Northern Italian City Research Articles

Is menopausal hormone therapy still a modern social issue? Women's experience in a northern Italian city.

Is menopausal hormone therapy still a modern social issue? Women's experience in a northern Italian city.

Body in the forefront, again? Distance learning drawbacks and implications for policy

The COVID-19 pandemic launched a challenge on the education system and required schools to make organizational changes in order to continue serving the local community. Essential to this process are support teachers who play a key role as agents of change. Despite their role, the perspectives, desires, and needs of these teachers have since been neglected, despite their centrality in contemporary Italy. Accordingly, the specific aim of this study revolves around supporting teachers’ experiences with digital technologies (i.e., learning applications, telecommunication media, and interactive devices) within a pandemic context, especially technologies used to maintain the educational bond with students with disabilities. Attuned to an interpretative paradigm, this qualitative research has an ethnographic design, which was implemented in a secondary school in a Northern Italian city. Throughout the article, we discuss the three main drawbacks found in fieldwork: (i) the prevailing change in bureaucratic management; (ii) the pervading mind–body binarism in teaching; and (iii) a long-term vision for inclusion being subject to a passive logic of adaptation. Finally, we reflect on some emerging implications. The first points to a necessary move from a rationalistic school management to an alternative model focused more on guaranteeing social justice among educational stakeholders. The second is that the very introduction of a new technology should be aimed at engaging actors whose work has been invisible to date in a school setting to empower them as key agents for change. The third suggests that, to overcome community disaggregation and mind-body binarism, a teacher-researcher figure is needed, a figure with holistic skills in addition to those of a technical nature delivered by institutional training programs.

FOOD TALK AS AGING TALK: LISTENING TO OLDER ITALIANS

Abstract An extensive literature in gerontology examines older adults’ diets and their effects on health and longevity. Much less research examines how food, including experiences of its scarcity and plentitude across the life course, shape older adults’ constructions of their own aging. Our study addressed this topic using semi-structured interviews conducted in a mid-sized northern Italian city in 2018-2019 (n=28) and 2022 (n=23). Analyses revealed that participants used vivid references to food – a topic that was not the focus of any interview questions – to illustrate their experiences of aging. Participants’ food talk referenced different tenses of time, including durable food memories from the distant past and more ephemeral food activities and concerns of the present. Participants also referred to food when making different comparisons that shaped assessments of their own aging experiences, including comparisons with older family members in the past and age peers in the present. Food figured into participants’ discussions of aging in four ways: food as anchors for childhood memories, intergenerational comparisons of food’s plentitude versus scarcity in later life, food choices to support aging well, and food sharing to sustain social relationships. Our study illustrates the use of food a lens for understanding individuals’ aging experiences, as embedded in historical times that give them meaning.

SOCIALLY ACTIVE OR ISOLATED? OLDER COMMUNITY-DWELLING ITALIANS’ EXPERIENCES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract Media coverage of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic emphasized their experiences of social isolation – a risk that pre-dated the pandemic but was magnified by it. A focus on older adults’ pandemic-induced isolation also is evident in gerontological research. This depiction, however, may not capture the complexity of older adults’ experiences during the pandemic. Our study examined this topic using semi-structured interviews that were conducted with participants in a senior center in a mid-sized northern Italian city in May 2022 (n=23). Our analysis revealed that the pandemic had some negative effects on older adults’ social relationships; however, it also identified strategies that older adults used to maintain and even enhance their connections with others. Participants described reduced in-person interaction with family and friends, stemming from less daily interaction and the cancellation of family gatherings. They compensated for these losses, to some degree, with regular phone and video calls. Participants also described permanently strained relationships with family members and friends, often the result of differing views of COVID-19 vaccines. The pandemic’s challenges, however, enhanced other social relationships through exchanges of moral and practical support. In contrast with the frequent depiction of older adults’ isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, our data reveal strategies that allowed them to remain socially engaged and active in their communities.

Long-term residential exposure to air pollution and risk of chronic respiratory diseases in Italy: The BIGEPI study

Long-term exposure to air pollution has adverse respiratory health effects. We investigated the cross-sectional relationship between residential exposure to air pollutants and the risk of suffering from chronic respiratory diseases in some Italian cities.In the BIGEPI project, we harmonised questionnaire data from two population-based studies conducted in 2007–2014. By combining self-reported diagnoses, symptoms and medication use, we identified cases of rhinitis (n = 965), asthma (n = 328), chronic bronchitis/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (CB/COPD, n = 469), and controls (n = 2380) belonging to 13 cohorts from 8 Italian cities (Pavia, Turin, Verona, Terni, Pisa, Ancona, Palermo, Sassari). We derived mean residential concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and summer ozone (O3) for the period 2013–2015 using spatiotemporal models at a 1 km resolution. We fitted logistic regression models with controls as reference category, a random-intercept for cohort, and adjusting for sex, age, education, BMI, smoking, and climate.Mean ± SD exposures were 28.7 ± 6.0 μg/m3 (PM10), 20.1 ± 5.6 μg/m3 (PM2.5), 27.2 ± 9.7 μg/m3 (NO2), and 70.8 ± 4.2 μg/m3 (summer O3). The concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, and NO2 were higher in Northern Italian cities. We found associations between PM exposure and rhinitis (PM10: OR 1.62, 95%CI: 1.19–2.20 and PM2.5: OR 1.80, 95%CI: 1.16–2.81, per 10 μg/m3) and between NO2 exposure and CB/COPD (OR 1.22, 95%CI: 1.07–1.38 per 10 μg/m3), whereas asthma was not related to environmental exposures. Results remained consistent using different adjustment sets, including bi-pollutant models, and after excluding subjects who had changed residential address in the last 5 years.We found novel evidence of association between long-term PM exposure and increased risk of rhinitis, the chronic respiratory disease with the highest prevalence in the general population. Exposure to NO2, a pollutant characterised by strong oxidative properties, seems to affect mainly CB/COPD.

The Renaissance in Italy: A History

The Renaissance in Italy: A History

Environmental and socioeconomic determinants of neonatal mortality in a northern Italian city in the early nineteenth century

The research explores the effects of the environment on neonatal mortality in the early nineteenth century, controlling for social and economic factors. Individual data, relative to the resident population of Udine, a city in northeastern Italy, under French domination (1806–1815) have been used. The information collected regards births and deaths within the first month of life and is taken from the Napoleonic civil registers. The spatial distribution of some data within the urban area, heating in the houses where children were born or died, and a time series of temperature levels and corn prices are taken into account. The methodological approach adopted is based on logistic regression models and discrete-time event history analysis. The results point to excess winter neonatal mortality. Neonatal mortality was higher in peripheral areas of the city and in heated houses. A positive relationship between mortality and lower temperatures and corn prices has been found. As to socioeconomic status, peasant families and those of the upper class showed, respectively, the lowest and the highest mortality levels. This was arguably the result of the adoption of different breastfeeding practices.

Calderón más allá de España: Traslados y transferencias culturales ed. by Hanno Ehrlicher and Christian Grünnagel

Reviewed by: Calderón más allá de España: Traslados y transferencias culturales ed. by Hanno Ehrlicher and Christian Grünnagel Philip Allen Ehrlicher, Hanno and Christian Grünnagel, eds.. Calderón más allá de España: Traslados y transferencias culturales. Reichenberger, 2020. 474 pp. ISBN: 978-3-967280-09-8. The articles that have been compiled in the present collection come to us as the result of the eighteenth Coloquio Anglogermano sobre Calderón celebrated in 2017 in the northern Italian cities of Vercelli and Turin. Following a tradition of academic gatherings that dates back over half a century, an international team of 22 Calderón scholars has joined forces to provide us with this intriguing volume on the Spanish playwright's works across a wide array of literary and cultural traditions and time [End Page 164] periods. Calderón más allá de España considers the textual transmission, performance history, recreations, adaptations, and enduring philosophical and literary influences of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's bibliography beyond Spanish territory, examining its presence in countries like Austria, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In addition to transcending these political and linguistic boundaries, this compilation also offers a comprehensive overview of the titular author's presence in a variety of media and literary movements spanning the centuries since his death in 1681. Following a brief prologue from the collection's editors that delves into the origins of the colloquium and provides a brief explanation of the selection of topics included, we begin our journey back in the seventeenth century when Calderon's works first left Spanish shores and landed in Italy, where they were performed, rewritten, reworked, and adapted for new audiences. In the volume's first article, Fausta Antonucci compiles, systematizes, and analyzes an abundance of data on Calderón's presence in Italy over the course of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. The conclusions drawn from this examination shed light on the author's lingering reception throughout this time of sociopolitical and literary transition from early modern to modern sympathies. The article goes on to explain that he was widely considered a "príncipe del drama y de la tragedia," surpassing even the esteem of his rival Lope de Vega on the Italian Peninsula (16). Andrea Baldissera provides readers with complementary data to Antonucci's findings by examining the textual transmission of an Italian translation of Calderón's semi-opera El hijo del sol, Faetón. The study offers a side-by-side close reading of the source text and translation in order to draw fascinating conclusions about how both the original author and the translator were able to customize the texts to accommodate local tastes and sensitivities. A similar—though no less fascinating and meticulous—consideration of a Dutch translation of La dama duende is provided by Robert Folger in the volume's subsequent contribution. The compilation continues with three articles that provide innovative studies of the television adaptations, first English translations, and rewritings of Calderón's dramas in their native Spain, England, and Italy, which offer invaluable insight into the malleability of the works that allow them to be tailored to audiences' tastes and sociocultural sensitivities across different linguistic, political, and audiovisual landscapes. Once the thematic versatility of Calderón's texts has been established by these articles, the volume transitions to demonstrations of how this literary flexibility permitted varying performative interpretations of some of the author's most emblematic pieces. Françoise Gilbert offers a thorough and eye-opening analysis of how Darlo todo y no dar nada was originally performed in 1651 and how this performance, along with printed translations of the source text opened foreign—non-Spanish-speaking—audiences to the luxury and "ostentación del poder de la monarquía" (165). Agustín Gómez and Nekane Parejo continue this examination of the adaptability of Calderón's texts for a broad audience in their contribution on the four film adaptations of El alcalde de Zalamea. Their study paves the way for an in-depth exploration of Calderón's texts in Venetian and Mexican operas and a thought-provoking reflection on the...

Long-Term Techno-Economic Performance Monitoring to Promote Built Environment Decarbonisation and Digital Transformation—A Case Study

Buildings’ long-term techno-economic performance monitoring is critical for benchmarking in order to reduce costs and environmental impact while providing adequate services. Reliable building stock performance data provide a fundamental knowledge foundation for evidence-based energy efficiency interventions and decarbonisation strategies. Simply put, an adequate understanding of building performance is required to reduce energy consumption, as well as associated costs and emissions. In this framework, Variable-base degree-days-based methods have been widely used for weather normalisation of energy statistics and energy monitoring for Measurement and Verification (M & V) purposes. The base temperature used to calculate degree-days is determined by building thermal characteristics, operation strategies, and occupant behaviour, and thus varies from building to building. In this paper, we develop a variable-base degrees days regression model, typically used for energy monitoring and M & V, using a “proxy” variable, the cost of energy services. The study’s goal is to assess the applicability of this type of model as a screening tool to analyse the impact of efficiency measures, as well as to understand the evolution of performance over time, and we test it on nine public schools in the Northern Italian city of Seregno. While not as accurate as M & V techniques, this regression-based approach can be a low-cost tool for tracking performance over time using cost data typically available in digital format and can work reasonably well with limited resolution, such as monthly data. The modelling methodology is simple, scalable and can be automated further, contributing to long-term techno-economic performance monitoring of building stock in the context of incremental built environment digitalization.

Lead-Glazed Pottery at Late Medieval Corinth: Assessing Craft Production and Trade at a Greek City under Western Influence

We present a multimethod analysis of 97 lead-glazed tablewares from the so-called Frankish Area at Corinth, at the time of the transition from Frankish feudalism to an administration by powerful Florentine bankers, then the Despotate of the Morea in the late 13th to early 15th century a.d. This sector of the medieval city appears to have been continuously occupied after the Catalan raid of 1312. The results shed new light on the late years of the Corinthian Sgraffito ware industry, and on the role of northern Italian trading cities and their possessions overseas as production and distribution centers of lead-glazed pottery, including imitations of Zeuxippus and other Byzantine wares using specific glaze recipes and pigments.

A Convert's Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy by Tamar Herzig (review)

Reviewed by: A Convert's Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy by Tamar Herzig Andrew Berns Tamar Herzig. A Convert's Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019. 400 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009421000222 A Convert's Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy tells the story of a Jewish convert to Christianity in fifteenth-century Italy. Based on thorough archival research in several northern Italian cities, Herzig combines narrative history with some historiographical engagement. The book will stand as an example of microhistory—Herzig explicitly acknowledges the influence of Thomas Robisheaux—and an appealing study of a colorful character from Renaissance Italy. The heart of Herzig's book is her story of the life of Salomone da Sesso, a Jew who converted to Christianity in 1491 and was patronized by the Este family in Ferrara. One of the better-known Jewish artists of the Renaissance, Salomone da Sesso was a successful goldsmith and swordsmith. Although specialists have long known this, the general reader might not be aware that goldsmithing was one of the major professional and creative outlets for Jewish artists at this time. Painting, sculpture, and manuscript illumination all presented unique challenges to the Jewish practitioner, since they were perceived by the Jewish religious leadership as encouraging the violation of biblical proscriptions against creating idolatrous images (18). As Herzig explains, da Sesso's conversion did not result from a genuine desire to apostatize, nor even to pursue economic advantage or social status. Instead, his conversion was coerced following an allegation of sodomy. If convicted, Salomone da Sesso would have faced execution by fire. As we know all too well from Michael Rocke's work, accusations and prosecution of homosexual activity as a crime was shockingly common in Renaissance Florence—and apparently no less so in the Duchy of Ferrara. Such allegations were especially frequent among goldsmiths (61). Following his conversion, Salomone was exonerated and took the name Ercole de' Fedeli, enjoying the protection and patronage of several members of the Este family—including Alfonso I and Isabella d'Este. Ercole de' Fedeli lived, so far as we can tell, as a practicing Christian for thirty years. Herzig's book is divided into four parts and twenty chapters, most of which are quite short. This brevity contributes to the book's overall readability. Part 1, "The Virtuoso Jew," sketches the life story of Salomone da Sesso. Part 2, "Apostasy," explores the circumstances surrounding his conversion—including his alleged homosexual activity. Part 3, "A Family of Converts," expands the story beyond Salomone himself to his daughter Caterina, who not only converted to Christianity, but also entered the tertiaries' house of Santa Caterina da Siena and took the monastic name Sister Theodora. Part 4, "Between Christians and Jews," explores Ercole's fate, and that of his family members, into the early sixteenth century. In terms of her historiographical intervention, Herzig argues that forced conversion complicates the "traditional historiographical view that stresses the Ferrarese rulers' benevolent Jewry policy" (2). Herzig also understands this conversion story as reflecting "the discriminatory and repressive dimensions of Jewish-Christian [End Page 455] relations in Renaissance Italy" (244). No serious scholar would doubt this: it is commonplace even among historians who emphasize creative collaborations and intellectual cooperation between Jews and Christians that those episodes were exceptional, and were underlaid by a social, economic, and juridical structure that treated Jews as inherently inferior. But Herzig adds a certain level of nuance to her work when she notes that her book "cautions against seeing members of the persecuted minority solely as passive victims" (244). Indeed, as Herzig demonstrates, Salomone da Sesso / Ercole de' Fedeli had plenty of agency throughout his life. There are other strengths to this book. Herzig is sensitive to the importance of social class—and not merely religious identity—in Renaissance Italy. She is perhaps at her best in disclosing "the chasm separating religious ideology from the social realities experienced by Italian Jews who consented to baptism" (10). Her training and experience as a social historian are also on display through this work: she is good at illuminating how occupational and social structures...

Political Image Making in Portraits of Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua

AbstractIsabella d'Este (1474–1539), marchioness of the northern Italian city state of Mantua, commissioned portraits of herself from some of the foremost painters of her day, including Titian and Leonardo da Vinci. These works have mostly been analysed through the prism of artistic connoisseurship and Isabella's motivations for commissioning them have been seen in gendered terms as idiosyncratic and trivial. This article explores the ways in which Isabella deployed portraiture as a political tool and investigates how she integrated this avenue of self‐fashioning with other forms of identity branding to underpin her reputation as a woman capable of exercising authority and deserving of respect for her administrative and diplomatic skills. By analysing the trajectory of Isabella's portrait commissions in the context of her changing levels of political influence, and by considering them as a group, I aim to make sense of their iconography and show that the idea that she merely wished to be memorialised for a beauty she never possessed in reality fails to take into account the sophistication of her political image making.

The impact of different tree planting strategies on ecosystem services and disservices in the piazzas of a northern Italian city

Achieving urban sustainability goals, and improving the quality of life in cities, are aided by the careful selection of tree species for public green spaces. Numerous trade-offs and synergies are necessary to consider when selecting tree species for successful public green spaces and there is little data on effective species mixes. In this transdisciplinary research we consider the relative impacts of nine different tree planting scenarios, as modelled with i-Tree, in three piazzas of Bolzano, North Italy. The scenarios consider the opinions of the general public gathered from focused workshops and data collected via a purposefully created smartphone application in addition to data from local urban tree inventories. Shade provision and aesthetics were the primary factors that influenced citizen tree preferences. Scenarios which included larger tree species generally performed the best due to the greater provision of ecosystem services that arises with larger tree dimensions. Ecosystem disservices also increase with larger trees but can be minimised by careful species selection. Public participation in the planning of urban green spaces can be a beneficial activity which ensures new planning outputs will be well-received whilst providing opportunities for education of citizens about the multiple ecosystem services and disservices in urban contexts. Model outputs revealed that different tree species choices can have greatly different impacts in terms of ecosystem service and disservice provision.

Home-school distance among native and immigrant-origin lower secondary students in urban Northern Italy

ABSTRACT Residential proximity to schools is a relatively unexplored topic, especially as concerns its link to socially disadvantaged and immigrant-origin students. Such students may be more likely to attend the nearest school to their home, since their (families’) knowledge of school system is weak and school selection depends more on convenience than on evaluation of multiple schools’ pros and cons. This paper examines if, and to what extent, home-school distance differentiates native and immigrant-origin students’ educational experiences. Analyses – carried out in two Northern Italian cities (Milan and Bologna) and referring to students enrolled in the compulsory and comprehensive final year of lower secondary education in the 2014/15 school year – focus on minimum and actual home-school distances, the share of students engaging in ‘flight’ from the nearest school, and the appeal exerted by schools on culturally advantaged families. Results show that native and immigrant-origin students’ school proximity is almost the same. Nonetheless, natives are more likely to attend schools that are farther from home; noteworthy differences are detectable in some disadvantaged areas. Native families, especially in Milan, are more likely to ‘flee’ towards non-state schools, which display a particularly strong appeal towards native families featuring high parental education status.

How to environmental, demographic, and geographical measure the environmental factors influence the spread of Covid-19

Abstract. Italy was the first European country to experience a rapid increase in confirmed cases and deaths of the novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This chapter explains how COVID-19 transmitted so rapidly in Northern Italy, analysing the underlying relationships between infected people and environmental, demographic, and geographical factors that influenced its spread. This study analyses data on COVID-19 cases alongside environmental data. This study finds out that cities with little wind, high humidity and frequently high levels of air pollution — exceeding safe levels of ozone or particulate matter — had higher numbers of COVID-19 related infected individuals and deaths. Overall, then, results here suggest that geo-environmental factors may have accelerated the spread of COVID-19 in Northern Italian cities, leading to a higher number of infected individuals and deaths. Keywords. Air pollution, Environment and health, Natural hazards, Risk assessment, Urban environment, Sustainable development and policy assessment, Sustainable Growth. JEL. Q12, Q13, Q15, Q18 .

Energy performance indexes based on monitored data of social housing buildings in Northern Italy

In line with the energy targets for the coming decades, many European countries have implemented incentive policies to promote the energy retrofit of buildings. Hence, it is necessary to consider real energy consumption data when developing large-scale policies to accurately define potential improvements in energy consumption.This paper presents a data-driven approach to determining the energy consumption of 227 social housing buildings located in four northern Italian cities. A monitoring campaign during three consecutive winter seasons (2016–17, 2017–18, and 2018–19) provided the data needed to analyse the buildings’ consumption using calculated energy performance indexes.The performance indexes were normalised using the degree-day (DD) method, making them useful references for assessing similar housing stock in different climatic contexts, as well as on an international scale. A 90% consistency within the building sample strengthened the reliability of the results.Moreover, the developed method for data analysis is replicable in a stepwise manner for other types of building stock if energy consumption data from a representative sample are available to obtain practical reference values.

Dirty Laundry: Caring for Clothing in Early Modern Italy

Personal linens were key components of early modern health regimens. When they were visibly clean and bright white, linen shirtsleeves, collars and cuffs communicated the cleanliness of the wearer's body, as well as the state of their mind, morals and spirit. These functional garments and accessories could also be fashionable, especially when decorated with ruffles, lace and embroidery. Linens thus communicated hygienic, social, moral and financial information, which was generated by and reliant upon processes of laundry. This article explores some of these processes, especially as they pertain to linen shirts, cuffs and ruffs owned by non-elite people living in northern Italian cities. It brings archival, visual and material sources together with evidence generated through the re-creation of early modern processes of caring for clothing to show how ‘doing the laundry’ imparted linens with social and financial meanings and values.

To the History of International Law: the Property Rights of the Citizens of Local Centres of Italy in the 14th and 15th Centuries in Foreign Territory

This paper considers what the archival material of the 14th and 15th centuries can tell us about this question: how and to what extent the rights of the inhabitants of certain northern Italian cities (Ferrara, Cremona, Padua and Venice) were protected if their property was located in foreign territory and/or their property interests could be restricted by the power structures of another Italian centre. The first problem concerned the property of the Church. A study of the documentary material shows that one way of preserving the property of the Church on foreign territory, despite the increasing tendency of secular rulers to seize church lands, was to place it in possession of the local population on a secure basis - emphyteusis, livelles, or other type of long-term use. The second problem was enforcing the contracts, i.e. suing the party which had not fulfilled or improperly fulfilled their terms if the infringer was on foreign soil. The records show that this was most probably enshrined in agreements between the Italian city-states and was incorporated by means of a special formula in the treaties. The third problem was related to the property rights of the inhabitants of medieval Italy, whose real estate, together with the territory in which it was situated, passed under the jurisdiction of another ruler. A study of the lettere ducali shows that such legal relations were based on treaties between the rulers of Italian territorial states and became the subject of diplomatic correspondence

Anne Derbes, Ritual, Gender and Narrative in Late Medieval Italy: Fina Buzzacarini and the Baptistery of Padua. Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, 15. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020, 384 pp., 189 ill.

Abstract: Visitors to the northern Italian city of Padua often marvel at the city’s medieval pictorial artworks which adorn the interiors of its ancient buildings. Most queue to be admitted into the environmentally regulated Scrovegni Chapel to view Giotto’s stupendous works completed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Those who venture further into Padua’s historic center will never forget the experience of stepping into the city’s baptistery. Admitted through a small wooden door nonchalantly by a proud but often helpful Paduan, the viewer ‐ as soon as his/her eyes adjust to the soft light ‐ is embraced by the splendor of the baptistery’s ceilings and walls. Although the city’s adjoining cathedral was gradually transformed from its late medieval form during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the baptistery has retained both its facade and interior frozen in the late fourteenth century. Perhaps the only significant change occurred early in the fifteenth century when the sarcophagi of the city’s penultimate lord Francesco Il Vecchio da Carrara (1325–1393) and his consort Fina Buzzacarini (1328–1378) were removed.

Lecco’da Yirmi Beş Tokatlı Türk Alevi ve “Alevi Bektaşi İtalya”nın Kurulması

This paper aims to shed light on the rationale behind the creation of the first Italian Alevi association, the Alevite Bektasi Italia. It is based on field work, interviews and participant observations conducted in the northern Italian city of Lecco in 2018 and 2019. The association is mostly formed by Turkish Alevi coming from the rural areas of the Turkish West Black Sea Region of Tokat. The paper reports the outcome of the first research of this kind ever conducted in Italy and relies on data gathered from several informants, including former presidents of the Alevite Bektasi Italia Association, and, above all, upon the life-story of a key informant, one of the founders of the association. The article is structured in order to describe the following points: the trajectories of the first migration waves, in the late Eighties, from Turkey to Italy; the determinants that inspired the Turkish Alevi from Tokat to form an Alevi cultural association in Italy in 2006; the activities of the cultural centre; and, finally, the way the cultural centre and their members are responding to recent political changes in Italy and beyond.