The Terra-Cotta Dog (33 page)

178
“lyceums”:
The Italian word is
liceo
(sing.), which, like the French
lycée
, harks back to the ancient Greek
Lykeion
, the Gymnasium near Athens where Aristotle taught.

 
197
fresh anchovies
all'agretto:
Baked in a sauce of lemon juice.

211
“half a million lire”:
About $650 at the time of the novel's publication in 1996.

 
227
La Vuccirìa:
The large, old market district in Palermo.

228 mèusa:
Calf's spleen sliced into thin strips and cooked in fat.

230
Giovani Italiane:
This was the compulsory Fascist youth organization (the “Young Italians”) for adolescents aged sixteen and seventeen. The groups for younger children were the Figli della Lupa (Children of the She-Wolf) and the Balilla (named after the boy who incited the Genoese to rebel against the Austrian occupation in 1746). The girls' uniform of the Giovani Italiane consisted of a black pleated skirt, a white blouse with an M (for Mussolini) on the front, and a black beret.

252
“forty thousand lire”:
About $25 at the time.
265 pasta al forno:
A casserole of pasta and a variety of other ingredients that may include meat, eggs, vegetables, tomato, or cream sauces, and so on. It is a typically southern Italian dish.

274
sacred area of the Phoenicians:
Early Phoenician settlements existed in coastal Sicily and its surrounding islands before the Greek era. The most important Phoenician centers were Panormos (modern Palermo), Soloeis, and Motya (modern Mozia). Later Carthaginian settlement (fifth and fourth centuries B.C.) in the southern and western regions of the island reinforced this Sicilian link to Phoenician civilization, opposing these regions to the Greek culture fast gaining prominence in much of the rest of the island. Following the Punic Wars, when Rome defeated Carthage, all of Sicily became Roman (after 210 B.C.). In the Middle Ages, the Arab rule of the island from the late ninth to the mid-eleventh century again revived Sicily's historic links to the cultures of North Africa and the Middle East.

 
281 “pasta con le sarde,
and
purpi alla carrettera”:
Pasta con le sarde
is a classic Sicilian dish served usually with bucatini, broad spaghetti-like strings that are hollow in the middle. The sauce consists of fresh sardines, tops of wild fennel, pine nuts, raisins, garlic, and saffron.
Purpi alla carrettera
is octopus served in a sauce of olive oil, lemon, and a great deal of hot pepper.

298
“ten million lire”:
About $6,500.

304
RAI regional news:
The RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana) is the government-owned national television network, which also has regional news broadcasts.

308
“Fininvest, Ansa”:
Fininvest is the financial and media conglomerate owned by Silvio Berlusconi; Ansa is an acronym for Azienda Nazionale Stampa Associata, the national news agency.

 
310 Corriere:
Corriere della Sera
, the Milan daily and the premier newspaper of Italy.

318 “leghista”:
A member or supporter of the formerly secessionist Northern League (Lega Nord), a right-wing political party known for its prejudice against foreign immigrants and southern Italians.

 
Notes compiled by Stephen Sartarelli.