Composer, pianist, and conductor Guido Fano was offered three opportunities to move to the United States: in 1905 with Ferruccio Busoni; in 1911, to the College of Music in Cincinnati; and after 1938 to escape racial discrimination. However, he never moved. On his 150th anniversary, his lyrical and powerful music will be performed for the first time for American audiences by artists of the Lunigiana International Music Festival. Introduced by the composer’s grandson, Vitale Fano. In collabora...

Fabio Macaluso (President, Fondazione Casa Rossa) and Sara De Carlo (curatorial adviser). Casa Rossa (Alberobello, Puglia) was built in the wake of Italy’s unification as an agricultural school. Between 1940 and 1977, it was used for civilian internment of political dissenters, enemy aliens, foreign Jews, displaced persons, stateless women, and abandoned youth. Today, the house is a cultural center open to artists, scholars, and students for reflection on the past and the possibilities of transf...

Mauro Canali's classic The Matteotti Murder and Mussolini (Palgrave 2024) has recently been published in English. Prof. Canali will discuss the book with Ruth Ben Ghiat and Natalia Indrimi. Canali’s research is based on the trial records smuggled to London by the lawyer of the Matteotti family, Giuseppe Emanuele Modigliani when it became clear that he too was a target of the regime. Modigliani documented that Matteotti was investigating bribes from the American Sinclair Oil Company to the Ita...

Join us for International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the ceremony of the reading of the names of the Jews deported from Italy and the territories under Italian rule. January 27 between 9:00 am and 3:00 pm at the Consulate General of Italy - 690 Park Avenue.   Uttering the names of 9,700 people who were deported to extermination camps is a human and spiritual act to remember those women, children, and men who were emarginated, deemed expendable, and remained unseen and unheard until they...

Pieranna Cavalchini (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) will explore the work of Italian artist Fabio Mauri (1926-2009) and his groundbreaking 1971 performance pieces What is Fascism? and Ebrea. These were among the first Italian contemporary artworks to confront the persecution of the Jews and the legacy of Nazi-Fascism, prompting the public to consider its own role as spectator and witness. The lecture will address Mauri’s enduring relevance in reflecting on collective memory, ideology, and the ...

Marco Vigevani in conversation with Jonathan Galassi and Alessandro Cassin on Alberto Vigevani’s lyrical musing The Trunk (translated by Will Schutt, CPL EDITIONS 2024). Reading by Yuval Jonas. Reservations for this event: rsvp@primolevicenter.org An old trunk brings to light the memory of a brief episode and captures the suspended lives of Italian Jews following the Racial Laws of 1938. Alberto Vigevani (Milan, 1918-1999) was a writer, publisher, bibliophile, and critic who wrote a range ...

Bookhouse is a small place about books on the sixth floor of a Chelsea library building. Take the elevator and discover cozy rooms softly illuminated and infused with music, filled with books and carpets, a samovar from Izmir, porcelain tea cups made in the DDR, and all sorts of lovely obsolete items abandoned and found in the streets of New York. THURSDAY OPENHOUSE - Every Thursday we are open to the public from 10 am to 5 pm. Just ask for Bookhouse at the door, we’ll meet you there and pick...