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Message:: [QUOTE="kaparthy, post: 1025498, member: 57463"]Bellissimi!  Most beautifuls!  (My wife's favorite Sorbet is "Ciao Bella" brand which she calls "Hello, Darling" and I call "So long, Beautiful.")  We were raised to be Americans.  Though born over there, one of my uncles fought in WWII in the American army. I never learned any Italian until I took a couple of community ed classes.  The instructor said that when they do any construction in Florence and uncover antiquities, if the stones are Roman, they cover them up again -- old Etruscan prejudices.  Via numismatics, collecting ancient Greek coins, I discovered that my Sicilian ancestors were in no way "Italian" but Cartheginians, most likely.  No love lost there.  About 400 BC Isocrates said that hellenism was so far extended that the name of "Hellene" no longer refered to a race but to a state of mind.  About 300 BC, the common Greek dialect from India to Gaul was called "Koine" which we might understand as "union."  Those who came to live in Alexandria in Egypt called themselves "Cosmopolitans"  -- citizens of the world. I agree with Doug 100% on this.[/QUOTE]