Tontitown: Arkansas's Italian Village (Where Red Sauce Meets Redneck!)
When most people think of Italian America, they probably think of the many famous East Coast Italian enclaves, but we've come to learn that some of the finest fruits of Italian influence in American life actually exist well off the beaten path. And few places we've visited, if any, bring the story of Italian immigration to life quite like Tontitown...
Austin enters ‘historic’ agreement with Florence, Italy
The City of Austin and Florence, Italy entered into a “historic agreement” to facilitate educational, cultural and business collaborations between the two cities, according to a city release Wednesday. The City of Austin’s Economic Development Department announced the signing of the Protocol of Cooperation Agreement. Officials noted international c...
DFW Italian Heritage & Food Festival
October 7 and 8. 5220 North O'Connor Boulevard Irving, TX. The DFW Italians are honored to present the inaugural Italian Heritage & Food Festival, the first of its kind, to the thousands of Italians that call Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex “casa” (home). The three-day event will also serve as an educational festival to the expected thousands of attend...
The Italian Cultural & Community Center of Houston presents The Meaning behind the Masterpieces: Iconography in Italian Art
The Italian Cultural & Community Center of Houston presents The Meaning behind the Masterpieces: Iconography in Italian Art, a three-part art history lecture series. Over three 1 1/2 hout sessions, the class will guide students through the long history of Italian art spanning from Ancient Rome through the twentieth century. By the end of our time t...
Italian Texans
The Italians in Texas constitute the sixth largest ethnic group in the state, according to figures from the U.S. census of 1990. In that year, when the total population of Texas was 16.9 million, the number of Texans who said they were Italian or part-Italian was 441,256. Many of these people arrived in the last half of the 20th century when Italia...
Italian police’s long hunt for antiquities taken by ‘tombaroli’ raiders sees hundreds of priceless works returned from America
Italy celebrated the return Friday of 266 antiquities from the United States, including Etruscan vases and ancient Roman coins and mosaics worth tens of millions of euros (dollars) that were looted and sold to U.S. museums and private collectors. The returned items include artifacts recently seized in New York from a storage unit belonging to Bri...
St. Francis statue arrives to replace Christopher Columbus at Piazza Italia Park
Workers from Greco Construction ensured mounting bolts and holes on the statue’s base and pedestal matched up. A worker used a pallet jack to move the 6-foot-tall figure from the Francesco di Paola Catholic Church Garden to the park. The crane operator shifted gears to hoist the sculpture upon the 5-foot-tall base. With two hands, a site manager g...
Podcast: Galveston, Texas and Italian immigration
Italians have a long history in Texas. The earliest Italians arrived during the years of Spanish exploration. 300 years before ports opened up along the Texas coast. Although they did not settle, these explorers arrived in Texas with Spaniard Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in 1541. Italian settlers first arrived in the late 1700s as merchants. Settl...
Fort Bend library program will focus on Rome and the Roman Empire
Fort Bend County Libraries’ “Ancient Civilizations Art & Architectures” series continues this summer with an educational program on Rome and the Roman Empire on Saturday, July 1, from 2-4 p.m., in the Meeting Room of the Sugar Land Branch Library, located at 550 Eldridge. In this segment of the series, architecture professor Sheba Akhtar will talk...
Monuments Men and Women Foundation returns rare document to Italy with support from Odessans
The Monuments Men and Women Foundation recently restituted a papal bull issued by Pope Pius IX and turned over custody of the rare document to Italian officials. Odessans Sondra and Toby Eoff generously helped underwrite the restitution costs. The papal bull, an official decree issued by the Vatican, was signed by Pope Pius IX in 1862. It establish...
Piazza d'Italia in New Orleans, Louisiana
CONSTRUCTED IN 1978, THE PIAZZA d’Italia in New Orleans’ Warehouse district has seen both boom and bust. Originally designed as part of an urban revitalization project under New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu, the entire block was reimagined, though only a portion of the plans were realized. The Piazza was completed in 1978 as a surprise space in the...
Louis Prima and the Sicilian Sound
The atmosphere was electric at Union Station. Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians (a.k.a. Lombardo’s brothers: Carmen, Victor, and Lambert—the band was a family affair) were touring to New Orleans for the first time, for a two-week engagement, and on May 3, 1934, a throng of welcomers assembled in anticipation of their train’s arrival. Despite bei...