Gaetano Cipolla

Gaetano Cipolla is Professor of Italian . He teaches courses in the language, civilization and literature of Italy, as well as a course on the Art and Skills of Literary Translation. He received his Bachelor of Science from New York University, (1961) the Master of Arts from Hunter College (CUNY) (1969) and the Ph.D. from New York University (1974).

Before dedicating himself to the study and translation of Sicilian texts, Prof. Cipolla published numerous essays on Petrarca, Dante, Tasso, Pirandello, Calvino and others in Italian journals. His Labyrinth: Studies on an Archetype, Legas (1987), which made use of a Jungian psychological approach to literature, contains his most important critical essays.

Dr. Cipolla has been very active in the publishing field. He was Co-Director of La Parola del popolo , the oldest Italian language journal in this country from 1978 to 1984. From 1989 he collaborated as "Senior Editor" and from 1992 as "Deputy Editor and Publisher" for Italian Journal, the most important journal of information on Italy published in America. One of his articles, What Italy Has Given to the World, first published in Italian Journal, and then reprinted as a booklet by Legas has gone through four editions.

Professor Cipolla's scholarly activities focus on several fields: he is a translator of Italian/Sicilian poetic and dramatic texts, an editor and a publisher. He is also involved in the promotion of the language and culture of Sicily. In this connection he is the author What Makes a Sicilian?, a successful booklet already in its third reprint and an opera libretto entitled A lupa in Sicilian.

As a translator, Dr. Cipolla has focused his attention on Sicilian poetry: he has translated into English verse three of Giovanni Meli's works: L'origini di lu munnu (1985); The Don Chisciotti and Sanciu Panza (1986); and Moral Fables (1988). He has also translated V. Ancona's Malidittu la lingua/Damned Language (1991) and the Poetry of Nino Martoglio (1993); and Nino Provenzano's Vinissi/I'd Love to Come (1995). In addition he has translated a play by Giuseppe Fava, Violence, (2000) and History of Autonomous Sicily (2002) by Romolo Menighetti and Franco Nicastro.

As editor/publisher, Dr. Cipolla founded three series of books for Legas: Pueti d'Arba Sicula/Poets of Arba Sicula, which has already published 5 bilingual volumes; Sicilian Studies, which has already published 6 volumes; and Italian Poetry in Translation which has already published 6 volumes.

Dr. Cipolla is President and Editor of Arba Sicula, an international organization that promotes the language and culture of Sicily. He is responsible for producing Arba Sicula a semiannual unique bilingual journal (Sicilian/English) and a twenty-page semiannual newsletter entitled Sicilia Parra. Dr. Cipolla is considered an authority on Sicilian. He has just edited J.Kirk Bonner's Introduction to Sicilian Grammar (2001) which is the first comprehensive grammar of Sicilian published anywhere.

Dr. Cipolla has received numerous awards and recognitions such as the Telamone Prize in Agrigento and the Trinacria d'Argento in London.