Talk:Tony Soprano

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Is His Grandfather, Corrado Sr., from Ariano or Avellino?

It's unclear whether Tony Soprano's grandfather hails from Ariano (also called Ariano Irpino in the show) or Avellino (which is both a province in Italy, and its capital city), and thus unclear where Tony is "from" in this sense.. The section "Fictional character biography" in this Wikipedia article (herein referred to as Our Article) reads:

"Tony's paternal grandfather, Corrado Soprano, was from Ariano (an Italian town), immigrating to the United States in 1911. He was a master stonemason who helped to build a church in Tony's old neighborhood."[14]

And this created my confusion. I'll go over the evidence -weak, fair, and strong- I've found for both positions. The question is whether the claim that Tony's grandfather is from the city of Ariano can be:

  • proven (to have been stated without contradiction)
  • proven somewhat (to have been stated, but not without contradiction, such as in a case of a continuity error)
  • not proven
  • disproven
Evidence for Ariano
  • Citation [14] is an archive of the HBO website. It may be confusing at first cause this links to the biography for Corrado Jr., but within this bio, it states that he is the son of "Corrado and Mariangela D'Agostino Soprano, Italian immigrants who came over from the town of Ariano in 1911". This is the only evidence for the claim of Ariano in Our Article. As it is published by the company that broadcasted the show, but may not necessarily be by the production itself, I'm giving it Strength: Fair.
  • The Sopranos' Fandom.com page for Tony Soprano states:

"...in Newark, New Jersey, the second child and only son of DiMeo crime family capo Johnny Soprano and his wife Livia. His paternal family traced its ancestry back to the city of Ariano in the Province of Avellino, Naples, and Tony's grandfather Corrado Soprano, Sr. immigrated to the United States in 1911, using his stonemasonry skills to build a local church with the help of his brother and other Italian immigrants.[3][4]"

These two sources, however, could be for any of the number of claims made in that paragraph fragment. So, as pertains to the question at hand:

    • Source [3] is the book The Sopranos: A Family History, by Allen Rucker. Your favourite ISBN database will verify the author. Some sources will also add "David Chase (Creator)" to the book data, as written on the cover, but never list him as author, so it's not clear if this implies his involvement in the book or if it's just giving him his credit prominently (for grace, legal reasons, or to purposely create this association for prestige). 'However it does concur with the HBO website. The book jacket claims the author met David Chase at Stanford as well, whatever that counts for. The sources for the claims in the book, however, are simply characters on the show, such as journalist Jeffrey Wernick (the guy who pisses off Christopher by calling Brendan Filone an "associate" on TV) on page 25. Or a 1921 postcard from "Corrado" to "Cara Mama" ("Dear Mama") in New Jersey addressed to "Sophia Sopra-" in "Ariano di" (both cut off) is seen on page 27, implying Corrado Sr.'s mother lived in Ariano in 1921. A family tree is hand-drawn "by AJ Soprano" on page 30 stating his grandfather was born in "Ariano Di Puglia", and so on. However, it is unclear why Rucker is an authority on in-universe canon and the strength of any of these rests on that authority. He's the same guy who wrote The Sopranos Family Cookbook "As Compiled by Artie Bucco" and Entertaining with the Sopranos "by Carmela Soprano", however again show creator David Chase is just cited as the "series creator" on these covers, not as an author - and my favourite ISBN database doesn't list him as author in either case. If this source didn't concur with the HBO site, I'd give it a Weak, but by a thin margin because it concurs with the HBO site, and because the source has written a fair amount in depth about the show, which counts for a bit, this gets Strength: Fair
    • Source [4] is The Sopranos (Pilot), i.e. the pilot episode of the show itself. That's all the source says. Reading the script for this episode, no mention is made of Ariano, or Ariano Irpino, or any variation thereof (cf. page 27 of this scanned copy of the script if you don't trust the digital version on its own). However, when Tony asks Dr. Melfi which part of The Boot she's from hon, she responds with: "My father's people were from Caserta." This, like Tony's response, "Avellino.", is another one of those place names in Italy that is both a province and a city. If it were only a city, we could infer that Tony responded with a city in kind, and this would be an instance proving he was from Avellino (I say instance because more than once does the show contradict its own canon across the seasons). As the only place name mentioned with reference to Tony is Avellino: Corrado Soprano Sr.'s page says Ariano as well, but doesn't even cite a source, so I can't say that strengthens anything here. Strength: Weak.
Evidence For Avellino (the city)
  • Wikipedia itself says so in the article for Avellino, namely: in the seventh Season 5 episode, "In Camelot", Corrado's son Junior Soprano claims "The whole village of Avellino settled in this area" (referring to New Jersey). As Junior himself lives in "this area", this would necessarily include him and his brother, Tony's father, and thus Tony. Thus in the source material, it is directly stated that the municipality that Tony's grandfather hails from, not merely the province or region, is Avellino. Unfortunately no such scanned script for this episode can be found as for the pilot, but the episode can be viewed to verify this quote. Both because it's in the source directly and plainly, and because Wikipedia is always right (kidding): Strength: Strong
  • By a similar token, Wikipedia makes no mention of The Sopranos in connection with Ariano Irpino. As this is simply a failure to find evidence for the Ariano claim in a place where it would be expected to be found were the claim true, this gets Strength: Weak
  • The only mentions in the TV show that I could find of the name Ariano were in:
    • A single instance in season 2, episode 4: Commendatori. Paulie is in bed with a prostitute in Italy, and after stating "I'm Neapolitan. Me and Tony both.", he inquires of her: "So, what part of Naples you from?". She replies "Ariano lrpino.", to which Paulie states: "You're shitting me! That's where my grandfather's from.". No mention is made of Tony's grandfather.
    • Another single mention is made in season 6, episode 9, The Ride. While discussing the Feast of St. Elzear with the fill-in priest, after the name of the saint is mention, Patsy Parisi interjects: "He's the patron saint from my grandparent's town... Ariano di Puglia.", which is a traditional name for the Ariano Irpino, also simply called Ariano. No mention of Tony's grandfather.
Given that Ariano is the only municipality in the province of Avellino that competes in size with the city of Avellino, mentions of Ariano would be expected to come up in these social circles, as the two are roughly 50km away from one another, and thus cannot be taken to imply that Tony's grandfather was from Ariano merely by virtue of a couple mentions in the TV show bearing his name and featuring his progeny. :But "control+Fing" my way through all the Sopranos scripts on subslikescript.com finds no other mention of Ariano of any kind in the show. And for good measure, ChatGPT agrees with me. Scripts could be missing, I could have made a manual mistake or lapsed in attention (though I don't think I did either), and ChatGPT ain't shit, but without proof of any other mentions of Ariano, the only in-show mentions do nothing to help the Ariano cause or hurt the Avellino cause, so: Strength: Fair.
My Conclusion

At this point, it looks to me that the claim that like Tony and the clan Soprano hail from Ariano from his grandfather is disproven, or at least not proven having not been stated in the show, and countered by statements that were made in the show. I would go so far as to say that it was proven that they're from the municipality of Avellino, on Tony's side. Lets not get started on Carmella's family in the north. Even a-today they put up they nose at us like we peasants. Spit I hate the north. (S4 E3 "Christopher").

Open to your thoughts.

Personofcanada (talk) 15:25, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone in the show actually knows where they are from in the home country, they are all pretty dumb. Quasimodo predicted this. LegalSmeagolian (talk) 20:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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