I was born and brought up in Italy, in a little village among mountains. In Italy I pursued my education at the Universities of L’Aquila and Chieti, earning a Master's in Italian and Latin Language and Literature and a second Master's in Education.

Before moving to New York I taught for several years Italian and Latin in many Middle Schools and  Licei   ( High Schools ) in Rome and its surroundings.

Besides being a dedicated teacher, I am also a published poet - in Italian, of course. As a poet, I am madly in love with my native language and I feel deeply blessed and grateful for being given the opportunity to pass on la lingua Degli Angeli ( “ Angels’ Language “, as Italian is often referred to ) to children and young people here in New York.

Indeed I consider teaching Italian and writing Italian poetry as two close-knit threads of the one, undivided mission which I have been trying, at my humble best, to carry on for so many years:

handing over the words, as a way to get grownups and children to the vibrantly radiating, exceedingly loving Word that is Christ, Our Lord, and Savior.

“Kids only need to be given the words, “ said once Don Lorenzo Milani, an Italian priest, and teacher who spent his life in a little parish in the Appennini mountains teaching to a handful of poor children of shepherds in what is now worldwide known as la Scuola di Barbiana ( “ Barbiana’s School “ ). Teaching is all about giving the words. But giving the words ( real words - not flatus vocis, mere shells of sounds ) is all about giving beauty - a grain, a trembling vibe of the radiant Beauty of Christ-Word.

In the momentous breaking-in of Transfiguration, when Jesus fully revealed himself on Mount Tabor, “ his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light “.

Christ the Word is first and foremost Beauty. He is la Grande Bellezza ( “ the Great Beauty “ ).

As a teacher (and all the more as a Catholic teacher) I want my students to experience, in the new, puzzling words they meet in Italian class like unknown asteroids, a gleam of this Grande Bellezza - something they’ll never get to through the virtual stream of words endlessly floating over their laptops’ screens, leaving behind not even the fleeting foam left on the water by a sailing boat.

That’s why, for instance, I usually hand-write, on paper stripes, in big-size letters, the words we work on in our classes: my students pass them over to each other looking at, touching, sensing them with their fingers like flowers’ petals ( handwriting slows down the reader so that awareness of the inner beauty of a word can rise up in his heart and head ).

And, most of all, that’s why I make a point, in my classes, of singing the words we are working on (the Italian language is especially favorable to singing: not by chance the Opera was created in Italy ). I usually start my classes by presenting my students with a few lines from the upcoming Sunday Mass Responsorial Psalm or Gospel ( often also with some strophes from the best Italian folk/pop songs ). I sing myself these lines like monks have been used to through the centuries, and encourage my students to sing along ( we are meant to be singing creatures: in heavens, our eternal peace and joy will be singing Holy Trinity’s praises).

So hands-in and singing are, to say so, the firm cornerstones which my Italian classes are grounded upon.