Filoteo Taglialatela was born on 3 December 1866, one of four sons of the garibaldino and leading Methodist minister, Pietro Taglialatela [q.v.] and his wife Teresa: three of these sons became ministers. As Di Gioacchino notes [Di Gioiacchino, 2012], as the evangelistic potential in the link to the Risorgimento began to harden and dry up, the Italian Methodists who had followed Garibaldi, built institutions and churches, and attempted to spread enlightened ideas through Masonic and ecumenical circles, turned to the needs of the (largely Southern) Italian diaspora, in South America and the USA. In 1888 the Methodist Episcopal Church decided to directly provide for the evangelization of Italians who emigrated to America, organizing specific missions to overseas communities. In service of this mission, at the turn of the century, three of Pietro Tagliatetela's four sons, Filoteo, Gustavo and Alfredo, who were also Methodist pastors, emigrated to America, the first two to New York, the third to Toronto, Canada. Filoteo (1872-1941) landed in New York in 1893, and his brother Gustavo on the SS Werra from Naples in 1896 [Ellis Island Records]. Due to the lack of education among Italian migrants, in every church there were kindergartens, Sunday, day and evening schools, charity societies, patronage societies, youth leagues, groups of mothers, choral societies, and publishing committees operating among Italian emigrants. The Methodist churches thus ended up becoming a point of significant social reference for the communities of overseas emigrants.

In 1895, Filoteo graduated from Drew Theological Seminary, and on 2 June of that year married Stella nee Casanova (14 Jan 1881 - 14 April 1939) in Manhattan (The Sons of Italy suggest that she had noble connections). Together they had two sons -- Pietro (b. c. 1897) and Cesare (aka 'Chester', b. c. 1899) and three daughters: Teresa, b. c. 1901, Bianca, 1906-1993, and Florence (1910–1965) (m. Bruno Lomanno, 1893–1981). Like many of those who looked to the liberal values of the Risorgimento, Filoteo was a member of the Masonic Lodges Otto Agosto [a Lodge with Bolognese origins] and Cavour, associations which attracted favourable social connections in Methodist America. [See for instance the career of Charles Abernethy in Congress, and his active role in opposing 'fascist outrages' in the 1920s].

In 1899 - still a missioner -- Filoteo founded La Rivista Evangelica when he took over the work he founded with Vito Calabrese on Beeker Street, New York. In 1902 he enrolled in the English Course at Drew Theological Seminary, studying while running and growing his church. Such was his success that in 1903 - after a 'warm discussion' -- Taglialatela was passed from mission worker to elder's orders by the New York East Methodist Conference (MEC). Opponents protested that he still lacked one element of his study, but it was pointed out that he was editor of the major Italian newspaper in the country, and the most successful mission worker that the Methodists possessed. (New York Times, 5 April 1903). In this year, Taglialatela met Gennaro Gustavo D'Anchise, a recently immigrated journalist, and led him to conversion. D'Anchise would join the editorial team of the Rivista Evangelica in 1904. In 1908 he was living at 409 E. 114th St., New York. In 1911, at the urging of William Burt, he changed the name of La Rivista Evangelica to La Fiaccola, after the ME journal in Italy.

In 1913, Tagliatela was ministering in Philadelphia, when he was approached by the secretary of the American Unitarian Association. It's possible that the Association, which was increasing its work among 'new Americans', became aware of Taglialatela's position through Gaetano Conte, who had himself shifted to a Unitarian position while a Methodist minister working in Boston. [Hartley 2011] The official report noted:

During the winter our attention was called to a talented and influential Italian minister of Philadelphia who desired to inaugurate a mission among his countrymen in behalf of liberal religious influences. The Secretary of the Association visited Rev. Filoteo A. Taglialatela and conferred with him concerning his aims and the practical methods by which he purposed to realize them. After making careful investigations the Secretary reported favorably to our Board, and Mr. Taglialatela has now entered our fellowship and begun his work. He will not for the present endeavor to form Unitarian organizations, but in connection with the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia and with the co-operation of the Rev. Charles E. St. John, Italian services will be held in that church, with the intention of introducing English-speaking Italians to the present membership of the church. Mr. Taglialatela, who formerly had a prosperous pastorate in New York, will follow the same course in that city. Mr. Taglialatela comes from a family of ministers, bis father having been for many years a Methodist clergyman in Rome with liberal tendencies. His brother is a Methodist minister in that city. His acquaintance among the leaders and the more progressive members of his own nationality is wide, and he believes that there are large numbers who are ready to accept the kind offices of our fellowship. [Annual Report of the American Unitarian Association, 1913: 69-70]

Within a year he was holding meetings in the Parish Houses of the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia and All Souls Church in New York, and was planning 'for a considerable extension of his work during the second year.' [Annual Report of the American Unitarian Association, 1915: 67] As with his work for the Methodists, he edited and published a magazine 'which carries his message through to widening circles.' In 1918, Taglialatela was living at 817 Beacon St., Boston (down the road from the American Unitarian Association headquarters) where he was pastoring the Italian Congregation in Howard Nicholson Brown's colonial 'King's Chapel'. The previous year, he gave an illustrated lecture on Italy at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. By 1921, however, he had returned to his Methodist connections, ministering at St Paul's Italian Methodist Church, Buffalo, New York. In his circuit, he also had carriage of St James Niagara; Union Church, North Olean; and North Street Italian Church, Rochester. [Form notes: 'Founded in 1902, [North Street Italian Methodist] had five pastors in its first 14 years. In 1916, the congregation was large enough to have its own church, North Street Methodist. Thereafter, pastor turnover was slower, about one every four years. Like the Evangel, the church developed a vital organizational program and an involved membership.]. About 1925, Taglialatela had returned to Connecticut, as Minister of the Methodist Episcopal Italian Church, Middletown (where they were living at 79 Crescent St, Middletown).

He died on 15 April 1931. After a commemorative service at Beecher and Bennett Funeral Home, Taglialatela was buried at Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA (Section 15, Plot: 206, Grave: 2). After his death, Stella went to live with their daughter, Teresa, at 169 Olive St., New Haven, CT. Stella died on 14 April 1939.

Filoteo's brother Alfredo ministered in Toronto in an Italian Church of England congregation, while his other brother Eduardo, ministered in Italy and Switzerland, before moving to New York for some time. Gustavo (married Erminia Clorinda Rachela Sisca), was listed as a Clergyman on his shipping manifest in 1896, but in the 1910 Census identified himself as a painter, and on his death certificate was noted as 'Artist'. He died in 1941 of hypertension and cerebral hemorrhage.

Filoteo's son Pietro (b. c. 1897) pursued for some time the work of a music teacher. He died on 25 November 1961, Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida, Having married Josephine Villone (1910–1965), he left behind a number of children, including Dr. Filoteo P. and William M.; and Stella (m. Siebert), all of New Haven. Cesare ('Chester') in 1920 described himself as an art student, but in 1925 was a janitor at the National Bank in Middletown, Connecticut.

Teresa married Paul Curry in 1937, and moved to California. Florence (1910–1965) married Bruno Lomanno (1893–1981) and long lived in West Haven.

Sources:

• Ancestry.com

• Annual Reports of the American Unitarian Association, 1913-16 (New York: for the Association, 1913)

• Baketel, Oliver S. (ed.), Methodist Year Book, 1921, New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1921.

• Ellis Island Records

• Harvard Divinity School Library, Harvard University Unitarian Universalist Association. Minister files, 1825-2010. Series I. Records of ministers who were deceased or who left the UUA, 1825-1993 Subseries T Taglialatela, Filoteo A.

• Di Gioiacchino, Massimo, 'Evangelizzare gli italiani, salvare l’America: l’Italian Mission della Methodist Episcopal Church degli USA (1908-1916)', Protestantesimo 67 (2012): 335-348.

• Di Gioiacchino, Massimo, 'L'impegno missionario dei fratelli Taglialatela negli Stati Uniti (1890-1916),' Altreitalie 49 (Jul-Dec 2014): 83-93.

• Hartley, Benjamin, "Charles Cullis, Gaetano Conte, and the Reconfiguration of the Evangelical Holiness Movement in Boston, 1860-1905" (2011). Faculty Publications - College of Christian Studies. 298. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ccs/298

• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Annual Report for the Year ... Vol. 42 (1917): 133-140.

• New York Times Archives.