Giorgio Morelli is a journalist proud to get involved with his story subjects. A Wappingers Falls resident since l994, he is American correspondent for Il Giornale of Milan, Italy”™s third-largest newspaper, and two national magazines, Style and Espansione.
Although he has interviewed such notables as President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Robert Redford, Martin Scorsese, Al Gore, Danny DeVito and numerous Nobel Prize recipients, the interview that remains most poignantly in his mind is the story of a Virginia death row inmate.
“Joseph O”™Dell was poor and didn”™t have a fair trial,” maintains Morelli, who opposes capital punishment under any circumstances, citing that throughout Europe the death penalty is illegal.
“I was the first to tell his story. It was picked up throughout the United States and Europe. I went with the law student who became his wife, Lori Urs, and we had a private audience with Pope John Paul II seeking his intervention. The pope twice asked the Virginia governor to intervene. Six hours before his execution he married Lori.” O”™Dell had his last interview with the Morelli.
All over Europe, Morelli says, people are repulsed by capital punishment and prisons such as Sing Sing and Alcatraz, which were made more notorious by Hollywood.
Morelli was a party to enhancing relations between the United States and Italy when he became involved in the construction of a replica of Leonardo da Vinci”™s horse at the Tallix Art Foundation in Beacon. Although appropriate sites were in short supply in Milan, Morelli found a prime location in a historic race track for the 24-foot creation, plus raising $250,000 for the pedestal and site. The bronze horse had to be dismantled and shipped in seven pieces and re-welded upon arrival.
Morelli was also involved in another project to find a home for an eight-foot horse created at Tallix and shipped to the artist”™s birthplace in Vinci, Italy; an endeavor for which he raised $360,000.
As a promoter of the arts, Morelli has also supported efforts of the Dia Art Foundation, noting that its Beacon museum featuring art from the l960s to present
is “one of the biggest contemporary museums in the world.”
Morelli was raised in the seaside community of Pescara on the Adriatic coast, the son of a businessman. “Ever since I was six, I wanted to be a journalist. I read newspapers. Very few children were reading newspapers.”
His hobbies, as he puts it, were “soccer, soccer and soccer,” so when he began to write, it was covering sports as a freelancer. His other passion was modern art.
“At age 18 I moved to Florence and earned a master”™s degree in history and a Ph. D. in history of art at the University of Florence. I got a scholarship for two semesters to Cambridge, which is how I learned English.” Freelance work for a Florence newspaper, La Nazione, gave him credentials to apply to Il Messaggero in Rome, where he covered local news for four years before moving on to his present publication, initially covering major news events of central Italy and the civil war in Yugoslavia.
But, he always yearned for New York City. “It is a dream, with Wall Street, the United Nations, Metropolitan Opera and major museums,” he says.
Morelli has authored two books: “Il l977 in Toscana,“, which covers history of the first Italian political newspaper, and “Mario Luzi,” a biography of the man whom Morelli terms “one of the greatest Italian poets, a candidate for the Nobel Prize, a famous playwright, critic and translator.”
Yes, sir…NYC is a dream though at times it can seem like a nightmare, however I wouldn’t change my residence for anything as lovely as Florence was!
Best,
Joan Ferraro