On October 4, 2025, a historical marker honoring Primo Bartolini (1889–1959)—a poet, educator, and intellectual from Fanano (Modena, Italy) who became a key cultural figure in the American Southeast—was unveiled in Nashville, TN.
Bartolini, along with Gaetano Salvatore De Luca, co-founded the Nashville Conservatory of Music. He was the first foreign-born resident of Tennessee to enlist in the U.S.Army during World War I, and the first white faculty member to teach at both Fisk University and the Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State College (today Tennessee State University), two historically Black institutions.
The marker stands on the site where Bartolini’s home once stood, built over the remains of the house of Union sailor William Driver. The unveiling brought together Italian and American officials, scholars, and members of Bartolini’s family, marking an important collaboration between scholarship and public history and celebrating the contributions of Italian communities to the cultural heritage of the American South.
The project was supported by the European Commission (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), the University of Padua, Seton Hall University, the Alberto Italian Studies Institute, the Metro Archives, and the Nashville Public Library Foundation, with institutional backing from the Metro Nashville Government, the City of Fanano, the Honorary Consulate of Italy in Tennessee, and the Consulate General of Italy in Detroit.
Photos of the October 4th, 2025 ceremony
