Gargano: Resisting Nero and Caligula

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“…Nerone infiamma il Centrosud…e dopo…arriva Caligola“, early August newspaper tidbits report here in Italy: “Nero inflames central/southern Italy…and later…Caligula is coming..” According to an erroneous legend, the emperor Nero (Nerone) played his lyre as Rome burned in 64 A.D. and he’s back: meterologists have dubbed this summer’s fifth sub-tropical, Saharan anticyclone “Nerone” and Nerone has followed Scipione, Caronte, Lucifero, and Ulisse. (Ah, these Italians: even the winds spiraling out from areas of high atmospheric pressure – the anticyclones – are named for protagonists of their history, literature and mythology).
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Norcia: Finding a True Norcineria

Food/Wine Lore, Umbrian HilltownsLeave a comment

In the Middle Ages, the disparaging term “Il norcino” (literally meaning, “from Norcia”) grouped together a variety of improvisational impersonators of i chirurghi (‘surgeons”): il cerusico (“barber/surgeon), il cava-denti (tooth-extractor), and il concia-osse (“bonesetter), who wandered from village-to-village offering their rudimentary surgical skills at prezzi popolari. In ancient Rome, i norcini had been known above all for their skill in the castration of pigs (necessary in order to attenuate the strong gamey flavor of the meat of the male) and the transformation of the pig’s meat into temptations for the palate. The norcino pig-butchering skills lead easily to surgical interventions on humans: the setting of broken bones, tooth extractions, excision of tumors, cataract and hernia operations – and even to the castration of young boys, transforming their voices into mellifluous voci bianche…
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