Dr Guido Nicosia - Italian
Ambassador to New Zealand
Speech as presented at Sciascia-McGregor Reunion 1990
It is with great pleasure that I have accepted this invitation, initially
from the Mayor of Levin, Mr Sciascia, and then formally extended by the
chairman, Mr Kereama, to take part in this reunion of the Sciascia - McGregor
family.
There are three reasons why I am glad to be here to address you:
#1: the importance of the name Sciascia (that is the correct Italian
pronunciation) being also the name of one of the most renowned Italian
novelists, living today, Leonardo Sciascia;
#2: a fascination for the short but remarkable life of your grandfather,
great-grandfather and great-great grandfather, Nicola Sciascia, a seaman and
traveller who came to New Zealand when he was about thirty and established here
the Sciascia - McGregor family which today exceeds more than 2000 persons; [Ed:
now more than 4,000]
#3: the land of origin of this man - the noble city of Trani in the ancient
region of Puglia, a crossroad of civilization for twenty Gentries.
Therefore, allow me to say a few words about these three points; the name, the
man, and the place.
The name Sciascia is probably of Sicilian origin and indeed today is widespread
mainly in Sicily. Sciascia is an example of one of the many Christian names
that, with the passing of time, evolved into a surname, such as John to Jones
and Peter to Peters in the English language. Indeed Sciascia is a Modified
familial for the name Rosario, which in the Hispanic world is used as a feminine
form while in Sicily it is a masculine form. Rosario leans both a rose-garden
and the rosary - the chain of prayers invented by St. Dominic. Since my first
name is Rosario I could be called Sciascia in Sicily, but I am better known by
Guido, my second name. As I mentioned earlier, Sciascia is the family name of
perhaps the most important Italian Author living today and undoubtedly is the
most important of this century, The novels of Leonardo Sciascia are strongly
characterised by strong social and historical content. He was one of the first
to denounce and fight the sad phenomenon of the Mafia which Mussolini almost
endeavored to stamp out, but which, aided by the American Mafia, resurged after
the war. Almost all Sciascia’s novels have been translated into the main
languages and many have been dramatised in film.
And now about the man himself. This first documented information we have of
Nicola is a letter written in 1874. Italy had been united for only four years
after the fall of the Pope's temporal power and with it the transfer of the
capital from Florence to Rome. The 20th September 1870 marked the happy ending
of a long dream begun almost 1000 years before when Italians began to realise,
during the darkest centuries of the Middle Ages that the Roman Empire had really
come to an end and so they started dreaming of the day when they would be
unified once again. That day came and with the unification of Italy the dream
ended, and Italians had to face the harsh reality. The elimination of barrier
tariffs between the different states, into which the Peninsula had been divided,
created new economic problems. Some regions became richer, others poorer. The
southern areas were the ones that suffered the most. The only solution was to be
found in migration and so began a great and continuous flow of people that in
forty years until the First World War brought 5 million Italians to all parts of
the world. But perhaps the reasons that induced Nicola to emigrate were not only
of an economical nature. A great role was no doubt played that young man's
spirit of adventure and curiosity. Nicola left his hometown in his early
twenties when he started his life as a seaman. From his brother's letters we
understand that he went to London, at the time the most important city in the
world. He also sailed to Fiume, today known as Rijeka, a very important part of
the Austrian Empire, where for awhile a branch of the Sciascia family settled;
he went to Marseilles, one of the most important centres of France under
Napoleon the third. Nicola was born on the 13 April 1840, a few weeks after the
Treaty of Waitangi and 15,000 miles away. He was born into a respectable though
not very affluent family, navigation being the main occupation of their men.
In a letter dating back to 1874 his brother Bartolomeo writes, "Our family has
never been ashamed of itself -on the contrary, it is every inch praised and
respected in Trani". They were people with a good education, in the family
everyone could write, and the letters of his brothers and sisters, Bartolomeo,
Margherita, Raffaella and even his small nephew, Carlo are written in good
Italian and elegant handwriting, a remarkable achievement at a time when only a
minority could write and dialects were in any case more popular than the main
language.
Nicola's brother, Bartolomeo began his seafaring career as a simple sailor, but
soon he wrote with pride of his appointment to second-mate and later becoming
captain until he left the sea for a more comfortable job with the railways,
which in those years had begun to replace shipping as the Peninsula's means of
communication and transportation.
Nicola most probably started corresponding with his family in 1873, perhaps
after a silence of ten years or so, but unfortunately we do not have his
letters. In 1868, Bartolomeo came across people from Fiume who had seen his
brother years earlier, in 1865 in London, on board an American ship. From this
we gather that Nicola could have arrived in New Zealand between 1865 and 1870,
still a young man, even considering that in those days life expectancy was not
very high. In this young country of New Zealand Nicola spent about thirty years
of his life. We know little of his early years here, his brothers and sisters
letters were always full of questions but Nicola seemed reluctant to answer
then, but more is known of his later years after his marriage. At 42 Nicola felt
that it was time to settle down and he married the eldest daughter of Teone and
Pirihira McGregor in Foxton, He worked as a lighthouse keeper until he was
attacked and fatally injured by a bull on the 29th of March 1898 on Portland
Island, where his grave still stands. In a fortnight’s time, Nicola would have
turned 150.
And now a few words about Trani, town of the Sciascia family. Trani was a
fishing village situated on the east coast of Puglia, facing Greece and known in
the 3rd century A.D. by the roman name of Turenum. Situated in a region that for
twenty centuries was the crossroad of trade between North and South, East and
West, Trani quickly became a most important trading centre. After the fall of
the roman empire in the seventh century Trani was a city much coveted by the
Byzantines for Constantinople, by the barbarian Goths whose capital vas Ravenna
and by the Longobards from Pavia. It resisted against the Arabs only to fall
into the hands of the Normans at the beginning of the new millennium and later
on passed to the Swabian. Under Emperor Frederick the II's rule, who also built
a castle there, Trani became a very important trading centre and for a short
while competed even with Venice and enjoyed considerable autonomy of government.
During the 15th century when Trani was regarded as the most important
South-Adriatic city it was contested for by the French Angeons and the Spanish
Aragoneses, after which for a short while towards the end of the 15th century it
fell under Venetian rule and became an important centre of juridical studies. It
was later absorbed by the Kingdom of Naples until Napoleon the first conquered
it at the end of the 18th century. In 1815 it fell again under the domain of the
Bourbon family, the rulers of Naples where it stayed until 1860 when all of
southern Italy was assimilated into the kingdom of Italy. Presently Trani is
renowned as an important wine trading centre of Puglia. The glory and excellence
of Trani, and its 18 centuries of history find its best expression in the
cathedral, one of southern Italy's most impressive monuments. It actually
comprises three churches, built one on top of the other. The result is a tall
and spectacular cathedral built in the so-called Norman-Romanesque style,
standing above a Byzantium temple and underneath, a tiny Roman catacomb. The
building of the higher church dedicated to Saint Nicolas, the Pilgrim began in
1094, 900 years ago, the same year that the pilgrim saint died. It was paid for
by "aere minitus", which in Latin means by small, private contributions,
according to medieval custom when churches were built by generation and
generation of believers, each person contributing either with pieces of stone or
with their labour and savings.
It is my wish, that one day you will be able to see this monument in whose
shadow Nicola Sciascia was born almost 150 years ago. With this I ask you all to
raise your glasses and drink in a toast to.
Dr Guido Nicosia - Italian Ambassador to New Zealand 1990
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