News and Events.htm

News and Events ~ April 2010

News from the Society:

The Craco Stemma

The stemma or coat of arms for the Comune of Craco is symbolic of the town’s historic connection to the land. Prof. Dino D’Angella, in Note Storiche sul Comune di Craco says, "The stemma of the town of Craco bears a hand holding three ears of wheat with three hills in the background; the reference to a land that produces mainly grain...is clear. Craco was once called Montedoro (Hill of Gold) precisely for this abundance of harvests."

When the Society was formed in 2007, we sought permission from the town to use the stemma in conjunction with our activities. That right was granted on December 11, 2007 by the Giunta Comunal (Town Council) and the stemma has graced our communications material since then.
On October 29, 2009 the Giunta Comunale enacted a new regulation revoking previously granted authorizations to use the stemma and requiring that a request be made for permission to use the stemma.
On March 15, 2010 the Society received this new regulation along with a letter notifying us of the revocation of the right to use the stemma. In a meeting on March 19th the Board of Directors reacted by authorizing the following:

Removing the stemma from all communications pieces such as letterhead, mailing labels, newsletters.
The stemma will be eliminated from web pages as soon as feasible.
All memorabilia and souvenir material that is available to members will no longer have the stemma on it.
Any books or DVD’s the Society had printed which have the stemma on them will be distributed to members until they depleted.

In a letter to Craco acknowledging the notice and informing them of our actions, a request was made for information about submitting a request under the new regulation for permission to use the stemma.
In the meantime, you will notice the absence of the stemma on all our communications and material.
Hopefully, our new request for permission to use the stemma will be viewed favorably and acted upon quickly, so we can continue to utilize this historic symbol of Craco to make the Society’s connection to it visible.

Young Cracotans in the News

Elisa Rega, a member of the Benedetto family, will be graduating this May from Oberlin College and will be receiving a music degree in viola performance from the Oberlin Conservatory. She will also be getting a psy-hology degree in their "double degree" program with the college. A performance by Elisa and her chamber group at the 2009 Round Top Festival performing the Aaron Copland Piano Quartet can be viewed on line at the website: All Things Strings. They won the "best of" in the string chamber group competition. The Round Top Festival is a highly respected international music festival held in Round Top, Texas each summer.
Elisa will be going to graduate school in music next year to continue studying the viola.
She joins the growing number of accomplished individuals from a new generation that should make us all proud of our connections to them.
That Craco, such a small town, deprived of resources and access to the world, could produce so many gifted and talented individuals within a couple of generations speaks to the dreams, enduring hard work and efforts of all our ancestors. These latest successes would please them greatly.

Our Future

When the Society was formed there were several milestones that members requested to ensure we achieved our mission to preserve the culture, traditions, and history of Craco.
As we approach our 4th Annual Reunion this August in upstate New York, and the biennial trip to Craco, we want to look towards four group’s future.
Meeting our original goals we completed among other things:

a web presence and social networking groups dedicated to Craco, its history, and people
a virtual recreation of the town as it existed before the Frana
the translation of the town’s history
the story of San Vincenzo Martire, the town’s patron saint
a compilation of unique films of the town going back to the 1920’s
assembled a genealogy database of over 750 individuals with Craco roots.

Now, with those available to our 374 members we want to obtain more input about members’ expectations and desires for the organization. We are developing a survey to obtain the kind of ideas and input that members provided enabling us to be so successful so far. Next month we will provide more information about the survey and how you can help direct our future.

Cook Book Project

After our formative meeting in 2007 members asked that we create a cook-book with traditional Cracotan reci-pes. Those we were able to gather are posted on the website Recipes page.
Since then requests have come in for a way to share family recipes. Many of these stem from original recipes from Craco but became modified due to the influences of other Italians or lack of ingredients.
The best way to provide these will be to add them to the website so individ-ual recipes can be accessed and printed without producing a book. More details will be coming but in the meantime start gathering your favorite recipes to share.

April in Craco Vecchio

Good Friday Procession—this procession in front of the houses belonging to the Lapilla,

Montemurro, Colabella, Grieco, and Consoli families.

April in Craco Vecchio was dominated by the Lenten observance and the celebration of Easter. The work relating to the fields and earth was minimal as the planting was completed for the first crops. However, the activity level at the church was greater.
Holy Week was a very special time of religious observation. There were special foods made during Holy Week: biscotti con finocchio, biscotti con le uova, pupa (doll-shaped cookies for kids) or borsette (purses) made with hard boiled eggs.
On Holy Thursday, 12 young boys would have their feet washed by the priest at the church as a symbol of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.
Good Friday always commemorated the death of Jesus by a processione. This started as two separate processions – one led by a man symbolizing Jesus, the other, led by a woman symbolic of his mother Mary. Winding through laneways past the Church of the Madonna della Monserrato, they joined in the piazza as a symbol of Jesus meeting his mother as He carried the cross to His death. The photographs, provided by Fil Francavilla, above and below, show these events in 1962.
During the procession timeless chants were sung and can be seen on the Society website at Good Friday Processione Chants.
On Easter Sunday it was customary to eat hard boiled eggs and soppressata for antipasto, then capretto (goat) or agnello (lamb) would be served, always followed by a dolce (cake). Children would kiss the hands of the elders who would give them hard boiled eggs or money.

Women’s Good Friday Procession—starting from the Chiesa Madre (Church of San Nicola)

Click here to view A Year in Craco. Events in Craco for every month are listed. Thank you to Joe Rinaldi in Canada for his contribution to this page.

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