Frank Capra Christmas House

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🏛️ TAP 4
via Santo Cono 30
FRANK CAPRA CHRISTMAS HOUSE

In front of you can see what was the birthplace of Francesco Rosario Capra, better known as Frank Capra. Here he lived until the age of five, before emigrating to the United States in 1903 with his family.

Well, did you know that a pivotal episode in the history of the Capra family is related to this very house? Shortly before he left for America, a letter arrived from his older brother, Ben Capra, who had left for the United States a few years earlier and was already in Los Angeles. In the letter, Ben invited the family to join him in building a better life.
But there was a problem: everyone in the family was illiterate. The only one who could read that letter was the neighborhood priest who announced the news to the family and neighbors.

This episode, recounted by Capra himself in his autobiography The Name Above the Title, marked him deeply. It was one of the reasons that prompted him to study and major in chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology to land almost by accident in the world of film.

And it doesn’t end there. Capra also tells of returning incognito to Bisacquino in the 1950s, at a difficult time in his life. He stopped his car in front of this very house, seeking deep contact with his peasant origins, in an attempt to find meaning and direction in his life. It was at that time that he began writing his autobiography, as he reveals on the last page of the book.
This is not just a house: it is thebeginning of a story of redemption, identity and memory.