Italian American Herald - November 2020

ACHIEVERS
Lessons taught and lessons learned with Nancy Matteo
PAGES 3-4
IT’S ALL GOOD
When the student
is ready, the teacher re-appears
PAGE 6
THE CHEF’S PERSPECTIVE
Murray Schulman serves a feast
for the eyes
PAGE 10
NOVEMBER 2020
WWW.ITALIANAMERICANHERALD.COM
A MONTHLY NEWSPAPER SERVING THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY
Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella presides over the wreath-laying celebration at Italy’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
By Jeanne Outlaw-Cannavo
Nov. 4, 1918, is the date an armistice ended the fighting between Italian forces and the battered Austro-Hungarian army. Over 100 years later, Italy commemorates this date by celebrating la Giornata dell’Unità Nazionale e delle Forze Armate; “The Day of National Unity and the Armed Forces.”
Although it isn’t a legal holiday, it is
celebrated with the solemnity deserved for the historical significance of the end of a terrible period in Italy’s history.
The Armistice of Villa Giusti, named
for the estate in Veneto where it was
signed the day before, ended hostilities in northeast Italy and paved the way for Italian soldiers to occupy border regions in the Dolomites and on the Adriatic. The regions of current-day Alto Adige/South Tyrol
and Friuli-Venezia Giulia had previously belonged to Austria-Hungary’s empire.
A year later, Italy declared that Nov. 4 was to become a national public holiday dedicated to its troops and the new territories for which they had fought. Nationalists saw the incorporation of these areas, home to many ethnic Italians and Italian speakers, as completing the unification of Italy, which resulted in the
incorporation of the words Unità Nazionale and also added the designation of the day as a celebration of the armed forces.
This national holiday is one of Italy’s oldest, and one of the few that has endured from its inception both during and after the Fascist era to the present republic.
continued on page 5
A day dedicated to new beginnings
Italy’s National Unity Day commemorates end of World War I
Vol. 7 / No. 11