Figure 1.--Here we see a birtday party for Gina Lollobrigida's son Milko in 1967. Lollobrigida was an Italian actress, photojournalist, and sculptor. She was one of the highest profile European actresses of the 1950s and early-1960s. The caption for the photigraph describs the opart in detail. " Gina Lollobrigida's son, Milko Jr. celebrated his tenth birthday tiday. For the occasion, his mother and hired a 17 year-old ballarina, Anna Maria Ortolani, from the Rome Academy of Dance who reformed on a wooden platform lais out on the lawn in front of the villa. After a few dances, the chukdren went imside to watch a Western film, starring Alan Ladd, and then had a dance session out on the platform. Milko Jr. after opening the dance with his mother, stuck to one partner: Evelina Nazzari, the daughter of Amidac and Irene Nazzari. After blowing out all the ten candles, Milko cut the cake and took his guests out ointo the lawn to watch a display of fireworks." The photograph seems to be the children watching thefilm. We think Milko is the boy in the center sitting by himself. Clothing is rather varies. Some boys wore suits and ties and other wear casual clothes.

We do not know very much about children's parties in Italy. Here our major source of information is the family snapshot. And we have not been very sucessful at acquiring Italian family snap shots. Italy is one of Europe's more populace countries. And you would think that there would be a very substantial photographic record. We have found quite a few perinent snapshots from the other major European countries, but very few Italian party snapshots. The most important children's party is the birthday party. This is the case around the world. There are also sasonal parties that are popular. Religious events are also important. In Italy this would primarily be a party after a child's First Communion. Here we see a birthday prty for the 10-year ols son of a movie star (figure 1). Given who it is, the partt does not seem over the top. What we found rather surprising was that the main attraction was a ballerina. American boys would have been flabergasted. Perhaps Italian boys are different, but I would be rather surprised. At least the movie they were showing was a rooten-shooting American Western.

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Created: 7:49 AM 8/27/2018
Last updated: 7:49 AM 8/27/2018