Customer Reviews

Closet Italians

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"Closet Italians: A Dazzling Collection of Illustrious Italians with Non-Italian Names" is a highly entertaining book filled with interesting and amusing information, and you'll find yourself saying "I never knew that!" about many a familiar historical or cultural figure, from Napoleon Bonaparte to wrestler Hulk Hogan and Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees.

Author Nick Mileti gives us a wealth of fascinating trivia that covers every possible area of interest: the arts, science, religion, politics, the occult and many more. The mini-biographies are presented chrolonologically and each lists the person's commonly known name, birth and death dates and "real Italian name." For example, here's a real mind-blower: Iron Eyes Cody, who became well known as the American Indian whose single tear rolled down his anguished face in an anti-littering TV commercial in the 1970s, was an Italian actor, born Espera (Oscar) de Corti.

So, how did all these "Italians" lose their Italian names? Many had Italian mothers; some changed their names for political or social reasons or to avoid anti-Italian prejudice. Others, as evidenced in a running gag throughout the book, were "co-opted," mostly by the French, who claimed that all the best people had to be from France. My favorite listing is an example of that. Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli opened a coffee shop in Paris in 1686 and called it Procopio. "To attract thinking men, he made the city's only newspaper available for his clientele -- free," according to the book. "To attract writers, he made paper, pens and ink available -- also free." Thus, it became the world's first literary coffee shop and "is acknowledged to be the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the world." The French, deciding it was a good thing, co-opted it and changed the name to Le Procope.

The book never gets dull because each entry is only one or two pages long. So many artists are included in the book that if you only read it for the art history trivia, you'll have a trove of fascinating insights.