COPIA OMAGGIO • COMPLIMENTARY COPY EDIZIONI PRC

[Tradizioni]
neri che coprono il volto e dai quali il solo
sguardo bonario indica che sotto questa
sepolcrale immagine vi sia quel Giovanni
o quel Peppino che ieri raccontava storielle
che venivano riecheggiate dalla Grotta
Azzurra. Poi sotto un grande baldacchino
sorretto da quattro pescatori più anziani
dell’isola, vestiti con meravigliose mistiche
tuniche di sciamito - un po’ simili alla toga
di un dottore in musica della nostra prosaica
terra - viene la Madonna. La Madonna
del Carmelo, con una corona d’oro in
testa e un pesce d’argento che penzola tra
le dita. È la Madonna del Carmelo che si
contende con San Costanzo, il Santo della
chiesa madre di sotto, il dominio spirituale
di Capri. Se egli è il Protettore dell’isola,
lei è la Protettrice. Tutte le ragazze vanno
d’accordo con i pescatori per il loro amore
per la Madonna. “Ah sì, signore - sorride
una ragazza il cui viso greco avrebbe potuto
fungere da modello per Fidia - San Costanzo
è il nostro protettore ma è vecchio e la
Madonna è giovane, così giovane e così
graziosa, signore, ed è la mia protettrice”.
Due tavole dedicate
al corallo tratte
dal “Nuovo dizionario
scientifico e curioso
sacro-profano”
di Gianfrancesco Pivati
pubblicato alla fine
del Settecento.
Two plates devoted to
coral and taken from
the Nuovo dizionario
scientifico e curioso
sacro-profano, compiled
by Gianfrancesco Pivati
and published in the late
18th century.
Lentamente la processione
si snoda attraverso
la cittadina,
ora allungandosi in
una fila di ceri luccicanti
mentre passa per le strette viuzze, ora
allargandosi sui pendii delle colline dove i
fazzoletti da testa color arancio ed i monili
d’argento delle donne capresi brillano e risplendono
nel sole su uno stupendo sfondo
di colori. Poi arriva la sera, la benedizione
ed i fuochi d’artificio senza i quali la processione
non sarebbe tenuta in nessun conto;
le girandole piroettano nella Piazza ed
i petardi scoppiano tra un coro di graziose
grida di piacere e di terrore».
nothing but the bright
good-humoured eye
The Art of Coral
to guide one, under
The word “coral” most probably hails
from the Greek korallion, meaning
“hard skeleton”, though there are
those who believe that it derives
from the Hebrew word goral, which
was used to refer to the stones cast
this sepulchral figure,
to the Giovanni or
Beppino who was
cracking jokes
yesterday in the
Blue Grotto. Then
in oracles in Asia Minor and the
beneath a great
Mediterranean - coral was prevalently
canopy upborne by
used for this purpose.
the four elder fishers
For the Ancient Greeks and
of the island, vested
Romans, coral was “the greatest
in gowns of ‘samite,
fruit of the sea”. Ovid wrote in his
mystic, wonderful’
Metamorphoses: “It is like soft grass
that grows not on the ground but in
- somewhat like a
the sea. The salt water putrefies the doctor of music’s
little plants until the leaves fall off, and
then sea spray carries them to shore.
They harden in the air; anybody who
touches them would say that they are
made of stone, yet not long before
they were grass.”
The old fisherman’s town of Torre del
Greco, at the foot of Vesuvius, has
gown in our unpoetic
land - comes the
Madonna herself,
‘La Madonna del
Carmelo,’ with a
crown of gold on her
head and a silver
fish dangling from
long been associated with this precious her fingers. It is the
gem from the sea. Documentation on Madonna of Carmel,
Torre del Greco sailors fishing for coral
who disputes with
dates back to the 15th century. It was
San Costanzo, the
at Torre del Greco that the Royal Coral
saint of the mother
Company was founded in 1790; on
church below, the
22 December 1798, Ferdinand IV of
Bourbon passed the Coral Code, with
spiritual dominion
the intention of regulating the Coral
of Capri. If he is the
fishing industry.
‘Protector’ of the
In the late 1800s, around 290 coral
boats set sail from Torre del Greco
every year. A Coral Working School
was founded in town in 1878 (converted
into a Coral Museum in 1993). Once
a small fisherman’s village, Torre
del Greco has become the capital of
working this red gold. Though there
island, she is its
‘Protectress.’ ...
“On the other hand,
all the girls go with
the fisherfolk, in their
love of the Madonna.
‘Ah yes, signore,’
laughs a maiden
is no longer a coral-fishing industry in whose Greek face
the town, it remains the world’s leading
might have served
location for working coral.
Phidias for a model,
‘San Costanzo is
our Protector, but
he is old, and the Madonna is young - so
young and so pretty, signore - and she is my
Protectress.’...
“Slowly the procession winds its way through
the little town, now lengthening into a line
of twinkling tapers as it passes through the
narrow alleys which serve for streets, now
widening out again on the hillsides where the
orange kerchiefs and silver ornaments of the
Caprese women glow and flash against a
magnificient background of color in the sun.
And then come evening and benediction, and
the fire-works, without which the procession
would go for nothing, catharine-wheels
spinning in the piazza, and big crackers
bursting amidst a chorus of pretty cries of
terror and delight.”
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