The hearts of Italian Americans in support of the people of Emilia Romagna devastated by the floods. An important solidarity initiative starts from Tony Di Piazza, former vice president of Palermo calcio, and his cultural group, Associazione culturale italiana di New York, of which the Italian American is chairman.

In fact, $20,000 will be donated to support cultural assets and headquarters of associations engaged in aggregation, development of cultural projects, training and musical activities in the areas of Faenza and Forlì, where the floods seriously damaged many of them.

Associazione culturale italiana di New York, founded to support and promote Italianism in the United States and around the world, for 15 years has organized the well-known Italian music festival in New York broadcast by Rai precisely to promote Italian music around the world, hosting established and well-known Italian artists. And it is precisely music and culture that are the common thread that prompted the Italian Americans to make the donation, who took up the appeals of Giordano Sangiorgi, president of AudioCoop in Faenza, and Don Andrea Carubia, rector of the Episcopal seminary in Forlì.

Among the books to be brought back to life are some 200,000 volumes used for the training of priests who over the centuries, starting in the 16th century, studied in the seminaries of the dioceses of Forlì and Bertinoro. And then there is the so-called Antiquarian Fund, which includes extremely rare sixteenth-century, seventeenth-century and incunabula, unique pieces that also include musical texts from the 1700s. The books, once removed from the water, will be evaluated by a committee authorized by the Ministry of Culture, then bagged and frozen to prevent deterioration. They will then be dried, cleared of mud and restored.

"It is a way of expressing our closeness to the people of the area affected by the flood, particularly Italian culture," explains Commendatore Tony Di Piazza, "with the hope that we can return to normalcy as soon as possible, thanks in part to this small gesture.