Fontecchio Archives - Chris Carosa

The Layers Beyond The Image Reveal Mesmerizing Rabbit Holes

By Chris Carosa on January 28, 2025

Take a look at this picture. What do you see? What do you feel? Does it spark your curiosity? Does it inspire you? Or are you simply left wondering if you’re coming or going?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but those thousand words often represent just the start of a great story. Here are the thousand words (and beyond) prompted by this picture.

First, just the facts. I took this picture in August of 1988. It’s just outside the medieval village of Fontecchio in the Province of Abruzzo, Italy. That’s the hometown of my father’s father. I was the first of his descendants to visit there. (My father and his sister wouldn’t get there until a year or so later.)

But it’s not like we didn’t have family there. It’s just that I didn’t know any of them, and I assumed they had no idea who I was. Indeed, during a scouting trip to Fontecchio the day before, it certainly seemed that way. After all, despite my pedigree, I felt I looked a lot less Continue Reading “The Layers Beyond The Image Reveal Mesmerizing Rabbit Holes”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged a picture is worth a thousand words, Abruzzo, Angelo Rosati, Buffalo, Fontecchio, great grandfather, Mike Morris, Nunzia, Rhode Island College

He Who Controls The Gate Controls The City

By Chris Carosa on July 26, 2022

Back then, this mattered. I saw it with my own eyes.

I never knew what the city of my grandfather looked like. We only had a picture of his house. It was a small two-story country villa built beneath a horizon of hills. It stood alone, triumphant, defiant.

My first thought was, given those traits, how would anyone not expect my father’s father to look at those hills – actually a ridge of small mountains – and wonder, “What’s beyond them? What’s on the other side?”

Truth be told, if he ever did venture deep into the valley below his house and up those mid-sized mountain ridges, here’s what he would have discovered upon reaching the top: Continue Reading “He Who Controls The Gate Controls The City”

Posted in Business Tips, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abraham, Angelo Rosati, Balistraria, Bible, control, Fontecchio, gate, gatekeeper, Genesis, grandpa, Rhode Island College

What’s Your Dream? (Here’s How To Capture It)

By Chris Carosa on January 18, 2022

The original vision that was my “sure winner” in the Florence Brasser art contest. It didn’t win. Then. But The Vision ultimately prevailed.

You have a dream. It may be new. It may have been lingering in the back of your mind for years. Either way, you have a dream.

And it’s compelling.

If you’re like most people, you’re wondering “How can I achieve this dream?” If you’re ambitious (and who isn’t?), you’re wondering, “How can I accomplish my LIFETIME Dream?”

Many years ago, I wrote a column about an ironic first-place award I received in an art contest (see, “Sometimes Second Best Turns Out To Be the Very Best,” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, March 20, 2016).

I say “ironic” because the winning drawing was a throwaway picture not meant for the Continue Reading “What’s Your Dream? (Here’s How To Capture It)”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abruzzi, Dad, Florence Brasser, Fontecchio, grandfather, Kenny, L'Aquila, Lifetime Dream, three mountains

The Italian-American Triumvirate: #2 – Country

By Chris Carosa on October 12, 2021

As mentioned last week, October is Italian-American Heritage Month. Not only do we take a day (either the original October 12 or the second Monday) to celebrate Christopher Columbus, the Italian that most influenced America, but, like other ethnic groups, we spend the entire month honoring those who immigrated to the United States centuries after the first Italian discovered a brand new world.

This is the second in a series of columns on “the Big Three,” the three institutions that, though they to some extent describe all Americans, speak especially to the cultural heritage of Italian-Americans.

Recall the meaning of “Italian-American.” It represents an acknowledgment that you are Continue Reading “The Italian-American Triumvirate: #2 – Country”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abruzzi, Accadia, Al Smith, American, Antonin Scalia, Apennine, Apollo, bigotry, Bing Crosby, Carosa, Columbus, Dad, Dominic Salvatore Gentile, Eddie Rickenbacker, Ernest Borgnine, Fontecchio, Frank Sinatra, Gemini, immigrant, Italian, Italian American, Italy, Joe DiMAggio, Jr., L'Aquila, Mercury, NASA, Rome, Rudolph Valentino, Samuel Anthony Alito, Serradifalco, Sicily, Walter M. Schirra, World War II, Yankee Clipper

The Italian-American Triumvirate: #1 – God

By Chris Carosa on October 5, 2021

Each October we celebrate Italian-American Heritage Month. The month is obviously chosen in honor of the Italian that most influenced America: Christopher Columbus. Of course, Columbus’ discovery of the New World predated the creation of the United States by about three centuries, but our country long ago adopted his journey as an inspiration for the nation.

Columbus has since been joined by many Italian immigrants who would become Italian-Americans.

That’s an important distinction: “Italian-American.” It recognizes that you are, in fact, an Continue Reading “The Italian-American Triumvirate: #1 – God”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged and Gold, Aristotle, Baptism, Catholic, Christian, Christopher Columbus, church, Confirmation, Crassius, diocese, Ethos, First Holy Communion, First Triumvirate, Fontecchio, Gaius Julius Caesar, Glory, God, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, Italian American, Italy, jesuit, John F. Kennedy, Ku Klux Klan, Logos, Marriage, Mass, Modes of Persuasion, New England, Pathos, Pompey, Protestant Ethic, rhetoric, Roman Republic, Rule of Three, Spain, SPanish, Three Kings, trium virorum, unification of Italy

My Grandfather’s Garage

By Chris Carosa on September 15, 2020

More than a half century ago, at the dead end of a not quite rural road, a garage was built. It was a plain but sturdy garage. Made of concrete block. With a solid concrete floor. And a peaked roof high enough to form a spacious second floor. Perfect for storing planks, loose building materials, and a few other odds and ends that existed in that limbo somewhere between trash and treasure.

It was my grandfather’s garage. My father and his father built it the way you’d expect bricklayers to build something. More masonry, less wood. They used concrete block because it was less expensive than brick. It also took less time and work to build with Continue Reading “My Grandfather’s Garage”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abbott Parkway, Blasdell, Dad, Fontecchio, grandpa, Highland Parkway, Kenny, mom, Morra, Rousch, Tetazine, Tutta Morre, Uncle Pauley

Day 2: Saturday, July 9, 2011 – Roman Connection Comes Through

By Chris Carosa on July 9, 2011

Here’s what strikes me right away: the landscape. Leaving the confines of the Leonardo DaVinci airport finds us quickly on an expressway heading towards Rome. Being a good distance from the city, farm land and open fields surround the airport. It’s that landscape which first struck me twenty-one years ago that entices me once again. I can’t tell you what it is. I’ve only been here once before but I feel so… at home. Maybe it’s the soft hues of subtle shades of green and aromatic amber. It’s like the feeling is on the tip of my tongue, and then I see it.

It’s a string of umbrella pines stretching across a small hill to our right. These trees. These trees have been part of me my whole life. I don’t know why I say that. They’re not indigenous to Western New York or even America. They are native to Mediterranean climes. Vague memories stir within the oldest parts of my brain. I faintly recall a home movie – perhaps from my grandfather? – shot through a window of a moving car, showing this exact scene. It’s odd. I don’t know if it’s Continue Reading “Day 2: Saturday, July 9, 2011 – Roman Connection Comes Through”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life Tagged Fontecchio, Italy, My Italian Journal - 2011, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Rome, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Umbrella Pine