“Quarantotto,” Vito said. “That’s what the day, the year, the revolution has been known as.”
Quarantotto“Forty-eight?”
“Sì. Forty-eight. It was a very good year,” he added as the barista delivered a new plate of orange slices and cups of espresso. Vito nodded once in appreciation and the black, curly-haired barista retreated with a nod and a smile.
Sì“It began in Sicily, in Palermo,” he continued, turning back to me, “but it spread across Europe. There were uprisings in Naples, Rome, Venice, Florence, and Milan, even in a normally quiet place like Lucca and Parma.
“And it spread outside of Italy, to Paris, Warsaw, Budapest, and Vienna. The people of Sicily were tired of being ruled by outsiders and kept under the thumb of a Bourbon king. But the other countries experienced revolutions
