Taurasi

Taurasi is both a pleasant small town in Campania and an increasingly renowned wine.

This is what the local Mountain Community's brochure says about the town:

Taurasi, a centre of intensive wine production, is located on a hill. There are two main entrances: Porta Maggiore in the West and Porta dell'Angelo in the East. There is a third smaller entrance in the South: Porta Piccola, which was built next to a Langobard tower. The monumental baronial palace (Palazzo Baronale), which was extended during the Norman and Anjouian epoch, is next to the collegiate church San Marciano (Collegiata di San Marciano) which was probably built on the remains of a temple of the goddess Ceres. The church Santissimo Rosario keeps important paintings from the XVIII century. Of special interest is the Church Immacolata, built in 1729, where the relics of martyr Saint Benigno are kept.

If you wish to read more both about the town and the wine:

• Taurasi's entry on Wikipedia
• The City's website (in Italian)
• About the local wines

An "Italian" signed the American Declaration of Independence

A few days ago I twittered that "an Italian was the first to sign the United States Declaration of Independence". Such post raised a lot of interest and also some discussion about the real Italian heritage of Caesar Rodney. Obviously, Twitter with its 140 characters limitation calls for synthesis. It would have been more correct to define Caesar Rodney "of Italian descent" from his grandmother's side. She came from the Adelmare family in Treviso. They emigrated to England and then to America.

A quick research on the Internet let you find many posts claiming Caesar Rodney as Italian and many working hard to demonstrate that such origins are very diluted and unconsequential. With some surprise I found even a very racist blog against Italians disguised as a "scientific" genealogy website. I will not give its link because such people don't deserve publicity.

Would have Caesar Rodney declared himself "Italian" to the US Census today? I don't know. Probably not. But I think that his Italian blood is a small curious fact well worth a smile for anybody living in Italy and not much more. For sure, not zealot fights to demonstrate delusional racial supremacies.

As a side note: Rodney may not have been the only "Italian" to sign the Declaration of Independence. There is also William Paca, who was an important general during the Revolutionary War and later Governor of Maryland. His Italian origins are suggested just from his surname and are not sure, but his descendants were persuaded that they were true.