Lawrence Baldassaro, author of “Beyond DiMaggio: Italian Americans in Baseball” will discuss the evolution of Italian Americans in Major League Baseball withing the historical context of the Italian American experience.  A major focus of his presentation will be the prominent role played by players from the San Francisco area.

Lawrence Baldassaro is professor emeritus of Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the editor of “Ted Williams: Reflections on a Splendid Life” and co-editor of “The American Game: Baseball and Ethnicity”.  At the invitation of Major League Baseball, he served as the interpreter for Team Italy at the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2006 and was an invited speaker at the Baseball Hall of Fame’s “Celebration of Italian Americans in Baseball” in 2006.

Free, however space is limited.

Please RSVP to 415.673.2200

1939 Hollywood Stars players (from left to right) Rugger Ardizoia, George Puccinelli and Ernie Orsatti. Ardizoia and Puccinelli grew up in San Francisco and Orsatti is from Southern California. All three played sandlot ball, moved on to the Pacific Coast League, and eventually all played in the major leagues.

“Baseball is about going home … and how hard it is to get there and how driven is our need.”                                             — A. Bartlett Giamatti

No one even slightly familiar with the game of baseball can have failed to notice the signal contributions of Italian Americans to the sport. Just the name DiMaggio is enough to make the case, though the number of Italian names in baseball might surprise many — names like Berra, Rizzuto, Lombardi, Lazzeri, Campanella, Santo, Piazza, Scioscia, Napoli, Lasorda and La Russa, to mention but a few.

From June 22 through November 18, 2012, the Museo Italo Americano will present a documentary exhibit honoring the contributions of Italian Americans to “America’s favorite pastime”. The exhibit will highlight the history of Italian Americans in the sport, and the several areas wherein baseball and Italian Americans were and still are connected: the qualities, such as grace, courage and panache, that helped Italian youth adapt to an essentially English game, and become so adept at it; the degree to which learning baseball became a bridge to Americanization as well as a path to assimilation for many sons of immigrants; the significant numbers of players who made it not just to the majors, but into the game’s pantheon of enduring heroes; and the specific careers, including their sandlot beginnings, of some of those players and managers whose imprint on the game remains strong even today. The exhibit will include vintage photos of some of the great moments in the sport, memorabilia such as the gloves, balls, bats, uniforms and press accounts that accompanied those moments, and a solid sense of the range and extent of the Italian American imprint on the game.

This visually exciting exhibit should appeal to many: those who look back with nostalgia on the greats of former years; those who know little about the game but are interested in the general history of Italian Americans (or any immigrant group) folded within it; and those who will be able to supplement their knowledge of today’s game with the rich history of Italian American ballplayers of the past century. The focus on baseball — the national sport so often associated with American ideals such as fair play, grace under pressure, going “home”— should also provide a unique and easily comprehensible way for visitors to understand more about Italian America and about America itself. In this, it can mirror the dual impact this quintessentially American game had on Italian Americans: their pride in the Italian-named players who had become national heroes reinforced their Italian-ness, at the very same time that playing and following the national sport led them, almost unconsciously and in some cases unwillingly, to Americanize.

Pulcinella on Stilts No. 1, Carlo Marchiori

Carlo Marchiori was born in Bassano del Grappa near Venice, and studied classic art and academic design in Padua and Venice. At the age of eighteen, he left Italy to live in Canada where he worked as illustrator and film animator for C.B.C. Television and the National Film Board of Canada. In 1967 he was nominated for an Academy Award for an animated short film, but eventually abandoned filmmaking and advertising for painting and sculpture.

Since moving to California in 1978, Marchiori has become a world-renowned muralist specializing in period art interpretations. He produces murals in Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassic styles using fresco-like techniques.

In San Francisco, his murals adorn the lobby of the Hotel St. Francis, the couture department of Nordstrom, the walls and ceiling of Emporio Rulli, and have drawn critical praise at 1001 Nob Hill and Square One restaurants. They are also features of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Raffles in Singapore and Tokyo’s Disney Resort.

A true “Renaissance man”, Marchiori also produces original ceramic plates, ceramic tile panels, paintings, sculptures, furniture and Roman style base-relief stone plaques. He favors subjects of figures and animals caught in fluid spontaneity and his Venetian background shines through with zany Commedia dell’Arte themes. His traditional education enables him to interpret Pompeiian, Classical and Baroque subjects with brilliant virtuosity.

He currently resides in Calistoga at “Ca’ Toga”, a villa he designed and built in the style of Renaissance Italian architect Andrea Palladio. The interior of the villa is filled with Marchiori’s art. Many walls feature huge frescoes filled with mystical gods and monsters, and whole rooms are painted to look like caves or forests. The house is a remarkable monument to his versatile talents and boundless imagination.

Many pieces from Ca’ Toga and from Marchiori’s Galleria d’Arte in Calistoga will be on display at the Museo Italo Americano from March 1 through June 3, 2012.

Travel through three of Italy’s wildest and most mysterious regions – Abruzzo, Marche and Umbria – on another fantastic journey designed by our favorite Italian countess, Alessandra Gardino.  Your trip will visit the very places that inspired the great poets, Ovid and Dante!

During this twelve-day journey you will visit several secluded Apennine villages that see very few foreign tourists.  You will be amazed by the warm reception you will receive in ancient places where traditions still linger, old dress codes  are reserved and authentic age-old festivals are observed. 

Your trip will end with an optional, week long language immersion program in two of Umbria’s most beautiful hilltowns.

Presented by Montgomery and Gardino Expeditions

Price: $3,895 per person, double occupancy
Optional cancellation insurance in double room: $190 per personSingle room supplement: $680
Optional cancellation insurance in single room: $220 per person
Deposit: $500

Extension: $1,890 per person in double room

Contact the Museo at (415) 673-2200 for more details

Enter the Model Italian Architecture Competition, sponsored by the Carl Gellert & Celia Berta Gellert Foundation

The Coliseum. The Pantheon. The Bridge of Sighs.  The Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Do you marvel at how it’s all built?  Do you love all things Italy?  Now you have a chance to try out your modeling skills by creating a model of famous example of Italian architecture by entering the Museo Italo Americano’s Model Italian Architecture Competition.

Find a building, church, bridge, or palazzo of your choice, model it in Google SketchUp, texture it with photographs, and submit it to the Google 3D Warehouse.  All San Francisco Middle and High School (6-12) students are welcome to enter.  There will be prizes for two age groups: Middle School (6-8) and High School (9-12)

1st Prize : $250 Amazon.com gift card + Museo Membership
2nd Prize: $150 Amazon.com gift card + Museo Membership
3rd Prize: $75 Amazon.com gift card + Museo Membership

Submit your entry by May 6, 2011.
Click here for Rules, Registration Form, Submission Procedures and Details

The Museo periodically exhibits a selection from its permanent collection, and continually seeks to expand its permanent collection of art by Italian and Italian-American artists. If you are interested in donating a work of art to the Museo, please contact us.

To view some of the pieces from our Permanent Collection, click on any image below to see an enlargement and slide show.

Palo Alto classes are held at Cubberley Community Center – 4000 Middlefield Road – Room A-3 Click here to download a map of Cubberley in pdf form.
The textbook for Palo Alto classes, Parliamo Italiano, 3rd Edition, is available online.
To register for classes, see Class Registration

Please note that this session will be a four week session.

Tuition:
Members: $ 90.00
Non-Members: $115.00

San Francisco classes are held at the Museo Italo Americano.
Textbooks for SF classes are available at the Museo, with the exception of Da Capo, 6th Edition which must be purchased online. To register for classes, see Class Registration

Tuition
Members: $175.00
Non-Members: $225.00

Beginning I	Monday	10:00 - 12:00 noon
Beginning I	Tuesday	6:30 – 8:30 pm
Beginning II	Tuesday	6:30 - 8:30 p.
Intermediate I	Thursday	10:00 – 12:00 noon
Intermediate I	Thursday	6:30 - 8:30 pm
Intermediate II	Tuesday	6:30 - 8:30 pm
Intermediate III	Tuesday	10:00 - 12:00 noon
Intermediate Review & Conversation	Monday	6:30 – 8:30 pm
Intermediate Review & Comversation	Wednesday	6:30 – 8:30 pm
Intermediate Review & Conversation	Thursday	6:30 – 8:30 pm
Letture in Italiano (Reading: "Odore di Chiuso" by Marco Malvaldi	Wednesday	10:00 – 12:00 noon
Letture in Italiano (Reading: "Il Bell'Antonio" by Vitaliano Brancati)	Wednesday	1:00 – 3:00 pm
New Advanced Culture and Conversation Class: Le Regioni d’Italia A detailed study of a region’s geography, history, traditions, art and cuisine, will serve as the basis for advanced conversation. The region studied will be Friuli-Venezia Giulia. This class will be four weeks long, - April 25 - May 16, 2012. Tuiton will be $90 members / $ 115 non-members.	Wednesday	6:30 – 8:30 pm