LuminosityItalia

By Jon Van Housen  Warm, sun-drenched and picturesque. and Mariella Radaelli The sun is not the only radiant energy in the picturesque Sicilian seaside town of Castellammare del Golfo — it was recently voted among the friendliest cities in Italy as its time-honored way of life, warm welcome and scenic setting at the foot of Mont Inici in Trapani province draw increasing numbers of domestic and international tourists. It is the kind of picturesque Sicilian town where you’d either like to buy a house, spend your honeymoon or simply enjoy a vacation. Everything is built of ivory-colored stone, blinding in the sun and contrasting splendidly with the endless blue of the sea and sky. Less known than the nearby tourist hotspots Favignana, Erice and San Vito Lo Capo, Castellammare del Golfo seems to simply try harder. Its grocers, butchers and restaurateurs offer their local products and fare with a smile and a story about the town or their many relatives living in the U.S. One o...

By Mariella Radaelli Luigi Tinelli arrived in America in October 1836, but he was far from an average immigrant. All his life he was a man of impassioned action – a political activist for the unification of Italy, a lawyer, a bright entrepreneur in silk production and porcelain, a diplomat and a soldier in the American Civil War.  He walked in two continents with honor and honesty, but such commitment would result in banishment from his beloved homeland and send him to the New World. Luigi Tinelli was a colonel in Union forces during the American Civil War. Born in 1799 to a noble Milanese family in Laveno on the eastern shore of Lake Maggiore, he was arrested by Austrian soldiers in Milan in 1833 for his participation in the republican movement La Giovane Italia. After two years in prison, Tinelli was sentenced to death, but his punishment was then commuted into perpetual exile and he was deported to New York aboard an Austrian ship.  Tinelli’s patri...