Fiamme: dramma in un atto; Memorie di un suicido: novella [Flames: Drama in One Act. Recollections of a Suicide]. New York: Nicoletti Bros. Editori, 1911.
Title
Fiamme: dramma in un atto; Memorie di un suicido: novella [Flames: Drama in One Act. Recollections of a Suicide]. New York: Nicoletti Bros. Editori, 1911.
Description
Some years after Dramas, Flamma succeeded in getting Fiamme translated and published in English as Flames & Other Plays (New York, 1928). This volume consists of two works: the popular first-named play, originally written, performed, and published in Rome in 1906 (before getting a second life with this publication), followed by Memorie di un suicida, a short story. The English language version of one of his plays (The Mask of Hamlet), for which Flamma is listed as writer, had a short-lived Broadway run in 1921.
Even the American edition carried a notice relevant only in Italy for anyone wanting to perform the play: "In Italia, per la recita di Fiamme, rivolgersi alla Società dei Autori, via Nazionale 143 Roma." For copyright "In America, rivolgersi all'avvocato C. L. Fasullo, 732 Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn, NY."
Flamma (b. Caltanissetta, Sicily, 1882; d. New York, 1961) emigrated to America in the first decade of the 20th century. During the First World War, he was a volunteer in the U.S. army. He lived in Chicago as secretary of the Italian Chamber of Commerce, and then moved to New York, where between 1922 and 1924 he was the director of the magazine Il Vaglio. “I have been in America for ten years, stubbornly following the bitter and harsh path of art. I am still surprised that I have not yet forgotten my Italian, given that the three million Italians in America speak every dialect but Italian.”
Flamma claimed preeminence for having pioneered attempts to draw middle-class themes onto the popular stage of New York’s Little Italy (though he also boasted of successes on Broadway). He was one of the few Italian writers of the era who managed to get his work translated into English.
While there is much on Flamma's life in Durante in his introduction to the excerpt published there, Durante notes that Flamma was not reliable on such questions. Indeed, the researches of Stefano Morello, Ph. D, in New York reveal that, among other things: Flamma's real name was Domenico Pignato, he pretended to have been born in Rome, he was escaping a marriage made in Italy under his real name - hence, the name change, and before emigrating to the U.S., he published Volfango: dramma in quattro atti in 1900 in his native Caltanisseta (adding his French mother's name, Audibert, after his real name of Domenico Pignato), published by Stabilimento Tipografico Ospizio Provinciale di Beneficenza of Umberto I, which was the printing press of a provincial charitable institution in Italy, named for King Umberto I, and other interesting facts. A copy of Volfango is now in the Collection.
Even the American edition carried a notice relevant only in Italy for anyone wanting to perform the play: "In Italia, per la recita di Fiamme, rivolgersi alla Società dei Autori, via Nazionale 143 Roma." For copyright "In America, rivolgersi all'avvocato C. L. Fasullo, 732 Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn, NY."
Flamma (b. Caltanissetta, Sicily, 1882; d. New York, 1961) emigrated to America in the first decade of the 20th century. During the First World War, he was a volunteer in the U.S. army. He lived in Chicago as secretary of the Italian Chamber of Commerce, and then moved to New York, where between 1922 and 1924 he was the director of the magazine Il Vaglio. “I have been in America for ten years, stubbornly following the bitter and harsh path of art. I am still surprised that I have not yet forgotten my Italian, given that the three million Italians in America speak every dialect but Italian.”
Flamma claimed preeminence for having pioneered attempts to draw middle-class themes onto the popular stage of New York’s Little Italy (though he also boasted of successes on Broadway). He was one of the few Italian writers of the era who managed to get his work translated into English.
While there is much on Flamma's life in Durante in his introduction to the excerpt published there, Durante notes that Flamma was not reliable on such questions. Indeed, the researches of Stefano Morello, Ph. D, in New York reveal that, among other things: Flamma's real name was Domenico Pignato, he pretended to have been born in Rome, he was escaping a marriage made in Italy under his real name - hence, the name change, and before emigrating to the U.S., he published Volfango: dramma in quattro atti in 1900 in his native Caltanisseta (adding his French mother's name, Audibert, after his real name of Domenico Pignato), published by Stabilimento Tipografico Ospizio Provinciale di Beneficenza of Umberto I, which was the printing press of a provincial charitable institution in Italy, named for King Umberto I, and other interesting facts. A copy of Volfango is now in the Collection.
Creator
Ario Flamma
Publisher
Nicoletti Bros. Editori
Date
1911
Format
18 x 11.5cm; 91 p.
Language
Italian
Citation
Ario Flamma, “Fiamme: dramma in un atto; Memorie di un suicido: novella [Flames: Drama in One Act. Recollections of a Suicide]. New York: Nicoletti Bros. Editori, 1911.,” Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection, accessed August 10, 2026, https://italianamericanimprints.omeka.net/items/show/172.
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