Our Calendar by Espedito Ferrara
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Il Nostro Calendario (Our Calendar) above is a executable file, which can be downloaded. It has a wealth of traditional Vastese culture expressed through the cycle of the year. It has also a rich collection of photos of Vasto from the past.

Espedito Ferrara was born in Vasto in 1908.

He was a great journalist, a fine poet both in the dialect and Italian, playwright, a profound student of the Vastese dialect, a keen researcher of the witty and characteristic sayings of the “Local dialect” and a continuator of the dialectical theatre and the last significant author of this type of theatre.

His roots in the native popular culture were the solid foundations transmitted to him by his mother and above all by his aunt Serafina Falcone (1862-1942).

In his twenties he took part in the Vastese audition at the EIAR in Rome on 14 December 1930. Director of the local drama group he created four comedies in the dialect which were presented many times: Core me; Giacobbe, Raffaele e Sprecaciannere; Aria di citta` and Ssa fa ‘Ddë.

Ferrara also composed an unedited musical “Sta Madunnelle” in 1942, a comedy in Abruzzese dialect “Terre nostre” (1941) and the “Calendario Vastese”.

Worthy of remembrance are his decades of activity in journalism, first as a collaborator of various dailies in Rome. And then as director and editor of “Histonium” (1945-1966), which was a solid tie between Vasto and the migrants spread around the world.

He was the director of the Civic Museum and the City Library, and lived the tragic times of the landslide at the eastern side of Vasto in the 1950s.

He organised various cultural events such as “The Book Exhibition”, “The Crib in Art” and the exhibition of the “Vastese Risorgimento”, which was held not only in Vasto but also Caserta and Aquila.

The family holds many poems, largely unedited and in 2002 edited a CD, Il Nostro Calendario (Our Calendar), with dialect texts that were gathered or written in the 1980s and contains sayings, proverbs, verses, anecdotes and memories.

Espedito Ferrara is remembered and imitated as an example of a cultural exponent who, working in various environments, was able to express the Vastese indentity.

For more information:

http://www.vastospa.it/html/personaggi/po_sc_ferrara.htm