On July 31, 1937, seventeen-year-old Elmo Melosi, an Italian American from suburban California, boarded the ocean liner Conte di Savoia in New York City for a nine-day voyage to reach an Italian seminary where he would study for the priesthood. Having never ventured beyond the West Coast, he had no idea what was in store for him in soon-to-be war-torn Europe. Elmo’s son Martin, a retired history professor, recounts his father’s youthful Italian experiences from 1937 until his return to the United States in 1941, detailing the hardships of living in the seminary set against the backdrop of a country in the grip of Fascism and inching toward world war. The book relies on Elmo’s diaries, family genealogy and photographs, and secondary sources on the history of modern Italy, the Catholic Church, and the Mussolini era.
Discussion led by Stanislao G. Pugliese, Hofstra University.