title: Under the Southern Sun: Stories of the Real Italy and the Americans It Created
author: Paul E. Paolicelli
description: Like many Americans who identify with cultural hyphenation, Italian-American Paolicelli (Dances with Luigi) has a strong desire to explore his heritage through numerous visits to his grandparents' native southern Italy. What he discovers is much more than traces of his own family tree; it's an obliterated history, hidden by prejudice and bias. According to Paolicelli, northerners have looked down on the southerners as illiterate, unskilled laborers and considered their dialects to be inferior to the "proper" Italian spoken in the north. The region, however, contains some of Europe's oldest cities (e.g., Matera, in Basilicata, dates back more than 7,000 years) and has produced many successful Italian-Americans, including Jimmy Durante and Mario Cuomo. Paolicelli also writes about less proud moments in the south's history, such as Ferramonti, a Calabrian concentration camp where Italian and foreign Jews were imprisoned with other "enemies of the state." "Unlike their German counterparts, the Italians... had no anti-Semitic beliefs, no taste or liking for the situation and, in fact, took steps to make the camp as tolerable as possible for all involved." Paolicelli's history is a patchwork of conversations, legends and research. His zeal for the stories he hears is evident in his enthusiastic and easy-to-read prose. The larger narrative, however, is a bit choppy. His numerous visits and lack of chronology make the book more of an account of his personal journey than a serious journalistic pursuit. <br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: Europa Editions  
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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real
  people, or real locales are used fictitiously.  
    
  Copyright © 2011 by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore  
  First publication 2012 by Europa Editions  
    
  Translation by Gregory Conti  
  Original Title: _Gli occhi di Venezia_  
  Translation copyright © 2012 by Europa Editions  
    
  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part
  in any form.  
    
  Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco  
  www.mekkanografici.com  
    
  ISBN 9781609458515  
  
  **Alessandro Barbero**
  
   **THE EYES OF VENICE**
  
   _Translated from the Italian_  
   _by Gregory Conti_
  
   ****
  
  _Notice to the Reader_
  
  Foreign words and unfamiliar technical terms are explained briefly in the
  glossary in the back of the book.
  
  1.
  
  The sun had been shining all day, but now the breeze off the lagoon had turned
  cold and the sky over Veni