Italian Language School AMICI: History

In 2008 A.M.I.C.I. celebrates its 20th anniversary! It was founded in October 1988 by a group of volunteers, whose purpose was to teach the Italian language and to spread the Italian culture in the Cincinnati area. The courses of Italian started soon after at the Sacred Heart Church in Camp Washington where three small groups of students met weekly with Italian native teachers. One year later the school was named A.M.I.C.I. which stands for Alessandro Manzoni Istituto Culturale Italiano. In Italian this word means ‘friends’ and underlines the friendly atmosphere of this school (Alessandro Manzoni is one of the main writers in Italian literature). Since then, enrollments have increased and A.M.I.C.I. has offered more classes. We have also carried on some cultural activities. In November 1990 the Institute represented Italy at the International Folk Festival in Cincinnati and, among 35 participating countries, won the first prize for “The Best Booth", decorated in the Venetian Carnival style. In September 1991 the Institute received accreditation from the Italian government and began extensive programs in Italian, becoming more and more popular. In September 1992 A.M.I.C.I. moved to St. Ursula Academy in Walnut Hill, where it remained for over five years. From January 1998 to May 2005 AMICI was located at the Cincinnati Junior Academy in Clifton. Since September 2005 the school has been located on the 5th floor of the Rookwood Tower in Norwood, on 3805 Edwards Road. It features many spacious rooms with new furniture, air conditioning and a multimedia center for presentations and movies.

Today A.M.I.C.I. is a remarkable School of Language, the only one in Greater Cincinnati recognized by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome. The school, whose experienced teachers are all graduated and native Italians, offers four different courses: basic beginning, advanced beginning, intermediate, advanced conversation . Classes are offered on Wednesday, 6:30-8:30pm, in three quarters (Fall, Winter and Spring) of 10 weeks.

The Institute also gives a cultural touch to the courses looking at various aspects of Italian lifestyles. A.M.I.C.I. also provides, upon request, information regarding schools of Italian language, culture and art in Italy for an educational and enjoyable vacation.

Who is Alessandro Manzoni?

Alessandro Manzoni was born in Milan in 1785. His father, Pietro Manzoni, was a rich landowner from Lecco, and his mother, Giulia Beccaria, was a daughter of the famous jurist Cesare Beccaria (author of an important treatise on crime and punishment, against the death penalty). Though he attended various catholic schools, his early works were characterized by a strong anticlerical theme and total support for democratic and Jacobean ideals. In fact he spent his youth among earthly joys. At the age of twenty, he reached his mother in Paris, France, where she had moved after her separation from her husband. Manzoni lived in Paris during the Napoleon’s empire, and there he met some of the greatest philosophers of that period, who influenced his choice about faith versus atheism. He lived there until 1810, when, for family reasons tied to his inheritance, he returned to Italy and married Enrichetta Blondel, first with Calvinist rites and then with a catholic ceremony, after they both had converted to Catholicism in 1810. This conversion was the turning point in Manzoni’s life. He had a particular idea of faith, considering predestination and total submission of the single to the Divine Providence the fundamentals of his religious believes. Thanks to his deep faith, he managed to accept, during his tormented life, the lost of two wives, as well as six children.

His most productive period as a writer was between 1812 and 1815 when he started writing Inni Sacri that he finished in 1822 with the final piece, La Pentecoste. Between 1820 e 1822 he finished two tragedies, Il Conte di Carmagnola and l’Adelchi. In his theoretical writings of these years, he developed ideas which would later reappear in his masterpiece: I Promessi Sposi (1821-1842). With this work he became the father of Italian Romanticism. After 1842 he devoted his time almost exclusively to literary theory essays.

Alessandro Manzoni was also appreciated for his civil commitment during the occupation of Milan by the Austrian Empire. Convinced that everybody had the right of freedom, he refused the honors and the visit of Archduke Maximilian, and in 1848 sends his children to fight the Austrians on the barricades, during the insurrection in Milan.

After being recognized as one of the major writers of the century, he was nominated senator of the new Italian Kingdom in 1861 and was assigned the presidency of the commission for the unification of the Italian language. He died in 1873 after having received his Roman citizenship in recognition of his work for Italian political unification.

The Italian language and its dialects

The Italian language has existed far longer than Italy that was unified under one nation and flag in 1870. Before then, the Italian peninsula consisted of several separate states, ruled by local governments or foreign powers, such as Austria and Spain, who insisted on the use of their own languages. Only after the fight for Italian independence was won in 1870, did a single Italian state came into being and established its capital in Rome, where the Catholic Church had kept the official residence for centuries. Therefore for the first time Italy had a common official language: Italiano.

Italian was originally a dialect spoken in the city of Florence and its surrounding region of Tuscany. This dialect had stemmed from Latin, the language of the ancient Romans. As the authority of the Romans fragmented, their language, Latin, also broke apart and formed, during the following centuries, several national European idioms, now known as “romance languages”, including Italian, French, Spanish and Romanian. Numerous linguistic varieties, or dialects, took form within the Italian peninsula. Among all, the dialect of Tuscany was assured linguistic supremacy by the political importance of its principal city, Florence, and by the authority of the thirteen-century Tuscan writers Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio. Each of these authors wrote works of major literary significance in their native Tuscan dialects, which became recognized as the official idiom. Therefore the Italian language originated seven hundred years ago, that is six centuries before the birth of the Italian nation. For a long time, however, Italian remained an exclusively literary mode of expression, used only by educated people. The different dialects continued to be spoken by the majority of the people (called volgo, which indicated the lower class). This was favored also by the historical and political fragmentation of the Italian peninsula, that remained divided into many separate city-states until the second half of the 19th century.

Today Italy has achieved linguistic unity and the large majority of its 57 million inhabitants speaks good Italian. The dialects remain still alive and in many regions are still used at home, especially by the old generation. Actually some dialects are very popular and have their own literature, so that they are almost considered regular languages, such as Venetian and Neapolitan. Indeed most Italians may be considered bilingual because, in addition to speaking Italian, they also speak the dialect of their own region.

Please feel free to send us an email to italian@schoolamici.com if you have any questions or concerns.

SCHOOL AMICI - P.O. BOX 23337 - CINCINNATI, OHIO 45223 - PH: (513)-681-0224