The Italian American community deeply mourns the loss of one of its great pillars on Sunday, Jan. 16. Anthony Vincent Riccio’s great passion was chronicling the lives of the Italian immigrants who settled in Boston’s North End, as well as those who settled in New Haven.

I met Anthony for the first time in 2018 at a joint signing at I Am Books in Boston. I was immediately struck by his friendliness and his kindness, and we forged a wonderful friendship. We would talk about how fun (and sometimes frustrating) it could be researching local communities when information is sometimes hard to come by.