Arena
A castle on a rock above a fishing village, where the swordfish boats have prows as long as the boat.
Arena means sand. In the whole archive the 39 Arenas form one single unbroken family — which makes it the exact opposite of Mazza.
From you, all the way back
Start at the bottom. Every step up is one more generation into the past — a real person, in a real place, written down in a real book.
What do the numbers mean? “2× great-grandpa” is just a short way of writing great-great-grandpa. Once you get past three or four greats it is quicker to count them than to say them. So your grandpa’s grandpa is your 2× great-grandpa, and his grandpa is your 4× great-grandpa, and his grandpa is your 6× great-grandpa.
Nobody to look at — yet
📷 No pictures. Not one.
No pictures from Scilla yet. There is a photograph store in the Mazza archive that has not been mined for this side.
Things they actually did
Three Roccos.
Rocco is named after his dad, Michael Rocco Mazza — who is named after his own grandfather, Rocco Arena, born at Scilla in 1924. The name has come down three steps and across the world.
His mother and his father were both called Arena.
Rocco Arena’s parents were Giuseppe Arena, born 1892, and Anna Arena, born 1893 — same surname, same little town, one year apart. In a place the size of Scilla that happens.
A castle on a rock.
Scilla sits on the strait between Sicily and the mainland, with a castle on a headland above the water and a fishing quarter below it. It is in the big picture on the front page — look for the castle.
Swordfish boats.
The boats at Scilla have enormous long prows sticking out in front. That is where the man with the harpoon stands, watching for swordfish. You can see them in the picture too.
🔎 The bit we still can't solve
Because both of Rocco’s parents were Arenas, there are really two Arena lines running up out of him — and the one through his mother goes back further than the one through his father. Untangling them is the job.