Deemed unlucky by some but lucky in Italy (except for thirteen at a table like the last supper!) ‘Fare tredici!!’ – ‘Making thirteen!’ or ‘hitting the jackpot’ came about in 1946 with Italy’s popular football betting pool, but ‘13’ being revered goes back thousands of years to pagans observing thirteen lunar cycles each year connected to fertility, prosperity and rebirth (not just humans but animals, nature, food grown, the sun, water, everything connected).
In Abruzzo, 13 became an amulet worn to draw in the good and repel the bad with 13 amulets added too. Like a broom to sweep away bad luck, a hare for fertility, a fish for vitality, a basket or shoe for prosperity, a cornicello or horn for protection. The gold to honour the sun, silver, the moon. (Those unable to afford these had tin with a low-carat gold or silver wash over it.) For centuries, Abruzzo has quietly kept alive some of Italy’s most superb and symbolic goldsmithing traditions including the amuleti, tredici fortunato.
Top left is folklorist Estella Canziani’s sketch of such amulets when she visited Abruzzo in 1913. Top right, an amulet from the 1800s in Scanno, and below it, one currently in a Scanno jewellery shop, Oreficeria Di Rienzo. Bottom left – photographed in Pescara, 1996, by researchers, Adriana Gandolfi and Ezio Mattiocco. Bottom right – my drawing, 2026, inspired by Estella Canziani’s one 113 years ago.
It may now seem quaint that people sought out amuleti but these were uncertain times and, well… when are times ‘certain’ anyway? I treasure my great-granny Maddalena’s cornicello from Abruzzo that’s more than a century old now. If nothing else, it’s a connection to a woman who worked hard, loved nature and worked with it not against it, including those lunar cycles. Looking to the sun or moon or nature has brought comfort to many for a long time, so long, that there is likely something still in that. ✨🌿🌙
Melanzane fritte – made with eggplants from the backyard vegie patch, just like the crumbed, fried eggplant slices that Nonna Gia and Sofie cook together in, The Proxy Bride. I’ve put these ones on one of Nanna Francesca’s plates and next to them is a little pot I bought in Italy to stand in as a ‘chilli pot’ (though I confess mine has salt in it at present!)
Zoë Boccabella 