italians are masters of the concrete, from the vast engineering projects of the Roman Empire to the gritty manual labor of Renaissance painting and sculpture to our domination of the trade in paving, masonry, iron work, garden ornaments and gravestones in modern America. We specialize in the markers and monuments of the messy human transit of birth and death. Italians view death in simple, pragmatic terms, as a physical process to be efficiently planned and …showed first 75 words of 1687 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1687 total…Vito softly replies, "His name was Antonio Andolini, and this is for you" -- and sticks the don with a knife, ripping his gut crosswise to the top of his chest. Magnificent and inspiring, in my Homeric view. "Turn the other cheek" has never made much of a dent in Italian consciousness. Death Italian style is a luscious banquet, a bruising game of chance, or crime and punishment as pagan survival of the fittest. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------