The Peasants of Abruzzo ( I Contadini d'Abruzzo) by Roberta Scipioni Ball
The Peasants of Abruzzo (I Contadini d’Abruzzo) By Roberta Scipioni Ball SUMMARY: The year is 1910. Fifty years after Italy’s unification. The southern regions remain destitute, the peasants left with nothing. Living in the remote mountains of Abruzzo, Anselmo Scipioni knows he can either risk starvation or emigrate like millions of others. Angela Tortora is a dutiful girl from a nearby village, cursed with a crooked spine and a domineering mother. Anselmo’s brother, Vittorio is an artless shepherd who admires Angela at her labours, unknowingly causing her to fall in love with him. Keenly aware that Angela’s prospects for marriage are poor, her mother seeks the counsel of the village sorceress (strega).Together, they hatch a plan to trap the hapless Vittorio but the plan fails, Vittorio flees and the heartbroken Angela is forced to marry Anselmo, a man whom she does not love. Together, they immigrate to America and settle in a small canal town in western New York. When