NEWS FLASH!!
TRADIZIONI IS NOW AVAILABLE ON THIS WEBSITE!
IFAFA Members can find it in the Resource Library in the Members Only section. If you are an IFAFA Member, and you do not know how to access the Members Only pages, please email Jackie Capurro for further instruction.
As a member of IFAFA, you'll receive our newsletter, Tradizioni. Tradizioni was inaugurated in the spring of 1980 to disseminate informative, in-depth, researched material on related topics, including (but not limited to) dances, songs, instruments, music, costumes, folktales, games, festivals, celebrations, crafts, recipes, as well as traditions and customs reflecting the life of our immigrant forebears and Italian ancestors. The range and scope of the material is educational, unusual and refreshing -- containing information that is not readily available elsewhere. The majority of articles are written in English, but most issues also have one article offered in both English and Italian. You may read a sample article, below.
Tradizioni also allows IFAFA members and member troupes to share information on their recent and upcoming activities.
We accept original articles from outside sources on the aforementioned topics. If you'd like to receive a sample copy of Tradizioni, or if you have an article which you would like to have considered for publication, please contact: Jackie Capurro, Editor-in-Chief of Tradizioni.
SAMPLE ARTICLE:
Le Guazze di Lucia
The traditional headpiece worn in the Lake Como area of Lombardia
Lecco (a city on Lake Como in Lombardia) was the setting for the famous Italian historical fiction novel, I promessi sposi, (The Betrothed) by Alessandro Manzoni. The traditional woman’s costume from Lecco is linked to the image of Manzoni’s heroine, Lucia. The word guazze is used to describe the corona of silver hatpins or spadine (little swords) inserted one by one in the two braids formed by the woman's hair. The hatpins, as many as 24, were placed in a circle behind the head and assumed the aspect of a low half-halo appearing only slightly above the head and protruding beyond the sides of the face. The hairstyle was completed with a spontone, a longer thicker hatpin ending in two capocchie (finials/end ornaments) attached horizontally at the point of maximum diameter.
The corona is made up in this manner: a spontone located very low, with the capocchie very visible in the shape of a small wheel decorated with two pendants -- a couple of hatpins with elongated or pear-shaped finials -- behind the top of the head and semi-hidden, a series of at least five hatpins in a pointed arch, preceded by a large long flat element with a middle crack. This last element, also seen in an authentic pattern of Novarese, could also have a quadrangular openwork head ending in a sferrata. Stylized and flattened, it became the sword of eight holes of the silverworkers. A fundamental component of the very ancient pattern exists in the Manzonian Civic Museum at Caleotto di Lecco.
The ensemble of hair and hatpins, in the lecchese dialect, was called "i guazz" (from i coazza which means “hair in braids”). In other places, it has other names: giron, speronada, or sperada (with slender elements), coo d'argent with wide elements. Certain hatpins were called spadin (triangular, flat, made of openwork) or cugiarett or spazzaorec ending in a slightly concave shovel-shaped blade. The spontoni or gugghioni, to be inserted horizontally at the end of the braiding with large pear-shaped finials, were called cugiar, oeuv, or ball. Among the two types of hatpins, they inserted at times spadini (little swords), much larger and more elaborate in number and form according to, so it seemed, the nobility of the family of the bride.
Members of Il Gruppo Folcloristico Firlinfeu “Renzo e Lucia” in Lecco explain that, if the family could afford it, it was a frequent custom to purchase a silver spontone for a baby girl when she was born, and then buy one spadino for each birthday until, at least, her 18th birthday, sometimes until her 24th birthday.
It is interesting to note that, in the lecchese area, the use of this hairstyle appears only in the second half of the 17th century. In fact, among the things donated to the Madonna del Rosario of the Collegiata of Lecco (in the year 1684), one finds, for the first time, the unquestionable use of something similar to the corona of Lucia. What happened later, causing this ornament to thicken with hatpins with the passing of decades, is not certain. Halfway through the 19th century, at Acquate, one sees the guazzi with 27 spadine, at Castello with 24 spazzaorec; while in Varesotto (in the year 1852) they counted up to 30 and 40 of them. The private collection existing at Lecco and Cantù, shows antique coronas from the 18th century, formed of 35, 41 and more elements.
“The young black hair of Lucia was wrapped, behind the head, in multiple circles of braids,
passed through with hatpins of silver, that were divided evenly all around, almost as rays of a halo.”
Chapter II of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed) by Alessandro Manzoni