Crafts and Masters

Written by Mariangela Cioria

Edited by the cultural association Irpinia Mia

On the cover: the music band of known as “la banda r' pacca r' cul” composed of 54 people plus its master Vitalone. The members of the band were all craftsmen living in Trevico. In occasion of town festivals they moved throughout Irpinia with a truck - they sat on two stools placed to the sides of the vehicle with the musical gear in the middle. The photo was taken in 1924 during the feast of the “Madonna della Libera” and it was donated by “Paulin' Pacca r' Cul” Paolo Saporito to the Association IRPINIAMIA last year.

Valentini Guiducci, Michele Perlingieri and Giuseppe La Salvia – all born in Trevico – were able to identify the following people: the band leader is Giuseppe Paglia, a 19 years old merchant; the solo singer is Euplio Rullo, who joined the roman Papalina band when the band in Trevico broke up; the eldest one is Francesco Picari, called “Cicc'll' r' Fox”, a shoemaker and prefect of the order; Rocco Chiavuzzo “Rocco la guardia” was a local guard, he played the tenor trombone; Alessandro Di Spirito was a carpenter and he played the euphonium; Luigi Saporito, “Luig' Pacca r' Cul”, was a sacristan and a cobbler who played the drums; Angelo Salerno played the bass drum while his brother Alberto played the trumpet “r' scanginnom' nzomma”, they were both farmers; Giuseppe La Ferrara, “Pepp' lu varrilar' or Firrand”, was a cooper and he played the flugelhorn; “Felic' r' Micalang'l'” was a postman who played the cymbals “r' piattin'”; Alfonso Picari, “mast' Alfonz'”, was a carpenter who played the piccolo; Rocco Picari, “Barbt'”; Giuseppe Cardinale, “Giusepp' Cucculon'”, was a farmer and played the clarion, “lu Casinist'”; Vincenzo Giannetta, “Vicinz' r' Luca 'camp'santar'”, was a gravedigger; Nicola Scavina “Nicola Scavin'”, was a dealer who played the bass trombone, “Bracon'”; Luigi Antonio Salerno, “R'Gilistrin' or the Mint" was a tailor and he played the clarinet; Generoso Di Marco, “Voriasecca”; was a farmer; Rocco Paglia, “Rocc' Pistacch'”, was a tailor who played the trumpet; Palermo Rocco, “mast' Rocc'Cularon”, and Giuseppe Visco, “Sett'cul'”, were both cobblers; Giovanni Salerno, “Giuvann' lu ngigniriell'”, was a dealer; Michel’Antonio Fucon' was a shepherd and he played the clarinet; Luigi La Ferrara, “Luiggin' r' Cella”, was a barber and a mason; Giacumin' Belsess' was a shepherd and a farmer. The house where they practiced and went to school was called “r' Risariell'”.

This book is dedicated to those - especially the young ones -who are eager to learn a trade.

Once upon a time there was a little village in the mountains where, not long ago, the term “unemployment” wasn’t widely known despite the difficult conditions. During World War II the population exceeded 6,000 inhabitants including the hamlets of and . Thanks to their ability to adapt, everyone was able to provide for their families and to contribute to the community.

In Trevico crafts flourished. Until the sixties there were twenty-two shoemakers, twenty carpenters, ten basket weavers, one cooper etc. Craftsmen had a role of dignity and privilege, they came in second for number of members after the notables and the farm keepers. They were essential to all others social categories. The notables used to put before their first name the term “Don” (sir), required and demanded by all. The craftsmen used the term “Mast'”, which meant master or teacher.

Blacksmiths, shoemakers, carpenters worked in small laboratories – on one of the walls they kept all their equipment. The women instead worked in front of the house, they were embroiderers, knitters and basket makers. The craftsman formerly produced tools used and needed for everyday life. The basket weavers had to procure the wood like olive branches, reeds and wicker only during the pruning: in spring and autumn. The productions and working methods became the living testimony of the time and the seasons.

I visited the remaining craftsmen in the area to hear their testimonies and they told me about their lives and their past with joy and enthusiasm in spite of difficulties and suffering.

This brochure represents a small extract of the new project IRPINIAMIA that will result in a book/research on trades and handcrafts.

Mariangela Cioria

The shepherd

In the picture the “parocc'la r'spin'”

Michele Crincoli, known as “Michel' Tafanella” born on October 29, 1926 in

I attended school up to the second grade. I took evening classes in a farmhouse, in the dark, I used to bring a brazier with fire from my house or borrowed it from the neighbors, otherwise you carried wood to the house owner where you went to school and she started the fire. I have always worked and I did various jobs – I did handiwork, I was a mason but especially a shepherd. I've been a widower for the past 40 years and I moved to Germany 6 years ago.

When I was a shepherd I had a bucket to milk, we had sheeps, goats and cows. This container came in only one size, if you wanted a bigger one you had to order it to craftsmen or buy it at the fairs. To measure the milk we used the “catarina”, a wooden rod with notches indicating the different measures: one-third corresponded to half a liter, two-thirds corresponded to a liter called the “la 'ndacca”, while “a scudella” was two liters. The “catarina” could measure up to six “scudell'”, ie twelve liters. The “catarina” had a cowhide string, so it was possible to hang it on the wall. It was made with the wood “orra mascula” which belongs to the family of willows, otherwise you could use elm. The male “orra” grows into a full tree while the female remains thin and can be used to make the catarina. It’s a durable and lightweight wood and it’s easy to clean so you don’t transfer bacteria to the milk. The “taglia” was a piece of wood - with the usual markings - used to keep track of the borrowed milk that needed to be returned. It consisted of two pieces, “the head and the tail”, one for the supplier and the other for those who received milk. After each milking, notches were marked on both of them to avoid any arguments. The “taglia r' lacertula” was made with elder wood.

The blacksmith in the picture the “mosch'la r lu fus'”

Vito Ragazzo born in Trevico on April 28, 1934

I got married on February 23, 1958 and I have three children, two boys and a girl. I attended the fourth grade and my teacher was “Vit' la Ditta” and then I attended the fifth and sixth grade in the military. I started to graze the sheeps as a child and since then I’ve always kept my hands busy: I liked making musical instruments with reeds and creating characters of the nativity out of clay. Over the years I have devoted myself to agriculture, and I began to produce “r' canneddr'”, reeds to protect your fingers from the sickle during the harvest, and wooden tools for the kitchen. Elderly people used to tell me that every object was already part of the piece of wood and I just had to get it out.

I started my apprenticeship as a blacksmith when I was 15 with Euplio Lo Russo, in Vallesaccarda, where I used to go on foot or by a rickety bicycle. My father paid him a quintal of wheat per year, for four years. Only the fifth year, the master started giving me a hundred liras per day. In 1955 I opened my own shop with 10.000 liras my sister gave me in exchange for a plow. Initially I shoed horses and made iron tools and nails. Thereafter I specialized in the production of agricultural tools. The “mosch'la lu fus'”, the hook to the wool spindle was realized by beating and shaping on the anvil a nail for horseshoes. “Lu iatatur'”, the bellows for the fire was a simple iron pipe that was made initially with elder wood by emptying it of its internal springs. “R' castagnol'”, the castanets were used while dancing and they were accompanied by “lu rucanett'”, the organ. I even made a miniature plow. When you beat the red-hot iron sparks leaped and they ended up burning your hands or piercing your pants. My wife often helped me beat the red-hot iron, especially when making a hoe because you had to add steel to the iron, that allowed the hoe to squeeze better into the ground. The metals had to be hot to be worked otherwise it was all in vain.

The carpenter

Nichola Palermo, known as “Nicola cirzuddr'” born in 1941 in Trevico.

After attending elementary school, at 11 years old I started an apprenticeship that lasted 8 years. I learned the art of carpentry from “mast' Michel”, Michele La Ferrara, one of the best in Trevico. I stayed with him for 4 years and then for another 4 years I’ve worked with “Funziniell'”, Alfonso Picari. The masters didn’t pay us a salary and neither contributions. “Mast'” Michele made windows and doors and worked in a rough way while “Funziniell'” was more artistic.

Every master in Trevico left me a token from their workshops, in fact, the handsaw and the band saw were gifts from “Mast'”Alfonso, Alfonso Picari, while the saw from Gratticchij has over sixty years and is still in excellent condition. Many abroad were not able to continue the work that they had learned in their country, especially for problems with the language. We struggled with written Italian so we had many difficulties with a new language such as German. Anyway, I have integrated well, I have learned so much and given so much for my job. I learned the language and to read work projects that we had to perform. I have never surrendered to difficulties, and thus for 16 years I have worked with the same firm in Stuttgart. I’ve stayed out of the country for 24 years.

The basket weaver

Giuseppe Grieco born on March 30, 1943 in

As a child I worked as a shepherd, then a farmer, a baker and a laborer. I emigrated to Germany and Switzerland where I worked as a seasonal. Now, in old age, I’ve become a basket maker. I’ve learned this weaving work with my father during winter by the fire, or in the summer in front of the porch. My grandfather used to make objects for everyday use.

«Willow trees can be cut from their second year of life during a particular season, otherwise they are attacked by moths. Once taken out the bark, the trees need to dry out in the shade, in a ventilated spot. To clean them I use the “furcina p' scurcià” a hairpin made out of willow or other wood that sticks in the ground and is passed through the willow. The different varieties of willows can be identified by their bark: yellow, red, black, the “salacuncella”, the “orra a offa” – a valuable type of bushy willow easier to clean, the “orra” is the male tree whose bines are not valuable. For the weaving I also use reeds and thin twigs from elm and olive trees that are divided into groups of two, four, six or up to eight. My tools of choice are scissors, knives and sickles. I gather the reeds and the willows “a la iumara r' Sturn'” along the river Ufita near Sturno. In the past we used them to link the screws to the branches. The work baskets that we used in the country were big and strong».

The basket maker / cutugnan

“Lu cutugnan'” is the ancient craft of weaving strips of chestnut.

Michele Santangelo born in Contrada in 1929.

My father taught me this craft. It has been a family tradition for generations. I was only seven years old, I attended elementary school and, once back home, my father (Nicola Santangelo, born on May 6 1894 in Agropoli of Isernia) used to take us in his shop and give each of us a task to learn the craft. In Contrada there were five people who knew this trade, today I am the only one left.

Chestnut trees are cut from October to March, because in May they absorb water from the soil to get ready to grow during the months from June to August. The slats are called “le cutagn'”, you need a rasp to give the right thickness, which is based only on experience and it depends on the size of the basket. The color is natural: it can be darker or lighter. I sit on a “scann'l” (stool) and I keep the timber in a firm grip with my knee. When you work on a basket you beat it with a knife tip to tighten the strips. The pointy baskets of various sizes were more resistant containers, they were hung on the wall and they stored cutlery or dried peppers, onions and garlic. The working process was a different technique, it required a finer weave. To bend the sticks you put them in boiling water, take off the skin and gave them a shape. Once made the object was put in the oven to dry, otherwise it cracked or got moldy. “La fescina”, another funnel-shaped object, was used to pick cherries. Nowadays people only have them as ornaments. By weaving together the strips you can make baskets of different shapes and sizes and even baby cots for children.

The hatter in the picture the “Sticc' a r' copp'l'”

Giovanni Cerrato born in on October 15, 1933

I come from a family of tailors, hatters and traders who has been in this business for seven generations. All my father’s brothers, in fact, were tailors and merchants, some with their own shops and others were street vendors. I have five siblings, three sisters and two brothers, and we all have inherited this craft. After my marriage, in 1967, I moved to Boston in America.

To make hats it’s necessary to have forms of woods and a trestle to iron them. The cloth is divided into three or six segments, the pieces are put above the cardboard shapes then cut out based on head measures: 55, 56, 58 and 60. For bigger sizes it is better to measure the head beforehand and then sew the various segments needed. The inside is lined with fabric: cotton for summer, cloth for winter. Then you add lace for the finishing touch. Finally you carve the visor which can have different shapes and sizes. For the ironing there was a wooden easel with a fabric-stuffed tip. Old scissors were made of iron and were very heavy, you needed big hands to handle them. I've still got one left as a gift from my uncle. The form to enlarge “copp'l e cappiell'” (hats and caps) is made of wood and is called "Sticc' a r 'copp'l'”, which I have modified to make them without “lu pizzil' 'ngoppa”. There were also those who used felt to make hats with a wide brim, or they used water and fire to make cylinders and bowler hats. With the wooden forms called domes, the hats became art pieces. The “furnacella” was a small oven for drying hats while the “callare r' ram'” (copper cauldrons) were used to wet the felts so that they were easily moldable. All it took to make a good hat was a needle, thread, thimble and mastery in flattening, lining and ironing.

The cobbler

Giovanni Lo Russo born in Trevico on January 5, 1932

Giovanni Lo Russo, born in Trevico on January 5, 1932, lives in Scampitella, Via S. Pietro, Rione Serra delle Nespole. I've been a widower for 14 years, and I have five children, one lives in Lecco, one in Milan, two live in Scampitella and another one in Trevico. I attended elementary school in the village of S. Agata, in a farm owned by the Fiorgianti, where my father worked as a farmer. After school, I used to graze cows and horses. My mother had sewn me a cloth folder in the shape of a bag. When I was 13 I started my apprenticeship with Stefano Di Francesco, a shoemaker who lived in the hamlet Ciccarella and I worked there for four years. Then when I turned 17 I opened my own workshop in Scampitella, where there were already 27 other cobblers.

Today it’s just me and my brother, who was my first apprentice. There have been nine more after him, and in the last few years, for a period of nine months there were two other boys: Antonio from Scampitella, who opened his own shop in , and Michelangelo, who opened his shop in Pescopagano. I taught them the job for free, without asking anything in return, whereas when I did my apprenticeship my father had to pay 4 quintals of wheat, they were worth 3,600 liras. At the time people worked in farms and it took eleven hours to make a pair of shoes. I remember that my students found difficult to make twine for sewing shoes, you had to wet your fingers with saliva and then roll up the string (“drif'lar' lu spagh'”). The thinner twine was used for top stitching, while the bigger one was meant for the lower seams. You put tar and finally the pig bristle and sewed the shoe. Cobblers also did “lu vrazzal' e lu cappuddr'”, objects made of cowhide for protecting index fingers and left arms during the wheat harvest; I hung them out the window and people bought them before going to reap in Puglia.

«There are words, big words, little words, beautiful words that have become ugly, because stained by the use it has been made of them. I wouldn’t want to see the word “notebook” disappear from everyday use, a word neither beautiful nor ugly that comes from the Latin quadernus, a collection of four sheets.

Some time ago I’ve found a notebook in an old dresser, a narrow and thin notebook that had belonged to my grandfather. It read: Scola’s accounts 1936. Among the expenses of July there was one that said: Ettore’s shoes. Every summer I went to Trevico, my grandparents’ village, where I was born. That year I remember that my grandfather gave me a pair of custom-made boots as a present.

The shoemaker, Rocco, came to our house with a little disk and two rolls of leather under his arm. He made me take off my sandals and told me to stand straight on the leather while he sketched with a pencil the contours of my feet. He began to work while I sat there watching him cut, sew, nail, beat for 5 hours. During lunch break my grandmother brought me a plate of macaroni too because she knew that I wouldn’t have moved from there as an assistant cobbler. After 5 hours my shoes were ready, they were yellow, flaming, crisp, smelled of leather, the most beautiful shoes I've ever had. I witnessed a miracle of concentration and love for his work. With the miracle of work Rocco had given birth to something that wasn’t there before. That's the miracle we must believe, the one made by men».

In the TV show “Quello che (non) ho” (“What I (don’t) have”), broadcasted on May 15, 2012 on channel La7, master Ettore Scola talked about his memories and Rocco the cobbler.

In 2008, we founded a non-profit organization IRPINIAMIA for cultural purposes, it seeks solely to achieve social utility. The association is involved in the following areas: (1) the development and promotion of the local culture, history and traditions, referring in particular to the territory of Trevico and, more generally, of Baronia and Irpinia; (2) the enhancement and boost of socio-cultural peculiarities and local cuisine; (3) the advancement of education; (4) the protection, promotion and improvement of the assets of historical, artistic and cultural heritage, with particular - but not exclusive - reference to the territory of Trevico; (5) the defense and support of nature and the environment; (6) the re-enactment of past traditions belonging to the community of the Baronia to offer to the new generations the knowledge of the customs and practices of the past, still alive in the memory of older people and it mainly relies on the personal, voluntary, spontaneous, free work of its members.

Founders: Mariangela Cioria (Chairman) Patrizia Pizzulo (Vice-Chairman)

Involved in the project IRPINIAMIA: Walter Giovanniello / Federico Archidiacono / Marilena Cipriano / Teresa Lavanga / Gerardo Lo Russo / Ania Pasanen / Euplio Archidiaccono / Monica Giovanniello / Noemi Perlingieri / Anna Fusco / Maria Straw / Mariella Calabrese.

This book was made possible thanks to the contributions of the following sponsors.