Storytelling in the streets of Italy

After a long break I am back. I was very lucky during this time to have visited Lake Como in Italy with my mum and my aunt. Both are Italians who were born and raised in Scotland, and the holiday was a chance to spend some time together and see the sites of northern Italy, the 'home of the heart' for my mothers family.  It seems a lot of famous people also like it in Lake Como. Here is a map I found of some of them . Whilst we were there, the local newspapers reported that the now infamous ex Italian President Berlusconi had also just purchased a house not far up the lake from our hotel!

We had a fabulous time around the lake and stayed in a small village called Cadenabbia, a favourite stay of the British and indeed the royal family and we could see why. Very fabulous view of the Alps and across the lake. The american dominated Belaggio across the water had wonderful windy cobbled streets, hard work for the shopping though, and the train across the the Alps from Italy to Switzerland and through the Bernina pass [7000 feet!!!] gave me an experience of snow I have not had since I was a child. The statues and ceilings were awesome and gardens, even this early in spring, were glorious. The famous cathedral in Milan Il Duomo was so amazing I have no words for it.

So what has this got to do with reading, libraries and story telling? Well. My grandmother, or Nonna, was the youngest of a large farming family from Cassino in southern Italy, and the youngest of 7 daughters. Her family is spread far and wide, a sister and brother of my Nonna still live near their home village in Italy, but others moved to Scotland, France and America long before even my mother was born. It is a family history rich in adventure, drama and tragedy. There is also a tradition of story telling in the south, called cunto. So storytelling IS in my blood. You see, my wee holiday was just a lead in :-)

The cunto, a traditional form of Italian street storytelling, has been at the heart of Sicilian life for centuries. It is an ancient form of improvisational storytelling that thrived in Palermo over the centuries but is now almost extinguished. Performed by cuntisti standing atop wooden platforms, using nothing more than the power of their booming voices and a single prop -- usually a wooden sword or cane --these stories lasted for hours on end. They were epic tales that drove audiences to hysterics. Performers were sometimes forced to modify their stories on the spot to please angry or weeping crowds.

Based on an ancient Greek form of chorus called the dythiramb -- which experts say laid the foundation for Greek tragedy, and thus for modern theater -- the cunto is believed to date as far back as the Middle Ages. A typically Palermitan form of storytelling, it gained momentum in the 19th century and carried through into modern times, until movie theaters and TV sets put many cuntisti out of business.

Traditionally, the cunti revolved around Medieval heroes, such as knights and paladins, and their epic adventures -- with the final battle being the peak of the performance.

Roberto Genovese was one of Palermo’s last two authentic cuntisti in the ’50s and ’60s was tiny man who, in the middle of the hot summer, wore a bare white shirt and holding a wooden sword, would tell cunti for hours and hours. Only a select few still practice today in Palermo. Today the storytelling in Italy is about real issues, and the mafia, much like our TV soap operas. Stay cool until the next post.