2007 01:00 PM; Last Updated: Aug 21, 2018 11:30 AM
Arturo Bocchini and the Secret Political Police in Fascist Italy
Italo G. Savella
The Historian, Vol.60, No. 4 (SUMMER 1998) pp 779-793
Naples '44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth
Norman Lewis
Eland Publishing Ltd.
New Ed edition
61 Exmouth Market, London, United Kingdom (31 July 2002)
The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-44
Rick Atkinson
Henry Holt and Company, New York (2007)
Gothic Line Offensive, 25 Aug 1944 - Dec 17, 1944
C. Peter Chen
World War II Database
Consolidated B-24 Liberator Manual: 1939 onwards
2nd Revised Edition
Douglas, Graeme
Haynes Publishing Group P.L.C
Sparkford, Yeovil, Somerset, UK (December 15, 2016)
The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory, and Meaning of a Nazi Massacre in Rome
Portelli, Alessandro
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY: (2003)
GENERAL
Fate, Honor, Family, Village
Rudolph M. Bell
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill. (1979)
La Tradizione Migratoria: Ercole Belloli, Pioniere ed Organizzatore del Lavoro Migrante
Revista di studi storici di Lecco
Dr. Gian Franco Scotti
Di Arti e Professioni
Museo Storio Civico
Villa Annoni, MI