The Annual Festa Luncheon sponsored by the Italian Club of Seattle will be held this year at the prestigious Seattle Yacht Club overlooking Portage Bay. The date is Friday, September 5th, 2025 from 11:00 AM to 1:30 PM. The Seattle Yacht Club offers us a beautiful dining room, delicious food, no-host bar and free parking, all for the reasonable price of $60 per person.
Tickets including lunch are $60.00 per person. For more details and to make reservations, call (206) 779-7325, send a check for $60 per person to:
Audrey Manzanares
Italian Club Festa Luncheon
1301 Spring Street
Apt. #8-D
Seattle, WA 98104
Or you may email her at: Audrey Manzanares <amanzanares@live.com> and pay using Venmo or Zelle®
This year’s Gill Centioli Award winner is communal matriarch and tireless volunteer Lucy Salle. Over the years, she has held office in just about every organization including the Seattle-Fidele Lodge of the Sons & Daughters of Italy in America and the West Side Civic Italian Club.
The 2025 recipient of the Patricia DeLaurenti Volunteer of the Year Award is Steve Fontana who is always available to volunteer for any event sponsored by the Italian Club, the Seattle-Fidele Lodge and just about any worthwhile cause.
We have reached out to a number of possible Keynote Speakers on both the national and the local scene. Rest assured, they will be well-informed and interesting to listen to on a topic of interest to our community.
For the past several years, Domenico Minotti has prepared a quiz for Festa Italiana, an annual celebration of Italian culture, food and music held each year at the Seattle Center at the end of September. Since this year’s Festa Italiana will be virtual, Domenico has prepared a virtual quiz to go along with that. The quiz was premiered September 9th 2020 at the Dante Alighieri Society’s English Language meeting held virtually on Zoom. Links to PDFs of the quiz and the answer key along with the presentation are available below.
In the late 1920s, Nick’s parents emigrated from Sant’Angelo, Limosano, a small hilltop town in Molise. The population at that time was about 1000 but is now 345 as Nick learned on a visit last year. The family spoke their dialect at home. Nick studied Italian at Columbia University and Perugia and got lots of practice while on Fulbright study grants in Milan in the mid 60’s. Nick returned to the states and to his first love, medicine, at Georgetown University and came to Seattle in 1976 to work at the US Public Health Hospital on Beacon Hill, better known as the Marine Hospital. He and his father Pasquale would attend Dante meetings back then but took a break until retirement a few years ago. Nick serves as a Consigliere for our Dante group.
A special memorial collection of works has been added to “Le Arti della Festa Italiana” Art Exhibit at the Italian Festival this year in honor of Roberto Mario Tacchi whose elegant woodcarvings adorn Seattle public spaces and personal collections and who passed away May 15, 2019 at the age of 80. Born in Florence Italy, Roberto learned his craft from his father, becoming the seventh generation of woodcarvers in the Tacchi family.
As opposed to his large public works, this collection will be of “chamber pieces” that he carved primarily for family, friends and private collectors. They will be on display in the Armory on Saturday and Sunday, September 28 & 29, 2019 from 10 AM – 5 PM each day. Admission is free. Patrons of the “Taste of Italy” Wine Tasting on Friday night, September 27th will also be able to view the collection.
His public works present in the Seattle area include the exterior doors of the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Seattle, the chapel at Providence Marianwood in Issaquah and a memorial display in the Bell Harbor Conference Center. Surely even more treasured are the frames, sea shells and other carvings found in the homes of the many people who sought out his work for its elegance and sensuous beauty. When the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington obtained the loan of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi painting in 1982, they commissioned Roberto to carve a Late Gothic altar and triptych in order to properly display this revered work.
