The Rosso Family: A Hundred-Year History

This article is an entry in Animalia's citizen encyclopedia, the Animalopedia. Dates follow the Official Chronicle. For the organization's current status, see the Rosso Family.

The Rosso Family (Famiglia Rosso) is one of the Five Families of the metropolis of Animalia. Grown from the wine-merchant and artisan guilds of the southern immigrant wave, it dates its founding to the AE 9 establishment of a mutual-aid society 〔Tribunal registry records, House-Rank Ledger No. 1〕. Its house motto is "Blood bonds, the pride and honor of the family," and it is known as one of the drafting houses of the Five-Family Accord (Pax Animalia).

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Portions of this entry rely on accounts from the Rosso-aligned entertainment paper Voce Rossa, and editors from rival houses have repeatedly flagged them as "excessively flattering" (see Talk: The Rosso Family — A Hundred-Year History).

Overview

Rosso claims the oldest lineage among the Five Families (a claim reverted every year by editors aligned with the Ninkyou-gumi. → TMA-History-Ninkyou). Its economic base rests on the distribution of wine and olive oil, art auctions, and theater productions, and the trust it commands from the honest folk within its turf is reckoned the highest of the Five Families. Its scrupulous handling of protection money — "if we fail to protect you, we refund every coin" — has earned it, for thirty consecutive years, the title of "most dependable neighbor from the shadows" in the TMA Times civic-sentiment survey 〔TMA Times, April AE 118 issue〕.

Prehistory and Founding (AE 1–30s)

The "First Immigrant Wave" that poured in under the AE 3 Founding Amnesty included a contingent of southern, Italian-tempered stock (→ TMA-Timeline §2). They are said to have disembarked carrying nothing but grape saplings and a stonemason's chisel 〔citation needed〕.

• AE 9 — Under the stewardship of the wine merchant Vittorio Rosso, the guilds of wine merchants, stonemasons, and musicians formed the mutual-aid society the "Rosso Union." This is the direct forerunner of today's Family. At first it was a mild-mannered body that managed immigrant weddings and funerals and the irrigation of the vineyards.
• AE 24 — The Great Fire of Broken Burrow. The Rosso Union was quick to act, providing soup kitchens and temporary housing, and this was the first occasion on which it was recognized as a "face of the street." The words Vittorio is said to have spoken then — "Never ask a hungry man his family name" — remain the grace said before the Sunday Grand Table to this day 〔Voce Rossa, inaugural issue; authenticity unverified〕.
• AE 36 — Vittorio's younger brother Vincenzo Rosso, who led the arts division, built the Baroque-style opera house "the Vincenzo Theater." As the Family that "raised the curtain before it drew the gun," the Rosso of this era secured its turf through culture rather than force of arms.

Role in the Decade of Blood (AE 38–50)

In AE 38, a clash between the Ninkyou faction and a northern society over the rights to the wharves (the Wharf War) dragged every organization into open conflict. Rosso at first declared neutrality, but entered the war in AE 39 when the supply road of the Sangue Winery was put to the torch. Thereafter, through the Decade of Blood (twelve years, in fact), it is said to have fought with comparative restraint among the Five Families — though that word "restraint" has long borne a 〔by whom?〕 tag from editors of rival houses.

• AE 42 — In the Silent Purge, Rosso had two of its senior men arrested, though the "selectiveness" of the crackdown was viewed with suspicion even at the time (→ TMA-Police).
• AE 44 — The first Don, Vittorio, dies. His son Carlo Rosso takes office as the second Don.
• AE 47 — The Theater Massacre. In a shootout in front of the Vincenzo Theater, many honest spectators waiting for the curtain to rise were killed. Whether Rosso members were among those who exchanged fire remains in litigation to this day 〔Tribunal ruling record No. c-112; judgment reserved〕, but every account agrees that the aged Vincenzo Rosso himself died shielding the audience. That civilian blood was spilled in front of the theater bearing his own house's name is held to be the greatest disgrace in the Family's history.
• AE 47–49 — Immediately after the massacre, the second Don, Carlo, set about codifying the "Five Oaths of Rosso." Legend holds that the two clauses — "never lay a hand on honest folk or children" and "do no harm to art" — were written with ink ground in the water from the pails used to wash the blood from the theater's stone steps 〔citation needed〕.
• AE 50 — At the raising of the Memorial Wall, Rosso had the names of every victim of the Theater Massacre carved at the house's own expense.

Growth Under the Accord (AE 51–110)

The AE 51 Five-Family Accord (Pax Animalia) was jointly drafted by Rosso and the Ninkyou-gumi (→ TMA-Timeline §4). The "tea-room drafting theory" — that Carlo and Kiryū Tsurumatsu, third head of the Ninkyou-gumi, hammered out the framework of the Accord in the tea room of Zennin-ji — is the official position of both houses, but a dissenting account holds that the actual draft was written at the counting-desk of the phonograph shop that was the forerunner of Musica Eterna 〔by whom?〕.

That same year, into the Fifty Seats of the Grand Alliance (The Mafia Animals), established at the founding, Rosso has sent its officers from the very beginning. The apportionment of seats is not disclosed (→ TheMafiaAnimals-Origin).

• AE 52 — At the first Balance Festival, Rosso opened the Vincenzo Theater free of charge. Ever since, the free opera performance on the festival's opening day has been a Rosso tradition.
• AE 55 — Assisted in the establishment of the Tribunal. A Rosso consigliere joined the inaugural bench of adjudicators.
• AE 72 — The second Don, Carlo, dies. Cosimo Rosso succeeds as the third. Cosimo's reign is called the "Quiet Golden Age," during which the dual structure of art auctions (above board) and the covert auctions of the Carmine Gallery (below board) was perfected.
• AE 89 — The Burrow Panic. Rosso was hit by the shrinking value of its art holdings but accepted the support of the Goldfist settlement network (→ TMA-History-Goldfist). Cosimo's words — "I despise that house's money, but I trust that house's ledgers" — are often cited as a summary of the Five-Family economic order that followed 〔TMA Times, January AE 90 issue〕.
• AE 100 — The Founding Centennial. Rosso staged the commemorative opera The Red Grape.

The Present Day (AE 111–121)

Under the current reign of the fourth Donna, Aurora Rosso, the Family's martial standard is borne by the caporegime Dante (a lion). The story of how he — taken in by the Family as a child — rose to the rank of officer is well known even on the street, and he keeps the Rose Court Knights under his direct command (→ Rosso-Family).

At the time of the AE 115 affair of the two vacant seats in the Grand Alliance (→ TMA-Timeline §6), Rosso is said to have been the most eager of the Five Families in the joint investigation, though the findings were never made public. As of AE 121, even amid the spread of the Glitch Zone and the epidemic of "memory discrepancies," the Sunday Grand Table has never once gone missing — as a symbol of Rosso's unity, citizens are said to read the smoke from that table's chimney as the sign that "the street will be all right again this week" 〔TMA Times, March AE 121 issue, the column "Chimney Dispatches"〕.

Line of Heads

※ The first Don's younger brother Vincenzo Rosso (builder of the theater, d. AE 47) was never a head, but in the family history he is treated on a par with the line of Dons as the "Father of the Curtain."

Origins of Customs and Codes

• The Five Oaths of Rosso (→ Rosso-Family) — codified in the immediate wake of the AE 47 Theater Massacre; before that they were unwritten custom. One study holds that the fourth clause in particular, "do no harm to art," became the prototype for the fifth article of the Five-Family Accord (the code of the neutral zones) 〔Nightfall Academy Bulletin No. 44〕.
• The Sunday Grand Table — its origin is traced to the soup kitchens of the AE 24 Great Fire. The harsh corollary that "absence means suspicion" was added only during the Decade of Blood, once the table came to be used as a means of rooting out informers.
• The Family's full turnout on opening night of the opera — begun after AE 47 as a memorial to the victims of the massacre, it became an annual custom. Even in the midst of conflict, they attend in formal dress.
• The Investiture (of the Rose Court Knights) — held in the cellars beneath the Sangue Winery. Its origin is said to lie in the second Don Carlo personally honoring, in the underground vault, the young soldier who was first to complete the rebuilding of the supply road burned in AE 39 〔citation needed〕.
• "A Plate of Pasta" — the custom of feeding a newcomer before hearing him out. An origin tale is told that, in the founder's immigrant days, the first thing offered to a countryman stepping off the boat was a plate of pasta — though no primary source survives.

Family Chronology (Excerpt)

Anecdotes and Controversies

• The Oldest-Family Controversy — the longest edit war in the history of encyclopedia editing, ongoing between Rosso (founded AE 9) and the Ninkyou-gumi (founded AE 11, though they claim an oral tradition of "the first cup, winter of AE 8"). The Tribunal has refused to rule, holding that "there is no rank among houses" (→ TMA-History-Ninkyou).
• The Empty Seat of The Red Grape — at the AE 100 commemorative opera, a single empty seat was set aside among the officers' seats. It was explained as "a seat for every patron who could not sing during the Decade of Blood," but to those who knew the etiquette of the "empty seat" at the Sunday Grand Table, it was said to carry another meaning 〔TMA Times, special AE 100 issue〕.
• Tea Room or Counting-Desk — the dispute over where the Five-Family Accord was drafted, between the "tea-room drafting theory" (official to both houses) and the "phonograph-shop counting-desk theory" (dissenting). The sole basis for the counting-desk theory is a wine stain found on the scrap of paper said to be the draft 〔citation needed〕.
• Vincenzo's Final Program — the record of the piece scheduled for performance on the night of the massacre has been lost. Rosso has never once permitted a restaging, and it is said that only the current Donna and the theater's chief usher know the title of the piece 〔by whom?〕.