Narrative Section

Tales from Italy: when Christianity met Italy

Author: Thomas Frederick Crane
Language: English

“Scherza coi fanti e lascia stare i santi” is an Italian sentence that means “don’t mix the sacred with the profane”. Clearly, more than two-thousand years of Christianity have molded and deeply influenced the culture and traditions of many parts of Italy. This book is formed by tales Selected from the Book: Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane. These stories will present the origin of many idioms and customs of many Italian regions, and also how in many Italian tales' tradition, religious characters – such as Saint Peter or the Holy Mary or even the Devil - replace the classic fairytale characters: fairies, robbers, gnomes and so on.
We believe that this selection will be very helpful for who wants to find traces of this cultural integration among the rich Italian Oral Tradition. 

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 Available also in Pdf format

What is mafia

Author: Gaetano Mosca
Language: English
What is Mafia is the first English translation of the book Cosa è la Mafia by Gaetano Mosca.

Gaetano Mosca (1858 – 1941) was an Italian political scientist, journalist and public servant. He is credited with developing the Theory of Elitism and the doctrine of the Political Class and is one of the three members constituting the Italian School of Elitists together with Vilfredo Paredo and Robert Michels. Their works inspired subsequent studies by political scientists of the process of the “circulation of elites” within democracies and other political systems. He is the author of the book The Ruling Class.

This book is a transcript of a lecture by Gaetano Mosca in Milan in 1900, when he tried to define the essential characteristics of the phenomenon Mafia. These characteristics are the spirit of Mafia, which permeates Sicilian society, the omertà which build up a perfect environment where the Mafia's activities can easily develop, and the ability of the Mafia's cosche to take advantage of their local power linking it to political and financial power.

Nowadays, when we discuss about Mafia, it seems that there is an underestimation of this phenomenon, in addition to political and cultural limits to the approach to this problem. All problems that more than one hundred years ago Mosca already noticed and to which tried to give an answer. For this reason, we believe that the translation and the publication of a book already older than one hundred years, will help us take advantage of a witness who tells us about a world far away in time, but close to our interests. The interests of people who are still struggling with the same criminal phenomenon that afflicted Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century.
We want to thank Dr. David O'Kane for his contribute to this book and Miss Dela Buhle Gwala, without whose invaluable assistance this book would never have come to light. 

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 Available also in Pdf format

Tattoos

Author: Lombroso Cesare
Language: Italian
Why are tattoos so common among people of all social classes and age? What lies behind the desire to leave an indelible mark on its own skin? The tattoo is only modern fashion? What are its origins?

To these questions attempted to answer Cesare Lombroso, the founder of criminal anthropology. 

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Un Viaggio Elettorale

Author: Francesco De Sanctis
Language: Italian
An Electoral Journey describes the journey made in 1875 by Francesco De Sanctis through his areas of origin in the province of Avellino. The book is in the form of a diary, and therefore retains a lively and direct style that the reader will really like.

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