If ever it comes to pass, that an American university or college develops a Patria Meridionale curriculum, dedicated to educating the near 17 million Americans of southern-Italian descent about their mighty history and culture, then no doubt Guy de Maupassant's "Sicily" will be required reading. It will probably come as a shocking heretical statement to the philo-Florence /Chicago literati who own and operate America's Italian Studies programs, that an artistic genius such as Maupassant thought "Sicily an indispensable land to see and one unique in the world ... a divine museum of architecture” – that is, a UNIQUELY SICILIAN ARCHITECTURE! He writes: “When we have seen all these monuments that - although belong to different periods and types - have the SAME CHARACTER the SAME NATURE, we can say that they are neither Gothic, nor Arab, nor Byzantine, but SICILIAN. We can affirm that there exists a Sicilian art and a Sicilian style...THE MOST IMAGINATIVE OF ALL ARCHITECTUAL STYLES.” (emp. +) ---- 'But Of Course'; a Sicilian architecture ignored by the Italian Studies’ Chairs of Wisdom; and by ignoring, thereby insulting American Terroni who are heirs to that great artistic tradition. SUNY Stony Brook's “Manifesto of Italian Studies”, albeit eloquent, is factual inaccurate. The FACT is impeccably documented in the catalogue curriculum and course descriptions from Long Island to Los Angeles; from Ivy League to Community Colleges – American Terroni history and culture is STILL: “In the BASEMENT”! (e.g. see conclusion of “John Domini...” #1 in related articles box)
