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# 63 • JUNE 28 , 2015
Something more recent: we
have a collaboration between
the University of Missouri and
the city of Rome, the Musei Capitolini in Rome: they have shifted over to Missouri dozens
of crate boxes filled with hundreds of thousands of artifacts
dating back to the start of the
Roman Empire; the collaboration is called “Hidden treasures of Rome”. As a result of the
Italian unification in 1870 large parts of Rome were being
tore down to make new government buildings and other
public work projects. So, they
found mass of quantities of archeological material, and there was no time to go through
everything, so everything was
just boxed up, literally for a
hundred year and put in a warehouse. They never had the
time or the money to go through everything, so they came
upon the idea to collaborate
with the University of Missouri
which had a large archeological program, and said “we will
provide you with all this stuff
if you agree to have your students study, catalog and restore them. So, that’s what is
going to happen for the next
few years, everything is already being shipped and so now
we have this large project in
Missouri, going through all the
hundreds of thousands of artifacts.
You also are in the board of
the recent established Italian
American Chamber of Commerce of Kansas City: it is incredible how our being Italian
never stops to give birth to
We also have a wonderful art wonderful projects like this,
museum in Kansas City, the confirming how much room
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, there is all over the US to imwith so many works from Italy. prove the promotion of Italian
My favorite is Caravaggio and products, and not only in the
his Saint John the Baptist, whi- main cities on the two coasts.
ch is outstanding. Then, we Please tell us something more
have a wonderful new Perfor- about this.
ming Art Center and this fall
the Chicago Symphony, di- Yes, the Chamber of Commerrected by Riccardo Muti is co- ce is a very new institution.
ming in.
Besides me, the founders are
Giorgio Antongirolami, Emilia
We have important Italian Carlson, Maria Cristina Pilla,
companies represented here, Antonio Soave, Stefano Radio
like Finmeccanica and Enel, and Paola Ghezzo. We have a
and they are very active in this big history with Italy, for sure,
area; they are the ones who but because we don’t have a
We have other examples of sponsored the programs with large current flow of Italians,
the connection between this the University of Missouri, and the connection with Italy can
area and Italy… there’s a lot they also have a large number get lost. Places like San Franof architecture in Kansas City, of wind farms in Kansas.
cisco don’t have the problem
a large number of Italian imbecause I think every young
migrants came with amazing
Italian says: “I’d love to go
10 | WE THE ITALIANS
www.wetheitalians.com
artistic skills. So, there are a
lot of old buildings here, and
you often time find that it was
a group of Italian that worked
as stonemasons there.