Because Ideas Matter...
The faculty and staff of Butler University's College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences presents
Recommended Readings
The Stonecutter's Aria
by Carol Faenzi, Aperto 2005
Reviewed by Judi Morrel
Part history, part memoir, part fiction, and
infused with local flavor, The Stonecutter's Aria portrays the saga
of one Italian-American family, whose descendents settle in
Indianapolis in 1924 as part of a flourishing Italian community
centered around the Holy Rosary Catholic Church still billing
itself today as "the Italian church in Indianapolis" near Fountain
Square. The family patriarch Aristide Giovannoni, born in Carrara,
Italy in 1882, was the great-grandfather of the author. Aristide,
with his stone carving background (albeit in marble, not limestone)
and passionate love of opera, comes to America alone seeking a
better life for himself and his family. After plying his tradecraft
in many locations around the U.S., Aristide finally manages to
scrape up enough money for his mother, his wife and two
Italian-born children to join him after World War I. The harrowing
tale of that ocean journey in steerage and subsequent stop at Ellis
Island, like many other stories in the book, was passed on to the
author by her beloved grandmother, Olga, Aristide's daughter. While
the book contains interesting stories of late-19th-century life in
northern Italy and poignant stories of immigrant hopes and
heartaches in this country, it is more than a collection of
stories; it records the spiritual journey of the author, guided by
the distant voice of her great-grandfather, as she seeks to record
the past before it is gone forever.
- Judi Morrel is Executive Director of the Center for High
Achievement and Scholarly Engagement at Butler University.