When Taranto (TA-ran-to, dammit! Not Ta-RAN-to), Italy got its LDS chapel, the church paid for the private drive and called it "Via Lorenzo Snow."** Googlemap it. The church is at the end in the clu-de-sac. If you do the satellite photo, you'll notice that the chapel comes complete with a calcetto (mini-soccer) court. Sweet. When the church has to close the chapel and convert it into an office building, the employees will be able to play calcetto during lunch.

I wonder why the tennis club next door was demolished. I wonder if the church purchased it and got rid of it.

**(Back in 1852 or something, Lorenzo Snow started teaching in Italy. The Italian members like to go on and on at length about that. But the back story that every leaves out is that Snow only taught among the French-speaking Waldensians, an obscure Protestant sect that exists there still. He converted two extended families, the Malan and Cardon families (yeah, THOSE Cardons), before closing shop. Most of the Malans and probably all the Cardons emigrated to Utah. There were no more Mormons in Italy for over 100 years.)

Thanks for the back story, Cludgie :-D

I love how you feel so deeply the insult that temple is to the history, culture and sensibility of Italy ;-)

I know you have Italy's best interests at heart ;-)

How's your son doing, by the way?

Tom in Paris

Hi, Tom. Thanks for asking. The surgery was "successful," in that they removed the tumour and he had an excellent recovery, but he has brain cancer, and one doesn't know how soon it will come back. And the tumours always come back.

In Burbank, Ensign Ave. runs right next to the LDS church on Riverside. Total coincidence, but still a little creepy. Odd side note, on google maps, instead of a plain grey rectangle, the same mormon building is the only one with shading and a bit of detail.

Thanks cludgie for the interesting story. Maybe you heard about Senator Lucio Malan, a Waldensian (and member of the Popolo delle Libertà Party), and the role he played in helping the LDS church with the negotiations for the "Intesa" (Agreement) with the Italian State, a few years ago.

At least it seems to be the only via Lorenzo Snow in Italy.

Name three things from the New World that Italians have passionately taken to heart:

1 tomatoes
2 Mormonism
3 polenta

Well maybe I lied about 2.

Of course we can well do without n.2, but I don't know what would we do without n.1!!!


Thank you, thank you very much for tomatoes, seriously.