July 12 – Did you know that during the inauguration of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro (1931) the lighting of the magnificent monument was organized by Guglielmo Marconi, who from Rome issued a special radio impulse? Did you know that the first navigator who explored the coast of Brazil was the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci, or that the name Brazil was first used in 1657 by Giovanni Martines, cosmographer from Messina? These, along with many other stories, are told in the book “Italy in Brazil: Migration patterns in Brazil yesterday and today,” by Delfina Licata, published by the Migrantes Foundation for Tau. The profound bond that exists between Italy and Brazil “is – writes in the preface the Director General of the Foundation Migrantes, Giancarlo Perego – highlighted in these pages, as the history of Italy is enriched by the individual stories of many Italians, famous or not. The many anecdotes and curiosities support a story of a specific national migration pattern in the hope that this knowledge will be an opportunity for reflection and reinterpretation of individual and collective life.”
