FLORIN WEBSITE A WEBSITE ON FLORENCE © JULIA BOLTON HOLLOWAY, AUREO ANELLO ASSOCIAZIONE, 1997-2024: ACADEMIA BESSARION || MEDIEVAL: BRUNETTO LATINO, DANTE ALIGHIERI, SWEET NEW STYLE: BRUNETTO LATINO, DANTE ALIGHIERI, & GEOFFREY CHAUCER || VICTORIAN: WHITE SILENCE: FLORENCE'S 'ENGLISH' CEMETERY || ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING || WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR || FRANCES TROLLOPE || ABOLITION OF SLAVERY || FLORENCE IN SEPIA  || CITY AND BOOK CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII , VIII, IX, X || MEDIATHECA 'FIORETTA MAZZEI' || EDITRICE AUREO ANELLO CATALOGUE || UMILTA WEBSITE ||  LINGUE/LANGUAGES: ITALIANO, ENGLISH || VITA
New: Opere Brunetto Latino || Dante vivo || White Silence



AGRUSTIC SOMNACUNI || ROMANY || CRADLE || LET US PRAISE THE ROM || CHUPPA || MEDIATHECA 'FIORETTA MAZZEI' ||  'ENGLISH' CEMETERY || AUREO ANELLO ||




THE ROMANIAN ROMA RESTORERS


Florence's Swiss-owned so-called 'English' Cemetery has Orthodox as well as Protestant burials. Amongst its Russian tombs in Sector D are the tombs of two Romanian nobles, Joan Kantakezin, descended from the Emperor of Constantinople, and Paul Ventura, a child, both of the slave-owning aristocracy. These tombs were impossible to visit - until Daniel-Claudiu Dumitresch built the terraced path by them. He also identified these tombs for me as Romanian. At the beginning of that path is that of Theodore Parker, the Unitarian who preached eloquently against slavery. Frederick Douglass, the formerly illiterate ex-slave, came from America and visited the tombs of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Theodore Parker to honour them for their work against slavery. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's other heroine in Aurora Leigh, Marian Erle, is Roma. Also buried in our Cemetery are Frances Trollope, who wrote the first anti-slavery novel, and Richard Hildreth, who wrote the second anti-slavery novel. Harriet Beecher Stowe copied both of them to create her Uncle Tom's Cabin. The Roma in Romania were the slaves of the nobles and the monasteries from the Middle Ages until the nineteenth century, when Uncle Tom's Cabin was translated into Romanian.

Our archives document these burials. Our library collects these books.

As were Black slaves in America, the Roma in Romania are kept in illiteracy. They may not legally work unless they have a decent and registered house and the diploma. Lacking work, they cannot afford the materials for their roofs or the payment to the schools for heating and books. They come to Florence, where again they may not work from lacking a legal address, and beg in the streets annoying tourists and citizens. They have no country, no army, no power. They came from India a thousand years ago and speak an Aryan language. Their flag is green for the earth, blue for the sky with a red wagon wheel. They are no longer allowed their traditional caravans. But I have found that they are skilled and excellent craftspeople, both women and men, as blacksmiths, stonemasons, carpenters and gardeners. It will be possible for them to restore the 'English' Cemetery, repairing and cleaning its tombs under expert supervision, and planting and weeding its garden. To teach literacy they are encouraged to explore the books in the Mediatheca, like the intermediate technology shown in the engravings of Diderot's Encylopedie, to marble paper and to hand-bind books, and to use the computer. Daniel-Claudiu Dumitrescu, who has the diploma, is currently writing booklets in four languages, Romanes, Romanian, Italian and English, with his drawings, on how to rebuild roofs, with drainage for storing water and with solar panels for electricity, which are placed on the website, http://www.ringofgold.eu. Daniel has also conserved all the nineteenth-century cast and wrought iron work in the Cemetery and built the shelving for the Cemetery's Swiss archives, many of the library's bookshelves, and two wooden rocking cradles, one for his own new-born daughter, the other for the Cemetery's library, where it mirrors photographs on the walls of Roma families, one of which shows such a rocking cradle with a child asleep in it. I have said on Easter Day on Rai Uno (Italian national television)  that to bring Roma into a library is to bring them into the world of the book, to give them literacy. In this library we teach Roma how to sign their names, so they may become members of our Aureo Anello Associazione, and the alphabet. With that membership it is legal for them to work for us. We have formed a sister association in Romania of which Daniel is President which is called Asociația 'Agrustic Somnacuni' (like 'Aureo Anello' meaning 'Golden Ring') and whose mission is to preserve Roma families and the Romanes language with mutual help in roof building with drainpipes and solar panels and with schooling for adults as well as children.

See White Silence's concluding chapter,

These are the relevant essays on the Ring of Gold website:

          Statut, Asociația 'Agrustic Somnacuni' Rumeno

Alphabet English
Literacy English
Vocabulary, in Romany, Romanian, Italian and English, with drawings by Daniel Dumitrescu

Voice Recording of Romany Vocabulary by Daniel Dumitrescu, Vandana Culea and JBH at Romany.mp3
 
 Doctor Visit, in Romany, Romanian, Italian and English, with drawings by Daniel Dumitrescu

Charles Kemp, Baylor University Medical School Doctors and the Roma English
Alleluia italiano
Hedera's Family The Roma in Europe English
Florence and Gypsies English
How to Raise a Child English
Mother/Child English
I Rom e Firenze italiano

Scapegoat English/ italiano

Roma Apprenticeship  English
Rom apprendistato In italiano
Caro Obama, ti scrivo

Arabesquing the University, Antwerp English

Arabescando l'universitą, Anversa in italiano

Karen Graffeo Now Let Us Praise the Rom English
The Chuppa English
How to Build Cradles and Libraries English
How to Make Romany Boxes English
Daniel-Claudiu Dumitrescu How to Restore Roma Roofs in Romania

Daniel-Claudiu Dumitrescu Panouri Solare/ Solar Panels Rumeno

Rose Lloyds An English Rose English
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Aurora Leigh in mp3 recordings. Go to http://www.florin.ms for complete playlist. English
Frances Alexander The Madonna and the Gypsy English, italiano
Reader's Digest on the 'From Graves to Cradles' Project English

A suggested model for literacy, but from Ethiopia: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7777560.stm English
Marco Filipetti. Rom e l'UE In italiano
Ex-Osmatex, Osmannoro


External Links:
§ http://nigeldickinson.com/gallery/finlandroma

§ http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2000:180:0022:0026:IT:PDF
European Law against racial or ethnic discrimination in access to work, training, medical care, housing. In italiano.

§ http://www.everyonegroup.com/it/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2008/5/26_Cara_Europa._Appello_di_Rebecca_Covaciu_contro_la_persecuzione_dei_Rom_in_Italia.html

Formerly, Baylor University § http://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/gypsy_health.htm
No longer at that web address but available at http://www.ringofgold.eu/charleskemp.html

The Patrin Website that used to be on Geocities is now at http://reocities.com/Paris/5121/

The Stories Exchange Project § http://www.stories-exchange.org Funded by the World Bank, The Stories Exchange Project is an experiment in generating global dialogue about the Romany experience and tensions between the Roma and the white majority worldwide. Visitors to the site are invited to comment on articles and discussions and to share their own stories. Available in English and Cesky, the site offers summaries of workshop discussions, text excerpts from dramatic performances, video clips of the film Stories Exchange Project, as well as poignant passages from interviews of project participants.
Keep Exploring Google, both websites and images

Please send Julia Holloway further links to include here


Elizabeth Barrett Browning's other heroine in Aurora Leigh, Marian Erle, is Roma, who travels from England, to France, to Florence. For the book see Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh and Other Poems (ISBN 0-14-043412-7) from: http://www.penguinclassics.com ;
Their royalties can purchase books and materials for the the Mediatheca 'Fioretta Mazzei' and can help Rom families' house-buying and repairing. For further items, texts and textiles, see Florin and Shop .

Relevant Books in the Mediatheca 'Fioretta Mazzei', Florence's 'English' Cemetery, where we have taught Roma parents to write their names so they will not lose their children

Rom Studies:



Shelved, GIMEL:

Alla perifera del mondo: Il popolo dei rom e dei sinti escluso dalla storia. Ed. Isabella D'Isola, Mauro Sullam, Guido Baldoni, Giulia Baldini, Gabriele Frassanito. Milano: Fondazione Roberto Franceschi, 2003. With CD. Universitą di Firenze, 2003.

Isabel Fonseca. Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey. New York: Random House, 1996. Father Matthew Naumes, 2001.

Gianni Berengo Gardin. La disperata allegria: Vivere da zingari a Firenze. Firenze: Centro Di, 1994. Paola Cecchi, Firenze, 2003.

Jean-Pierre Liégeois. Gypsies: An Illustrated History. Trans. Tony Berrett. London: Al Saqi Books, 1986. Jane and Philip Weller, Hampshire, 2003.

Le strage nazifasciste a Firenze e Provincia: Trasmettere la memoria. Catalogo della mostra fotografica 27 gennaio-10 febbraio 2002, Gallera Via Larga, Via Cavour, 7r, Firenze. Firenze: Amministracione Provinciale di Firenze, Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Toscana, 2002. Michele Gesualdi, Firenze, 2003.

Romano Lil 4 (2001). Roma

William M. Sloane. The Balkans: A Laboratory of History. New York: Eaton and Mains, 1914. Syracuse University, Florence, 2005.

Antonio Tabucchi. Gli Zingari e il Rinascimento: Vivere da Rom a Firenze. Firenze: Feltrinelli, 1999. JBH

Portfolio on Hedera, etc.

Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald. Gypsies of Britain: An Introduction to their History. London: Chapman and Hall, 1946. Jane and Philip Weller, Hampshire, 2003.

Shelved, ALEPH:

Duncan Williamson. Fireside Tales of the Traveller Children. Twelve Scottish Stories. Illustrated, Alan B. Herriot. New York: Harmony Books, 1983. Arizona State University/Mesa Public Library, Tempe, 2004.

Our Mediatheca in Florence will always welcome further materials concerning the Rom
 

And on the Victoria Discussion List the following suggestions were made for leads for research:

The list of material about the Victorian Roma/Gypsies is long, indeed, but it's a rich and fascinating topic.  If you want contemporary accounts, the second half of the century saw the advent of the "Gypsyologists."  You might start with The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society.  It started in 1888, I think.

You might also look at some of the individual C19 Gypsy Scholars/Scholar Gypsies like George Borrow (The Zincali [1841], Lavengro [1851], and The Romany Rye [1857]), Richard Burton (The Jew, The Gypsy, and El Islam [1898]),
Francis Hindes Groome, Charles Godfrey Leland, et al.

For more recent examinations of the "Gypsy Problem" in the century, see David Mayall, Gypsy-Travellers in Nineteenth-Century Society (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) and Gypsy Identities, 1500-2000:  From Egipcyans and Moon-men to the Ethnic Romany (London: Routledge, 2004); George K. Behlmer, "The Gypsy Problem in Victorian England," Victorian Studies 28 (1985): 231-53; Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald, Gypsies of Britain:  An Introduction to Their History (London: Chapman & Hall, 1944); Thomas Acton, Gypsy Politics and Social Change:  The Development of Ethnic Ideology and Pressure Politics among British Gypsies from Victorian Reformism to Romany Nationalism (Boston: Routledge & Paul, 1974).

The book-length studies are quite good and offer longer, more nuanced considerations, but if you want a shorter and quite informative introduction to the subject, the Behlmer article is a fine place to start.

The past 10-15 years have also seen a handful of doctoral dissertations on the subject, including those by Audrey Shields, Michelle Mancini, Mary Burke, and myself.

I don't think it's out yet, but Deborah Nord's Gypsies in the British Imagination, 1807-1930, is listed as forthcoming this year from Columbia UP (I think), and based on an excerpt I heard her read at NAVSA, it promises to be intriguing.

Lance Wilder, Victoria List

And Gipsy Smith, His Life and Work (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1901). was also suggested. While the discussion list went on to mention Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Marian Erle in Aurora Leigh, Robert Browning's Pied Piper, George Eliot and Matthew Arnold.
 





© Nigel Dickinson

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AGRUSTIC SOMNACUNI || ROMANY || CRADLE || LET US PRAISE THE ROM || CHUPPA || MEDIATHECA 'FIORETTA MAZZEI' ||  'ENGLISH' CEMETERY || AUREO ANELLO ||


FLORIN WEBSITE A WEBSITE ON FLORENCE © JULIA BOLTON HOLLOWAY, AUREO ANELLO ASSOCIAZIONE, 1997-2024: ACADEMIA BESSARION || MEDIEVAL: BRUNETTO LATINO, DANTE ALIGHIERI, SWEET NEW STYLE: BRUNETTO LATINO, DANTE ALIGHIERI, & GEOFFREY CHAUCER || VICTORIAN: WHITE SILENCE: FLORENCE'S 'ENGLISH' CEMETERY || ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING || WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR || FRANCES TROLLOPE || ABOLITION OF SLAVERY || FLORENCE IN SEPIA  || CITY AND BOOK CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII , VIII, IX, X || MEDIATHECA 'FIORETTA MAZZEI' || EDITRICE AUREO ANELLO CATALOGUE || UMILTA WEBSITE ||  LINGUE/LANGUAGES: ITALIANO, ENGLISH || VITA
New: Opere Brunetto Latino || Dante vivo || White Silence







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