Select Page

About FICCB

The Public Charity “Friends of the Italian Cultural Center of Boston, Inc.” was founded in December 2012, enjoys tax-exempt status by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service under IRC Section 501(c)(3), and is registered with the Office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

FICCB is fueled by “love of all things Italian:” Italian art, culture, language, tradition, entrepreneurship, scientific achievement, innovation, creativity and lifestyle.  We strive to strengthen the connection between New England and Italy for the current and future generations, regardless of age, while also preserving the deeply-rooted Italian heritage in our region and the history of Italian immigration.

 

OUR MISSION

We have a multi-pronged, ambitious mission:

To establish a hub of Italian culture, preserve our rich Italian heritage by creating programs and content, and in time build an Italian cultural center

To forge a strong, united community of italophiles that promotes a forward-looking, fresh take on the Italian and Italian-American identities, one that is both deeply rooted in history and firmly planted in the 21st century

To celebrate all of the contributions Italians, inside and outside Italy, have made and continue to make in art and science, academia and enterprise, innovation and philanthropy

To think, talk and dream about New England’s Italian-American culture and the future of our relationship with Italy

 

 

OUR BOARD

Click name for biography of each board member:

Cav. Anthony Pangaro, Chair

Ettore Santucci, Director, President

Susan Angelastro, Director

Comm. Emilio Bizzi, Director

Anna di Robilant, Director

Dante Roscini, Director

Joseph Selvaggi, Director

 

OUR PROGRAMS

FICCB is committed to planning and executing subject-oriented programming for the Italian and Italian-American communities in Boston and New England: from public lectures, concerts and art shows, to social events designed to build bridges to groups that otherwise might interact infrequently; from supporting enterprise, innovation, science and technology, to supporting the teaching of the Italian language; from celebrations of Italian heritage in food and culture, to providing services to Italian-American communities. In doing so, FICCB wishes to collaborate with organizations with a similar mindset – “love for all things Italian” – using the financial resources that the community has entrusted to FICCB to seed this collaboration and help it bear fruit while uniting the diverse communities we all seek to serve.

 

OUR VISION

FICCB was started with the goal of building an Italian Cultural Center, envisioning a beautiful site where all those who work to promote Italian culture and preserve our rich Italian heritage could come together — and together do in the future more than we have done separately in the past.  We realize, however, that content must come before a container, that collaboration must be fostered in hearts and minds before it is acted out inside a building, and that the strong, united community of italophiles that FICCB wants to represent is created one italophile at a time as we come together to share our common passions.  We endeavor to continue our work on content, collaboration, and community while also planning a physical Italian Cultural Center as the culmination of FICCB’s efforts.

Our Board

Cav. Anthony Pangaro, Chair

Anthony Pangaro (Chair) has been a principal in private real estate development since 1980, completing over $3 billion of projects in Boston, most notably the Millennium Tower (the Filene’s Department Store site), the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Towers, the 10 St. James Avenue Office Tower, and the Four Seasons Hotel and Condominium.  Until his retirement in early 2018, he was principal in the joint venture between his firm, MDA Partners of Boston, and Millennium Partners of New York City.  Previously he managed the development of Boston’s Southwest Corridor transit project, which includes a five-mile-long public park, and held positions at the New York State Urban Development Corporation and the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

A registered architect, Tony earned degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in architecture in building science and a master’s degree from Harvard University in architecture and was awarded the Loeb Fellowship in Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard.  He has served as a director on numerous Boston community and nonprofit boards, including the American Repertory Theater, Berklee College, the Boston Center for Adult Education, Opera Boston, and the Lower Roxbury Community Corporation.  He is a member of the board of overseers of the Museum of Fine Arts and a member of the executive committee of the board of the Esplanade Association and served on the Boston Conservatory board for 25 years, including as co-chair, and on the executive and building committees.

Ettore Santucci, Director, President

Ettore Santucci (President) has been a partner in the business law department of Goodwin Procter LLP since 1992, dividing his time among the Boston, New York, and London offices.  He joined Goodwin in 1986 from White & Case.  His practice focuses on cross-border finance, mergers & acquisitions, and the equity and debt capital markets.  In his active cross-border transactional practice, Ettore regularly advises U.S. clients in outbound investments, international joint ventures and mergers & acquisitions, as well as Italian and European clients in similar transactions inbound towards the United States.  He chairs the firm’s Italy Practice and Debt Capital Markets Practice and co-chairs the REITs and Real Estate M&A Practice.

Ettore earned a Juris Doctor degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Bologna, Italy, and a Juris Doctor degree, summa cum laude, from Boston College Law School.  He chairs the Legal Opinions Committee of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association and is a member of the TriBar Opinions Committee and the International Bar Association.  He has been selected for inclusion in Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business and Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business).  He has also been listed in U.S. News-Best Lawyers and The Legal 500 U.S.

Susan Angelastro, Director

Susan Angelastro is an executive for a major U.S. insurance company and in that role travels frequently to Italy.  Through her business and nonprofit activities she has developed broad and deep relationships in Italy, which she brings to bear on her efforts to promote Italy in its multi-faceted aspects and Italian culture in Boston and Florence.  Susan earned master’s degrees from Middlebury College and the University of Florence in Italian language and literature.  She is active with several nonprofit organizations, including serving as Member of the Executive Committee, Secretary and Project Chair for Save Venice Boston, President of Circolo Italiano di Boston, and Board member of the Cesare Barbieri Foundation – Trinity College.  She was recently named to the International Advisory Board of Advancing Women Artists, Florence, Italy.

Comm. Emilio Bizzi, Director

Emilio Bizzi is Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served as chairman of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences from 1986 to 1997 and Director of the Whitaker College of Health Sciences, Technology, and Management from 1983 to 1989.  His primary research interest is the understanding of how the brain controls voluntary movements, focusing on two related questions: how does the brain handle the enormous complexity involved in making even the simplest movement and how does the brain learn a new motor task and then generalizes that learning to each new variation of the task.

Emilio earned an MD summa cum laude from Sapienza Medical School, Rome, Italy, and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Pisa, Italy.  He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he recently completed service as president, and the Academia dei Lincei.  In 2004 he was awarded a degree honoris causa in biomedical engineering by the University of Genova, Italy, and in 2005 was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.  He is the recipient of many awards for his research and academic work, including the W. Alden Spencer Award, the Herman von Helmholtz Award for Excellence in Neuroscience, the President of Italy Gold Medal for achievements in science, and the Empedocles Prize.

Anna di Robilant, Director

Anna di Robilantis a tenured Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law.  A property law scholar trained in both Europe and the United States, she teaches and writes in the areas of property law, property theory, legal history and comparative law.  Her scholarship focuses on two main themes:  first, questioning the traditional thinking that property law in Europe and the United States is fundamentally different, by suggesting instead that modern Western property is the product of a “transatlantic dialogue” shaped by intellectual, professional, social, and economic factors; and second, designing property law institutions that reflect the values of a free and democratic society, committed to making access to fundamental resources, such as housing, water, cultural or natural resources, more equitable.

Anna earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Turin, Italy, an LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. from the University of Trento, Italy.  She chairs the Property Section of the “Common Core of European Private Law,” a project that has brought together more than 200 legal scholars and practitioners to analyze and map the connections and underlying similarities in contract, property, and torts laws across Europe.

Dante Roscini is Professor of Management Practice in the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit of Harvard Business School.  He has published a number of cases and notes related to sovereign debt, monetary policy, central banking and international investment, focusing his work on the interactions between macroeconomic policies and the financial markets and the frameworks for analyzing risks and opportunities in international investment.  Previously he spent twenty years in senior positions at three US investment banks in New York and London: Managing Director and Head of European Capital Markets for Goldman Sachs, Head of Global Equity Capital Markets and Head of the European Capital Markets and Financing Group for Merrill Lynch, and Country Head of Italy and Chairman of European Capital Markets for Morgan Stanley.  Prior to his career in investment banking Dante worked as a researcher in nuclear archaeometry at the University of Rome, as a design engineer and project manager with Westinghouse Electric Corp. in the US, and as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in Paris.

Dante earned a master’s degree in Business Administration from Harvard and a summa cum laude degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Rome, Italy.  He is a member of the board or the advisory board of several public and private companies.  He is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association in New York and of the Atlantic Council in Washington.

Joseph Selvaggi, Director

Joseph Selvaggi is a Vice President and Investment Advisor at Bernstein Private Wealth Management in Boston, where he advises high-net-worth individuals and institutions regarding investment strategies, working closely with clients and their professional advisors on a wide range of matters, including tax and estate planning, concentrated stock positions and the sale of privately held businesses.  He also advises nonprofit organizations and foundations on sustainable investing and spending strategies.  Previously he built a retail and manufacturing company and ran for U.S. Congress in 2012.

Joe earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a Master in Public Administration in Public Finance from Harvard’s Kennedy School.