{"id":184,"date":"2009-10-19T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2009-10-19T12:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=184"},"modified":"2009-10-19T08:00:17","modified_gmt":"2009-10-19T12:00:17","slug":"firmato-diaz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/firmato-diaz\/","title":{"rendered":"Firmato Diaz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here in Italy, as in many other parts of the world, it has long been fashionable to name one’s offspring after famous, or inspirational people.\u00a0Once upon a time we Italians didn\u2019t really have\u00a0much choice about our first name, because the church decreed that it should be a \u2018Christian name\u2019 in the most literal sense.\u00a0For females the most common one of course would be Maria, after\u00a0La Madonna. My\u00a0\u2018Christian\u2019 name for example is Maria Serena, my cousins are Maria Pia and Anna Maria, and I once had a friend with the wonderful name of Maria Etrusca (Etruscan Mary), oh how I envied her! In fact\u00a0not so long ago\u00a0in Italy our onomastico<\/strong> (name-day) was seen as more important than our compleanno<\/strong> (birthday), and people would receive gifts on the former rather than the latter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every day is a Saint’s Day. Today for example is Santa Laura, so if we see our friend Laura Vescovi later on it will be quite normal to wish her auguri<\/strong> (best wishes). Tomorrow will be \u2018Santa Irene’, so anyone named\u00a0Irene will celebrate\u00a0her onomastico tommorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

All this leads me to a rather interesting and unusual first name: Firmato<\/strong>, and to discover its origins we need to travel back to the end of\u00a0La Prima Guerra Mondiale<\/strong> (The First World War).<\/span><\/p>\n

Armando Vittorio Diaz\u00a0was the famous general and chief of general staff who in 1918 recovered what was left of the badly mauled Italian army and led them to victory against the Austrians. At the conclusion of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, which ended WWI\u00a0in Italy, Diaz issued, as a final address to the Army and the Nation,\u00a0Il Bollettino della Vittoria<\/strong> (The Victory Bulletin). The Bollettino was probably written by General Siciliani, spokesperson for the General Staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are the final two paragraphs of the Bollettino della Vittoria: (You can find the complete text and a translation into English here<\/span><\/a>).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

L’Esercito Austro-Ungarico \u00e8 annientato: esso ha subito perdite gravissime nell’accanita resistenza dei primi giorni e nell’inseguimento ha perdute <\/span>quantit\u00e0 ingentissime di materiale di ogni sorta e pressoch\u00e9 per intero i suoi magazzini e i depositi. Ha lasciato finora nelle nostre mani circa trecento <\/span>mila prigionieri con interi stati maggiori e non meno di cinque mila cannoni. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I resti di quello che fu uno dei pi\u00f9 potenti eserciti del mondo risalgono in disordine e senza speranza le valli, che avevano disceso con orgogliosa <\/span>sicurezza.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Firmato Diaz<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Note the signature at the end of the Victory Address: \u2018Firmato Diaz<\/strong>\u2019, meaning \u2018signed Diaz\u2019. In the waves of patriotism following the Italian victory the entire Bollettino della Vittoria was frequently\u00a0memorized by school children, always ending with those proud\u00a0words \u2018Firmato Diaz\u2019. Many uneducated contadini<\/strong> (peasants) were very taken by the\u00a0sound of\u00a0those\u00a0closing\u00a0words, and\u00a0erroneously believing Firmato to be\u00a0 Diaz\u2019s first name baptized their newborn sons Firmato (Signed).<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you know anyone with an unusual name? Please share it with us in the comments section below.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here in Italy, as in many other parts of the world, it has long been fashionable to name one’s offspring after famous, or inspirational people.\u00a0Once upon a time we Italians didn\u2019t really have\u00a0much choice about our first name, because the church decreed that it should be a \u2018Christian name\u2019 in the most literal sense.\u00a0For females…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[694],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","tag-firmato-diaz"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}