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News and
Events ~
October 2010
San Vincenzo Feast
Keeping tradition alive is an important part
of The Craco Society’s mission and the celebration of the
Feast of San Vincenzo on October 24th in Manhattan will also
serve as a great opportunity to gather again as a group and
socialize. At this year’s event, attendees will get to see
the newly refurbished statue at St. Joseph’s Church at the
noon Mass and then join the other members for a fantastic
meal at Il Cortile restaurant.
In 1792 the body of San Vincenzo Martire
arrived in Craco and the people have celebrated the feast
day of their patron saint ever since.
By 1899, those who immigrated to New York
from Craco formed a mutual aid group, the Società San
Vincenzo Martire di Craco. This society promptly donated a
statue of San Vincenzo to St. Joachim’s Church. The statue
resided there until 1957 when that church was closed. The
Gallo family maintained the statue at their residence in
Brooklyn until it was placed in St. Joseph's Church, just a
few blocks from where it originally resided.
From
1901 until WWII the feast of San Vincenzo was celebrated by
the Crachesi in conjunction with the church. As part of the
annual feast, the Società San Vincenzo Martire di Craco
organized a Mass, procession, and a group dinner with as
many as 500 people attending. Over the 109 year period since
the statue of San Vincenzo was first donated to the church,
the Crachesi in New York showed their devotion to their
patron saint by supporting the churches that housed his
statue and making sure the image was protected. This
included the Gallo family restoration of the statue in the
late 1960’s before it was housed at St. Joseph’s Church and
a similar restoration underwritten by Mrs. Anna LoCicero in
the 1990’s. This year, it was determined that the statue
again needed help and this generation of Crachesi responded
as their ancestors would have done. The San Vincenzo Fund
was established to restore the statue and contributions have
been coming in from many members allowing the restoration to
move forward.
For
those who are unable to attend but would like to make an
offering to San Vincenzo, please write a check made payable
to St. Joseph’s Church and send it to:
The Craco Society
14 Earl Road
East Sandwich, MA 02537
Your
check will be pinned to the statue along with those gifts
from the attendees.
A Travelers Guide to Craco and Basilicata
The Craco Society announces its latest
publication, “A Travelers Guide to Craco and Basilicata.”
This on-line travel book stems from the two trips the
Society sponsored to Italy since 2008 and will help
travelers visiting the Basilicata region, Craco and the
Southern Italian hill towns surrounding it in the province
of Matera. This unique book contains material about the
history of the area, maps, Italian phrases for travelers,
and suggested day trip itineraries to Craco and the nearby
towns. This guidebook will be a great tool to anyone
planning a trip to the area, but it also has another section
that is of interest to those who would like to learn more
about language. The section called, “Parlë Crac’tan? A Guide
to Speaking Craco-tan” may be the only compilation of words
in the dialect. It provides the English, Italian, and
Cracotan dialect word and commonly used phrases. The book
can be accessed directly from the Society web site by
clicking on the link located on the toolbar located on the
left of each page, or the link below.
www.thecracosociety.org/TripGuide.pdf
Society News
The Craco Society was the
beneficiary of a grant by Azienda di Promozione
Turistica Basilicata (APT Basilicata) for
sponsoring our trip to the region this year. The
grant, for €2,712 ($3,507US) will be added to
the Society’s general fund to support the
ongoing mission to preserve the history, culture
and traditions of Craco and used in part to
underwrite the translation of our publications
into Italian so the Crachesi in both North
America and Europe can share in them. The
Society, with deep appreciation gratefully
acknowledges this support by APT Basilicata.
APT is an excellent resource for those looking
for information on the region. Their web site
provides information about the region and towns
in both English and Italian that include
history, culture, and travel information. Visit
their website at:
www.aptbasilicata.it
Craco
in the News
The
tour guide who took the Society group on the
trip this year sent us the link to the following
article on Italian ghost towns that appeared in
la Repubblica daily newspaper in Rome. Our
beloved Craco is one of nine towns throughout
Italy that are mentioned. The article stated:
Another spot not to miss is Craco,
in Basilicata, the old "Graculum", included in
the list of sites to be safeguarded in the
world, prepared by World Monuments Fund, and
abandoned since 1960, following a landslide. The
village, (no visitors inside as it is forbidden
entry to the danger of dilapidated houses) has a
unique scenic beauty (so many directors, from
Pasolini to Mel Gibson, have found fertile
ground for their film set), populated now only
by a few goats grazing on grass growing in the
cracks of floors. To admire, even from afar, the
remains of the Norman Tower, the only reminder
of the castle, built on a rock, visible from
almost all directions.
Book Notes
 Dr.
Frank Lunati, a Society member was the subject
of a book, "Time Never Heals" written by Eugene
Ligotti.
This is the story of Dr. Lunati,
from 1965-1966 when he was the first battalion
surgeon for the 2/5th 1st Cavalry Division in
Vietnam. Covering his tour of duty, the battles,
the casualties and deaths, along with all his
thoughts and feelings he relives in vivid detail
the Search and Destroy missions, the battles of
Happy Valley, Ia Drang, and Bong Son. Included
in the material is a section about growing up in
Brooklyn during the post WWII era.
It is amazing to consider that
so many Craco Society members are physicians, as
Dr. Lunati, or doctors of letters. There must
have been some-thing in the “stock” of the
people from that small town on a hill that
enabled them to thrive here in a new
environment.
Events this Month in Craco Vecchio
Ottobre
 The yearly cycle of life
in Craco
Vecchio found the agrarian
groups making
their way to
the
fields again to begin
planting fave and ceci beans for the
next season.
They also started to pick olives to
sweeten and preserve them in water.
Water curing was the preferred method
for curing green olives and took about a
month of daily changing of the water the
olives were soaked in until they were no
longer bitter. Peppers, another staple
that could be preserved, were hung to
dry so they could be consumed during the
winter. Some of the peppers will be
dried in ovens to make “scaglia” or the
crushed hot chili pepper flakes that
would be used for cooking or adding to
salami or fresh sausage as a seasoning.
The church calendar in Craco Vecchio
recognized the fourth Sunday in October
as the annual celebration of the Feast
of San Vincenzo Martire one of the
patron saints of the town (San Nicola
Vescovo was the other). This feast
day is a continuous celebration by the
townspeople since 1792 when the body of
San Vincenzo first arrived in Craco.
On the Saturday before the feast day the
processional statue of San Vincenzo
would be carried from St. Peter’s
Convent just outside the town to the
Church of San Nicola (Chiesa Madre) in
the center of Craco.
Then there was a full day agricultural
fair held in the town’s outdoor market
to buy and sell agricultural goods like
peppers, apples, walnuts, celery,
chestnuts, and farm animals.
On the Sunday of the feast day, after a
special Mass at San Nicola there was a
“Processione” for San Vincenzo carrying
the statue of him from Chiesa Madre back
to the convent.
Click
here
to view A Year in Craco.
Events in Craco for every month are listed.
Thank you to Joe Rinaldi in Canada for this
contribution.
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