May 24, 2024 10:19 am
The cultural association “Calabria Prima Italia”, founded in 1982 by Domenico Lanciano of Badolato “argues that our region urgently needs to implement a more decisive “identity toponymy”. This means naming streets, squares, buildings and anything else (even school classrooms) after characters, historical events or symbols (such as the Papasidero ox or the toro d Badolato) who contributed to making Calabria that “phenomenon of world history” highlighted already in 1939 by the American writer Gertrude Slaughter in the book “Calabria la prima Italia” which, published in Italian last November 2023 by Giuseppe Meligrana of Tropea with the translation of Sara Cervadoro, it is already in its second edition and is being presented in various cities”.
Domenico Lanciano asserts that “the ancient and founding historical value of Calabria is ignored by almost all Italians, in particular by the Calabrians themselves, while instead it should not only be well known but also and above all valorised to the maximum, also to obtain better awareness, greater pride and historical and anthropological dignity… all aspects that concretely translate, among much else, into productive activities, more tourism and international consideration!”
“All this can be achieved if Calabrian culture – we read – especially through the press and schools, helps public opinion to get at least an idea of how and to what extent the people who inhabited the territory of present-day Calabria since Neolithic (at least 3500 years ago) was so perceptive that he even invented “ethical democracy” with King Italo, from whom the name Italy derives, one of the oldest and most glorious in the world. Therefore, every municipality in Calabria should have something named after it to this Italian King who was the founder of the political “first Italy” already as a “notion” and “Nation”… which was fully recognized by the Roman emperors themselves, who extended the name Italy to the Alps and then to Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica alone understand that if this name Italy (born in Calabria around 1500 BC between the gulfs of Squillace and Lamezia) had not been so important, it certainly would not have had such universal consideration and our Peninsula would perhaps have been called Romania or Augustea or with another name that exalted the power of Rome. Instead, Calabria was the “Mother of Italy” as claimed, in various ways, by ancient and current historians, philosophers and writers”.
“It is, therefore, a civil, moral and social pedagogical obligation for all Italian (and Calabrian in particular) institutions to make known the authenticity of these basic historical facts, also through identity toponymy, naming everything that is possible after King Italo, to “Calabria Prima Italia” and to those characters who have made this land so important for the civilization of mankind, especially of the West, is already present in the precious work of Slaughter and in many other past and contemporary writers. Domenico Lanciano hopes that a socio-cultural mobilization will take place around King Italo and the First Italy, while he thanks Vincenzo Serrao (formerly Director of Demographic Services of the Municipality of Badolato) who, on 28 January 2024, wrote to the mayor Giuseppe Nicola Parretta to urge him to dedicate the now obsolete and improper names of Corso Vittorio Emanuele III and Corso Umberto I of the ancient village to King Italo and Calabria Prima Italia”, concludes the note.
