Abstract
The small plane descends in the blue African skies. It veers slightly. Below, an Amharic shepherd hurries to clear his flock away from the field. The plane slows, circles around the clearing, flying over the tukuls, the sycamores, and the wonderful churches carved out of rock, while the last sheep clear the landing strip. Then it lands, and after a few bumps comes to a stop. And here is De Giorgi, who, having left Asmara, walks off the plane in Lalibela, on one of his “African enterprises.”
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Cone-shaped mud huts typical of East Africa (translator’s note).
- 2.
De Giorgi coined the phrase “African enterprises” in the UMI Bulletin (sect. B (8) 2, 1999). The episode of the grass landing and the flock of sheep is told by S. Steffè (Pisa, 7 February 2007) and is recalled by Mario De Giorgi in [1]. The aircraft is most probably a DC-3. The setting of the tukuls and the sycamores, typical of the location, is probably artistic license. The airport that S. Steffè and M. De Giorgi remember could not have been the one in Asmara as it is an international one. “It surely was the airport at Lalibela—says E. Doni (email, 12 January 2009):—I recognize the clearing of the sheep. It was a peculiar airport because the runway was quite short, and a plane taking off, more than lifting from the runway would find itself suddenly with no runway under itself, having reached the edge of the mesa on which it was built.”
- 3.
G. Prodi, Pisa, February 2007.
- 4.
Mario Dolcher (1920–1997) was a student at the Scuola Normale when the school was under the direction of Giovanni Gentile, and he taught at the University of Trieste for 40 years. He was Prodi’s friend and participated in the “Science and Faith” meetings.
- 5.
At the time about US$ 500 (translator’s note).
- 6.
A. Ubaldi, email, 24 December 2008.
- 7.
Giovanni Prodi was in Asmara mostly at the end of the 1960s.
- 8.
The stories are conflicting: maybe De Giorgi travelled more often to Asmara and sometimes extended his time there.
- 9.
The first was born in Naples in 1922 and arrived in Eritrea in 1948; Sister Fosca joined her in 1954. Both belonged to the order of “Pie Madri della Nigrizia” and were transferred elsewhere around 1970.—C. and G. Alzati (Crema, 12 October 2008).
- 10.
A. Ubaldi remembers (email, 24 December 2008): “Students in the faculty of economy and commerce were allowed to present their thesis at the University in Ancona to get a fully recognised Italian degree.”
- 11.
University courses were held in the afternoons or evenings to meet the time requirements of people who had day jobs.
- 12.
L. Carbone, email, 2 February 2009.
- 13.
Ryszard Kapuściński, In the shadow of the sun.
- 14.
The episode is told by E. Doni (14 October 2008), but he never witnessed it directly.
- 15.
C. and G. Alzati (Crema, 12 October 2008).
- 16.
A. Ubaldi did not witness the episode, but it was told to him (A. Ubaldi, 5 January 2009).
- 17.
Ras Tafari Makonnen (1892–1975) became emperor in 1930 with the name Hailé Selassié I, which in Ge’ez and other languages such as Amharic means “Trinity’s Power.” For Rastafarians (from Ras Tafari), a religious movement to which Bob Marley also belonged, Hailé Selassié was a messiah sent on Earth by God.
- 18.
Hailé Selassié was viewed as an occupier in Eritrea.
- 19.
The headline in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Wednesday 6 May was: “Historical announcement by Il Duce (Mussolini). The war is over, Ethiopia is Italian. Badoglio has entered Addis Ababa”. Rosa De Giorgi Fiocco remembers that many at the time spoke of Africa. An uncle of Ennio’s, the notary Raffaele Olita (see Chap. 1) had bought a map of Ethiopia and Eritrea (R. De Giorgi Fiocco, 23 January 2009).
- 20.
In particular, Sister Onnis and Sister Berardi. C. and G. Alzati, Crema, 12 October 2008.
- 21.
R. De Giorgi Fiocco keeps an invitation for the “Academic grades award ceremony” that was held 3 August 1972, and at which the “Chancellor S. M. I. Hailé Selassié I, Emperor of Ethiopia” was in attendance.
- 22.
G. Prodi, Pisa, February 2007.
- 23.
The English title of the movie is Burn! It starred Marlon Brando and is a story about the British colonial exploitation of the fictitious Caribbean nation of Queimada in the mid-nineteenth century (translator’s note).
- 24.
A. Ubaldi, email, 24 December 2008.
- 25.
E. Doni, 14 October 2008.
- 26.
A. Ubaldi remembers (email, 24 December 2008): “In 1974, none of us were in Eritrea. We all came back home between October and November 1973, just after the attack by Eritrean guerrillas on the barracks of the Ethiopian Army in Asmara, a few hundred meters from the university, in which the garrison commander died. The response by the Ethiopian military was violent and indiscriminate, and the same evening the military drove around on trucks shooting at anyone on the streets. An Italian was also wounded in the shootings. He was hit in the chest and was an Italian resident, son of former colonial officials (his name was C. Cipollini and he owned a shoe factory). He was transported urgently back to Italy and he survived. But this incident pushed us to leave Eritrea very quickly, because we could see that things were going to deteriorate fast.”
- 27.
S. Steffè, Pisa, 7 February 2007.
- 28.
G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology (Cambridge University Press 1940). Godfrey Harold Hardy (1877–1947) was an important British mathematician in the early nineteenth century.
- 29.
Évariste Galois (1811–1832) was a French mathematician.
References
Carlino, L.: Ennio De Giorgi. Lions Club Lecce, Lecce (1997)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Parlangeli, A. (2019). The Emperor’s Lions. In: A Pure Soul. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05303-1_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05303-1_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05302-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05303-1
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)