La Follia di New York [The New York Folly]. New York: Marziale Sisca; The Italian National Magazine Company, 1935-1977.

La Follia di New York [The New York Folly]. New York: Marziale Sisca; The Italian National Magazine Company, 1935-1977.

The Collection includes only a few issues of this long-lived important literary and political magazine:

La Follia di New York, Vol. XXXXIII, No. 1 - January 6, 1935
La Follia di New York - Dicembre [December] 1977
La Follia di New York - Aprile [April] 1977

Emigrating with his family to America in 1892, soon thereafter Alessandro Sisca, known usually as Riccardo Cordiferro, founded the weekly literary magazine La Follia di New York, together with his father Francesco (1839–1928), who was also a poet (q.v. his Lu Ciucciu, in Calabrian dialect), and with Alessandro's brother Marziale. Francesco Durante's essay on Cordiferro, on this website, is a delight to read.

The work for La Follia, combined with his intense literary productivity, absorbed Cordiferro completely, and gave him a vehicle by which to publish several of his works, such as La vendetta (q.v.). Approbation for the magazine’s notable success on the East Coast led him to make frequent trips throughout the country and beyond to give theatrical presentations and poetry readings, and to engage in debates, very often with political overtones.

Though not committed to any one strain of leftist thought, Cordiferro maintained close contact with anarchist and socialist circles, which resulted in more than one arrest and constrained him to resign from directing La Follia. In 1895, his drama, Il pezzente [The Tramp], ran for hundreds of performances and became a standard in the repertory of amateur players in revolutionary political circles. See Durante's essay on this website, “Riccardo Cordiferro,” pp. 21–22.

Marziale Sisca, Alessandro's brother, was the business manager who was primarily responsible for keeping the magazine as fiscally sound as it was. It was Marziale who probably deserves the credit for getting Enrico Caruso to supply the magazine with his marvelous caricatures, two collected editions of which are in the Collection, q.v.; the later editions of these are commonly available for purchase, probably having been issued, in various editions over the years, in relatively large numbers for an Italian-American audience that adored Caruso. 

Marziale Sisca

The Italian National Magazine Company

1935-1977

27.5x21cm

28x22cm

Italian