From Manoppello

 

The small, very ancient community of Manoppello in Italy sits alone on a sloping hill, some 20 miles from the unseen sea.  My grandparents, Ignazio Severini and Gioconda Iezzi, were born here.  So was my mother.

On the usual map depicting the boot of Italy, Manoppello is located vertically about halfway down, and horizontally near the far right, facing the Adriatic Sea.  If you draw a straight line from Rome on the left side of the map across the country to almost the opposite coast, Manoppello is a little to the north. On the other side of the fairly narrow Adriatic is Bosnia, Croatia and the countries of eastern Europe, so in this sense it is at the border of western Europe.

 The land around Manoppello consists of cultivated fields and woods. A snow-capped mountain formation is visible from the Volto Santo Basilica.  It is the Maiella, a plateau containing the highest peaks in the Appenine mountain range, which extends for much of Italy’s length. Manoppello is bordered by the Pescara River.  

Manoppello is officially called a “commune,” which in Italy is an ordinary classification, the smallest official unit, the equivalent of a township or municipality in the U.S.  Manoppello’s population has remained relatively stable, at between roughly 4,000 and 6,500 inhabitants since the 1860s. 

 Italy is divided into regions, all of them very old, though Italy as an official nation dates only from the 19^th century.  Manoppello is in the province of Pescara, which is in the region of Abruzzo, commonly called “the Abruzzi.”  It extends from the coast inland across mountains, to just 50 miles short of Rome. 

in Maiella National Park

Today Abruzzo calls itself “the greenest region in Europe.”  National parks and nature reserves comprise nearly half of the region, protecting three-quarters of all known species in Europe.  Manoppello today is actually within the Maiella National Park.

 Manoppello’s nearest larger town towards the coast is Chieti, about 12 miles away.  It is one of the most ancient cities in Italy.  Local mythology says it was founded by the Greek hero Achilles more than a thousand years B.C.  There is archeological evidence that it was a settlement by 5000 BC, with some artifacts found in the area that are at least 400,000 years old.  Chieti was a substantial city of the Roman Empire, with some 60,000 inhabitants.  In 1921, Chieti’s population was about 31,000.   

 Another eight or so miles beyond Chieti is the now sprawling city of Pescara.  Together with its suburbs, it’s the largest city in Abruzzo.  But before 1927 it wasn’t even a single muncipality.  For much of its history, also going back before the Roman Empire, it was a fishing village and port.  Because it was a strategically useful seaport, Pescara was invaded and occupied at various times over the centuries, most recently by the French (including Joseph Bonaparte) in the 19^th century. 

 Manoppello also has archeological sites nearby indicating inhabitants three million years ago, literally the Stone Age. It was also settled before Roman times, and was called Pollitrio during the Empire.  It was known even then for the surrounding fertile land.  Eventually (perhaps in the 9^th century) it was renamed in honor of its fields of grain:  “Manoppio” is the amount of grain that can fit in a hand, which is the symbol on its flag and shield.  The name itself unites the Latin “manus” (hand) and “plere” (full), or a handful of grain.

,During medieval times, Manoppello was a fortress on a hill, the scene of battles, especially in the 15^th century. But it was mostly a monastic center, with prominent churches that date back to the 14^th and 15^th centuries. Some of the original architecture survives. 

 Members of the Carl Severini family visited
Manoppello with Gioconda Severini in 1976,
and took this picture of the procession.

Its historic and now contemporary claim to fame is the “Volto Santo” or “The Holy Face” or simply “the Manoppello Image,” an image of Christ’s face on a cloth that is similar to the Shroud of Turin—essentially a positive to Turin’s negative image.  It has been in the possession of the Capuchin friars since the 16^th century, and is housed in the Sautuario del Volto Santo church.  It is taken out for an annual procession.

 

The Capuchin friars themselves arrived shortly after their founding in the neighboring region of Marche, also in the 16^th century. They remain prominent in Manoppello. They are derived from the Franciscan order, and are devoted to returning to the simplicity and contemplative life of its founder, St. Francis of Assisi. The shade of brown robes the Capuchins wear inspired the name of the coffee drink Cappuccino. 

 

With its handfuls of grain, the area around Manoppello is known for producing pasta, including handmade spaghetti. Cheiti and Pescara remain homes to major international pasta manufacturers.  There are many varieties of olives trees grown throughout Italy, and several of them grow in the vicinity of Manoppello.  The area is known today for its excellent extra virgin olive oil.  Grapes and wine are also part of the local economy and culture.  Cheiti province in particular makes the distinctive Montepulciano d’Abruzzo red wines.

 

Along with the monastery and ancient churches built of Manoppello stone, there are a number of palaces that still stand, mostly dating from the 17^th to 19^th centuries.  The town was literally owned by one wealthy family or another for much of its history. 

 Most other families lived in tightly clustered stone dwellings of several floors. It was in this Manoppello, very late in the nineteenth century, that Ignazio Severini and Gioconda Iezzi were born.  They grew up in houses that faced each other across a narrow street.  Later, they married and came to America. I am one of their grandsons.

    

Gioconda Iezzi Severini (l) on her 1976 visit.

According to a genealogy prepared by Carol Vitace Flandro, there were Severinis in Manoppello since at least the 18^th century.  Vincenzo Severini was born there in 1735 and died there in 1800.  For the next 200 years, his descendants were born and lived in Manoppello, and the spouses they married whose birthplace could be documented, were also born in Manoppello.

 I have no genealogy for the Iezzi family, but the first Iezzi turns up in the Severini line in my great grandparent’s generation.  Carlo Severini (my great grandfather) was born in 1850.  In the spring of 1879 he married Maria Antonia Gloria.  Her mother Maria Loreta was a Iezzi. 

Carlo Severini

Carlo Severini was a shoemaker, like his father before him.  Like tailors and other craftsmen or tradesmen, a shoemaker was a cut above field workers and other laborers, probably akin to the difference between what these days are called lower middle class and working class.  Carlo Severini and his wife had three children: Annina (born in 1880), Giovanni (born in 1886) and Ignazio (1893.) All three would eventually wind up in the US. 

 Across the street was the family of Carlo Iezzi and Antonia Zazzara Iezzi.  They had six daughters: Onorina, Gioconda, Stella, Serafina, Clarina and Prosperia (or Prosperina.)  Gioconda was born on September 30, 1896, probably the closest in age to Ignazio Severini. 

 Gioconda was my grandmother and my chief informant on her life and her side of the family.  I will often refer to her from now on simply as G, which can be Gioconda or Grandma.

 According to G., her father, Carlo Iezzi, was, like Carlo Severini, a shoemaker.  He worked at home, usually in his backyard, in the mornings.  When he was still unmarried, in the afternoon he frequently went around to a nearby house that ran an informal kind of cafe, for a glass of wine.  He was served by a beautiful and fiery redhead named Antoinette, or Antonia.  He was fascinated, and would sometimes come back for a glass of wine several times a day.  She told him to get a bottle.  Eventually he married her.

Carlo Iezzi

 They apparently had a fiery marriage.  Antonia thought Carlo was lazy, and did not bring in enough money.  While in the backyard where he was supposed to be working, he enjoyed the company of a rooster named Cheechio.  He talked to him as he worked in the morning, and in the evenings he played clarinet for him, and Cheechio danced. One day he came home to find that Cheechio was dinner.  Antonia claimed there was no other food in the house. That was the story.

 Carlo Iezzi was good enough at clarinet to be in an orchestra that played for operas.  He was away performing with the orchestra one night, possibly in Chieti.  When he returned he learned his wife had given birth to a daughter.  He decided to name her after the opera he had just played: La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli.  In Italian, the name means “the joyful one.”  “La Gioconda” is also another name for Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

 As almost the oldest, G had family responsibilities and housework.  But she also attended a convent school, probably at the Capuchin convent, where she learned how to do fancy cut work, sewing and embroidery, for bridal linen and tablecloths, for instance, as well as for the altar.  She learned to read and write there as well, and what other sewing and knitting skills she hadn’t learned at home.

 According to G., she and Ignazio were childhood sweethearts. He used to come over to her house in the evenings when they said the rosary, and he would kneel next to her. They had an understanding they would marry, when Ignazio was called to the army in the Great War, or World War I.  Italians lost so many men over the course of that war, that it is likely he was in the army from the beginning of Italy’s involvement until the end, or nearly the end.

Ignazio Severini 1915. New soldiers
often had postcards made in the studio
with standard backgrounds.

 G’s stories about Ignazio in the war and the time they were separated were light-hearted.  He was posted “in the north,” and at one point billeted in a private home.  The family in that home included a daughter who took a fancy to him, and thought she might marry him. She wrote a relative in Manoppello about him. He dressed and talked differently, not like a peasant, she wrote.  But this friend, who couldn’t read, took the letter to G.so she could read it to her, as other girls did.  G. wrote to Ignazio and told him she knew what was going on. So he got in some trouble over that, and G. wouldn’t see him when he returned. He was appropriately contrite, and persistent, so they reconciled.

 Ignazio was already a skilled tailor, and according to G. he was saved from the worst fighting because during his training an officer saw how well his uniform fit him, and so held him back to tailor his uniforms and those of other officers.

 But the reality was probably not so simple or so gentle.  The war “in the north” was where Italy confronted the Austrian forces, supplemented by German forces, in a series of bloody battles between 1915 and the end of 1918.  In the end, 600,000 Italian soldiers were killed in the north, and the Italian nation was virtually bankrupted.

 Though there are photos of him in uniform, I don’t have any information on how or where Ignazio Severini participated.  Possibly the Italian government still has such records.  In general, there were a number of towns where troops were stationed, some near Milan for instance, but especially in the northeastern corner of Italy in the vicinity of Venice, Trieste and the Adriatic Coast.  These towns in the northeast were the targets of artillery fire, and in turn they had gun emplacements firing at the Austrians miles away.  But the main fighting was in the mountains just to the north of these towns.

 The fighting in the mountains was protracted and bloody, and like much of World War I, a back and forth war of attrition over a few miles of territory.  The carnage was so great that the Pope spoke out against it, and several Italian governments fell because of the losses and the military decisions that led to them. There was at times desertion on a large scale.

  Italian forces attacked Austrian forces during the whole of 1915, but were repulsed, losing a quarter of the army—some 60,000 men.  In the spring of 1916, Austrians swept down through the mountains towards the Venetian plains, attempting to encircle the Italian Army.  But on the snowy, rocky Castelletto, Italian troops stopped their advance.  By the end of 1916, losses added up to 130,000.  

Caporetto 1917

Italian forces were unable to advance against the Austrians in 1917, and in the fall, German forces backing the Austrians broke through Italian lines at Caporetto, aided by large-scale use of poison gas.  Some 13,000 Italian soldiers were killed, 30,000 were wounded and roughly a quarter of a million Italians were taken prisoner.  Italy’s Second Army collapsed into retreat in what was described as Italy’s worst defeat in its history. 

 German forces pressed the attack but the Italian forces regrouped at the Piave River.  A battle was joined in December 1917 at Mount Grappa, where Italian soldiers repelled the German attack. If Ignazio Severini was in this part of the north, he may have been part of the Abruzzi Brigade, which fought in this battle. Like other brigades, it suffered terrible losses: half the Brigade was killed.

Mt. Grappa

 By the beginning of 1918 the Italians were engaged in a defensive war. During these months, Ernest Hemingway was an 18 year old ambulance driver, and wrote about the war (Although he described events from the fall of 1917 in his novel A Farewell To Arms, he did not arrive in the area until June of 1918.)  The British writer Rudyard Kipling spent time here as a newspaper correspondent.

 In October and November of 1918, Italian forces counterattacked at Mount Grappa, near Vittorio Veneto, supported by contingents of other allied forces including British and American.  They broke through and advanced into Austria, ultimately forcing an armistice.  A week later, the First World War was over. Some Italian troops occupied towns and cities in Austria.

 Having heard G’s stories, I assumed my grandfather had not been under fire, until the 1990s when one of his daughters, my Aunt Toni (Antoinette Severini Wheatley) told me that he had been “gassed,” and suffered the effects for years.  She remembered his digestion was affected, so that for years he could eat spaghetti only without tomato sauce (fortunately he had recovered by the time I sat beside him at family meals in the 1950s.) 

Though the notorious use of poison gas in World War I is most associated with the Western Front (France, Belgium, etc.) I’ve seen mention of it in accounts of fighting in northern Italy.  In general, the British and other allied countries used irritants like tear gas, but poison gases were initially and mostly used by German forces, allied with the Austrian-Hungarian armies.  Beginning in 1915, these gases were chlorine and phosgene, with mustard gas introduced to battlefields in 1917. Eventually some American forces also used mustard gas.  These gases did not invariably kill, but required immediate measures and then a long convalescence to survive.  Poison gases were usually delivered by artillery shells.

 It’s possible these symptoms Ant described were caused by concentrated exposure to one of the irritant gases, such as tear gas, which was delivered in grenades.  Italy manufactured and used tear gas, and one account mentions Italian soldiers using it in tunnels through the mountains against Austrians at Castelletto. 

 Exactly what horrors Ignazio Severini experienced or witnessed or even heard about are unknown.  Apparently, like most other veterans of that war, he did not talk about it afterwards, at least to members of his family.  The world had seldom seen mass carnage on that scale, and Europe especially would never be the same. 

I have no documentation of anything specific in these years, other than that Ignazio was back in Manoppello to marry Gioconda Iezzi on December 8, 1919, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day of obligation on the Catholic calendar. 

Gino Severini
Self Portrait 1916

It was probably on the occasion of their marriage that distant members of the Severini family gathered in Manoppello, and G overheard whispers about the family black sheep who ran off to Paris and became a bum.  She remembered this when I told her about the now famous painter, Gino Severini, who was born and raised in Cortona, in Tuscany.  The timing fits—Gino Severini was in Paris as a very young man beginning in 1906.  Though he would have many famous friends, including Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Eric Satie, Apollonaire and Jean Cocteau, and eventually became famous himself, he was very poor at the start and remained so for many years—certainly in 1919. And as he was a painter and not a shoemaker or other paid tradesman or craftsman, he would count as a bum.

 That the Manoppello Severinis were related to the Tuscany Severinis has not been established, though for what it is worth (and it may not be much), my Ancestry DNA profile shows strong genetic origins in the region of Italy that includes Tuscany—as much or more than the region that includes Manoppello. If this suggests anything, it might be that there is a strong Severini connection from Manoppello to Tuscany, and perhaps Cortona.

C. Severini 1976 photo of fields leading to the
Bascilica at Manoppello

 It seems that Ignazio and G planned to live in Manoppello, but would go together to America first, where Ignazio could earn and save enough money to open a tailor shop when they returned.  The war had left Italy impoverished, and Manoppello was poor to begin with. Many of its younger citizens were leaving for America, at least for awhile, to make money to send back and then return to Italy.  These emigrants included several members of the Iezzi and Severini families.  G’s own father had already gone to Canada, though he sent little money back.

 Then Ignazio’s parents both got sick, and wanted G to stay with them.  G was looking forward to escaping from her own mother’s meanness.  But eventually she agreed to stay to take care of Carlo and Maria Antonia Severini.  Also she was pregnant, and the long trip across the ocean might be too much.

 So only a little more than six months after his wedding, Ignazio Severini set off with others from Manoppello to take a chance on the United States.  He boarded the Nieuv Amsterdam steamship on July 24, 1920 at Boulogne-sur-Mer, a port in northern France where the first British troops had landed during World War I.  The New Amsterdam was a ship of the Holland America line built in 1906, when it was the 10^th largest steamship in the world.  In 1920 it was notable for being the last major liner to cross the Atlantic fitted with auxiliary sails.

 

Nieuv Amsterdam 1st Class Hall

The Nieuv Amsterdam was considered a luxury liner, if you were among the 440 in first class on that voyage, or even the 246 in second class.  But the ship made its money from the 2,200 emigrants in third class, otherwise known as steerage.  They spent the voyage in what was essentially the cargo hold.  For the voyage from Europe to America, collapsible wooden bulkheads were installed to create private cabins and dormitories. For the return trip, the bulkheads were removed and the hold would be filled with cargo—often including grain for a war-torn Europe.

 Ignazio arrived at Ellis Island, New York, on August 4.  He was listed as 27 years old, 5 ft. 2 inches tall, with blond hair and gray eyes. Except for his age, how much of that was accurate is questionable.  He carried with him a total of $26.  His destination in the United States was a small town in western Pennsylvania called Greensburg. 

N. Amsterdam 3rd class dining hall

He made his way from Manoppello to New York with several friends, including young Vincenzo Di Pasquale, just 18, who was sponsored by his father, Claudio, already in Greensburg.  They were not the only people from Manoppello on that particular voyage of the New Amsterdam.  They were not even the only ones from there who were on their way to Greensburg. They were going to this otherwise unknown place because members of their families were there. 

 It would be fascinating to know what drew the first Italian or the first citizen of Manoppello to western Pennsylvania, though it was likely the coal mines. But it surely had happened by the turn of the 20^th century.  A bakery established by Dan Morelli was turning out loaves of Italian bread in Greensburg by 1902.  The first of many Italian organizations and lodges was organized in 1906. 

 There were so many Italians in Greensburg by 1910, that when Father Nicola Albanese arrived in Pittsburgh from Italy and told the Bishop that his purpose was to take care of the spiritual needs of Italian immigrants, Pittsburgh Bishop Canevin sent him directly to Greensburg, where he established Our Lady of Grace church that same year.

Manoppello 

 But one church wasn’t enough. In 1916, Father Albanese built St. Anthony’s Church to serve Italians in the area of Greensburg then known as Ludwick.  This church (at Madison and Williams streets) would be just a few blocks away from the house that was Ignazio Severini’s destination.

 That destination on Hamilton Avenue in Greensburg was the home of his older sister Anna, and her husband, Raffaele Vitaci.  Raffaele had first come to the US in 1901. Born in Manoppello in 1877, he was the son of a judge who gave him his name, and a maid who gave him up to the Congregazione della Carita of Manoppello, an orphanage.  His father’s name was Adalgiso Vitaci, his mother’s name is unknown.  He was taken into the home of Luigi Cremonese as a baby. 

 At age 18 he worked as a stonemason in Romania, and six years later came to the US with an Antonio Iezzi. He was bound for Philadelphia to rejoin his stepfather Cremonese. By 1903 he was in Greensburg, where he became a naturalized US citizen. Raffaele returned to Italy where he married Annina (Anna) Severini and in 1914 brought her back to Greensburg.

 Raffaele was described as tall and robust, with blond hair and blue eyes.  (His wife Anna also had blue eyes.) He was outgoing, with many friends, including Greensburg’s Republican mayor.  He invited them to eat at his house, where Anna would cook for them.

He and his wife did not go out at night, however, and were asleep at 7 p.m.  Raffaele had several different jobs over the years, including working for a building contractor.  His name in America eventually became Ralph Vitace.

 By the time Ignazio arrived, Anna and Raffaele had two small children: Mary (born in 1916) and Louis (born in 1917.) The family had just moved into their new house on Hamilton Avenue the year before, in 1919. 

Gioconda age 17

Almost immediately upon arriving, Ignazio wrote to G and asked for a photograph of her and his parents.  Neither of them was getting better.  She wrote back that she was too big with the baby.  He answered that he didn’t care, he wanted the picture.  So they went to a photographer in Chieti.  Years later, that photo would hang on a wall of their living room, next to a picture of G. at age 17, made from a small photograph that Ignazio had carried with him during the war.

 It was little more than a month after Ignazio arrived in Greensburg that he became a father.  Back in Manoppello, his wife gave birth to a baby girl.  G had been reading romance novels during her pregnancy, and the heroine of the one she was reading the night before she gave birth was named Flora. Ignazio’s mother, who was near death, was named Maria.  So the birth certificate would read: Maria Flora Severini, born September 13, 1920.