If legendary Italian soldier and patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi had accepted President Abraham Lincoln’s offer to command the Army of the Potomac in 1862, the war might have ended sooner.
Garibaldi had led an army on his native soil in a lightning campaign that resulted in the unification of Italy in 1860.
Garibaldi, who previously led armies in liberation causes in South America, would have accepted Lincoln’s offer if the American president had been willing to declare the abolition of slavery as the civil war’s primary objective.
And it was the visionary Garibaldi who wrote to Lincoln after the president pronounced the Emancipation Declaration in 1863, saying, “Posterity will call you the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure.”
Last Thursday, the New Hyde Park Cellini Lodge #2206 of the Order of the Sons of Italy in America presented a tribute to Garibaldi to mark the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification.
In a brief theatrical piece portraying the period in the early 1850s when Garibaldi was in exile and living on Staten Island, former Cellini Lodge president Jean Gagliardo conveyed the sense of his devotion to the Italian cause – and illluminated a little-known chapter in the Italian leader’s life.
“Today I’m going to bring you back to 420 Tompkins Street on Staten Island,” Gagliardo said in setting the scene for the performance in the William Gill Theatre in New Hyde Park Village Hall. “If history is left in the past it can be forgotten and lose its meaning.”
Kathleen Mucciolo, who portrayed Garibaldi in the brief but information-dense vignette, said, “This man was a special man and a humble man and it fills you with a sense of pride.”
Members of the Cellini Lodge in attendance applauded the scene enthusiastically, clearly moved by the portrayal of Garibaldi and his Staten Island host, famed Italian inventor Antonio Meucci, portrayed by Alberto Tallini.
As noted by Luigi Squillante, Cellini Lodge president, Meucci’s name would be better known if he had filed his patent for the telephone before Alexander Graham Bell. (Meucci beat Bell in realizing the invention, but, injured in a ferry accident, he lacked the $10 required to file the patent.)
The observance was a prelude to an upcoming brunch fundraiser for the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum Staten Island, which Squillante currently serves as commissioner.
“It’s important to teach the youth about the history of these two men, who were influential at the time,” Squillante said after the evening’s performance.
He said the museum helps to keep Italian history and culture alive.
But Garibaldi and Meucci weren’t the only sons of Italy honored last Thursday night.
Gagliardo, chairperson for the event, had plaques to present to 22 contemporary Italian-Americans for their service in the U.S. military, including Nat Alvich, Pasquale Bilello, Laurence Brady, Anthony Cipriano, John DaVanzo, Richard De Martino, Anthony De Biase, John Di Gioia, Frank Furino, Thomas Giacomaro, Angelo Ferrara, Stephen Imbasciani, Gerard Merolla, Thom Lupo, Anthony Musso, Carmine Perotta, Joseph Rando, Antonio Russo, Joseph Sciame John Stracquatanio, and Joseph Zicari.
Charles Wohlgemuth was also honored, along with the late Al Mulea and Gagliardo’s late husband, Frank Gagliardo, a U.S. Air Force veteran.
At 93 years old, Musso, who served as a captain in the U.S. Army during World War II in the European Theater and in the Korean War, was the oldest veteran in the distinguished group.
“For a small-time kid from Brooklyn, to become a captain was a big deal,” said his son, Robert Musso.
Sciame, a past national president of the Sons of Italy, was recently named co-chairman of the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum.
The Nov. 5 event at the museum includes the dedication of a Recognition Walkway, bearing the names of Italian Americans.
each reporter Richard Tedesco by e-mail at rtedesco@theislandnow.com or by phone at 516.307.1045 x204
