Ancora in Piazza: Florence Fights for San Giovanni While Bensonhurst Lets Go
On Florence's patron saint feast day, Piazza Santa Croce hosts the Calcio Storico final — the city's annual sanctioned brawl; across the Atlantic, a new account of Bensonhurst's demographic shift documents how a neighborhood that was 80% Italian in 1980 has quietly become something else entirely.
Italy Today
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Update — the photo, still unresolved: Two days after the G7 incident went public, the Italian-American diplomatic chill has not thawed. Trump doubled down, insisting Meloni had asked for the photo “over and over” — a claim she has called “completely fabricated.” FM Tajani’s Washington visit, which would have included meetings with Secretary Rubio, remains canceled. President Mattarella has signaled solidarity. The underlying fault lines — Italy’s refusal to support the US strike on Iran, its continued backing of Ukraine — are structural, not episodic.
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Oggi è San Giovanni: Florence marks its patron saint’s feast day today. The centerpiece is the Calcio Storico Fiorentino final at 18:00 in Piazza Santa Croce — the Rossi di Santa Maria Novella versus the Azzurri di Santa Croce. The game is a 16th-century hybrid of wrestling, rugby, and football — no helmets, essentially no holds barred — followed by a fireworks display at 22:00 from Piazzale Michelangelo. It’s the one day of the year when Florentines are culturally licensed to be violent in a piazza, and they never waste it.
Brooklyn Dispatch
- The neighborhood that was: A new retrospective from Forgotten New York documents Bensonhurst’s transformation: in 1980, the neighborhood was 93% white and 80% Italian. By the 2020 census, Italian-Americans were 9.2% of the population. The Bari delicatessen chain — a neighborhood institution — closed its last Brooklyn locations in 2025. What remains is “increasingly elderly and isolated,” anchored by FIAO’s Il Centro on 18th Avenue and a calendar of feasts that keeps outlasting the families who attend them.
Review
“in 1980, the neighborhood was 93% white and 80% Italian. By the 2020 census, Italian-Americans were 9.2% of the population” — specific Census figures attributed via Forgotten New York, a secondary blog. These statistics anchor the brief’s central demographic argument; if wrong, the contrast with Florence loses its grounding. Verify against Census Bureau data (decennial census or ACS for Bensonhurst/Bath Beach tracts) or add > [!unverified].
- Hidden in plain sight: NYU Casa Italiana’s web series Nuova New York: Hidden in Plain Sight — originally produced in 2024 — has been selected by NYC Media for broadcast this Immigrant Heritage Month. It recovers the city’s first statue dedicated to an Italian American, a classic Little Italy housewares store, and the Banca Commerciale Italiana of East Harlem: the monuments you never see on the tour.
Arts & Culture
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Lo Sgarro, ritrovato: At Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato — the 40th edition of the world’s premier festival of restored and rediscovered cinema, June 20–28 — a film called Lo Sgarro is screening this week: described as “a newfound classic by a director ripe for rediscovery.” For those who read last brief’s Parola del Giorno, this is either serendipity or proof that Italian words travel in packs. Piazza Maggiore screenings are free.
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Bocelli a Venezia: On Saturday, Andrea Bocelli performs in Piazza San Marco to mark the 30th anniversary of Romanza — his 1996 breakthrough album, reported to be the best-selling record ever made by an Italian artist. The piazza, the tenor, the milestone: Italy would like to remind you it invented the format.
Parola del Giorno
Parola: ritrovato (past participle, adj.) — found again; rediscovered; recovered. From ritrovare (to find again), from ri- (again) + trovare (to find), tracing to Latin tropare — to compose, invent, or discover. What Bologna does to old films this week. What Nuova New York does to Italian traces in the city. What Bensonhurst is still waiting for. Il cinema è ritrovato; il quartiere, non ancora. (The cinema has been rediscovered; the neighborhood, not yet.)
Takeaway
Takeaway
On the day Florence decides which neighborhood is toughest in a piazza brawl, Bensonhurst can no longer field a team.