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Title: Nunzio Pernicone Author: Robert Helms Date: 2013 Language: en Topics: Nunzio Pernicone, obituary, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review Source: Retrieved on 28th January 2021 from https://syndicalist.us/2013/07/13/nunzio-pernicone/ Notes: From Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #60, Summer 2013
Nunzio Pernicone (June 20, 1940-May 30 2013), the leading scholar of
Italian anarchism, has died of prostate cancer.
Born in Manhattan, the son of Sicilian immigrants Salvatore and
Giuseppina Catania Pernicone, Nunzio absorbed anarchist ideas from his
father, who was both actor and director in amateur theater groups that
raised funds for Il Martelo and other Italian radical papers, performing
plays by Carlo Tresca during the 1920s and ‘30s.
After earning his BA and MA degrees from CUNY, Pernicone earned his PhD
in 1971 at the University of Rochester, studying under the direction of
A. William Salomone, the eminent historian of modern Italy. He soon
became the colleague and close friend of Paul Avrich, who was then
starting to establish the history of anarchism as a full-on academic
field of study. All through his life, Nunzio knew many aging Italian
veterans of the movement such as Valerio Isca.
Pernicone taught at several institutions and authored scores of articles
on the Italian anarchist and labor movements, settling permanently at
Drexel in 1987. There followed his books Italian Anarchism, 1864–1892
(1993), and Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel (2005). What distinguishes
those volumes (both of which were later re-issued) is that they
represent decades of thorough research into the lives of Italian
militants who are notoriously difficult to trace – even for those who
have total fluency in their language.
Students of U.S. history should be especially grateful for Pernicone’s
biography of Carlo Tresca, which he expanded and corrected for its
second release by AK Press in 2010. Some heroes of the ages remain too
poorly understood or appreciated by the general public until one scholar
steps forward to devote a lifetime of work to present the hero’s legacy
to future generations. If not for Horace Traubel, we’d have meager
knowledge of Walt Whitman. Without William Archer, the English-speaking
world would know very little of Henrik Ibsen. Nunzio Pernicone is
exactly that important to the legacy of Tresca, whose rousing speeches
and unwavering courage played a pivotal role in fighting the abuses of
capitalism and fascism among Italo-Americans for half a century. This is
a huge contribution.
I knew Nunzio since 1994, when he accepted my invitation to lecture at
our small club in West Philadelphia. Being generous with his time and
knowledge, he spoke to about twenty Wobblies and anarchists with his
scratchy and somewhat deep voice. He wore a bright red shirt (his black
shirt being in the wash) and gave an intimate account of the anarchist
leaders of 19^(th) Century Italy, both comic and tragic. His manner was
that of a learned comrade teaching what he knew to his fellow workers.
Over the years since then, he was always ready to share information from
his research and ask questions about mine.
Not long before his death, Nunzio completed his last book, Propaganda of
the Deed: Italian Anarchist Violence in the 19^(th) Century. AK Press
will publish it soon.
Nunzio Pernicone the historian, anarchist and atheist, a lover of cats
and the opera, is survived by his wife Christine Zervos and their four
cats.