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. ✨🌿🌙
‘Raccavallala!’ Granny Maddalena cried out if someone stepped over a child lying on the floor – step back over it! – or you’d stunt the child’s growth. I’m currently researching Italian folklore and came across this very superstition and many others like… never put your wallet on the floor or you’ll have no money. If you accidentally put your clothes on inside out in the morning it’s good luck and you’ll receive good news. Wasting food or throwing it out brings misfortune. Remove cobwebs with your left hand for good luck.
Beside Maddalena’s amulet are her gold earrings – given to young girls as gold was believed to protect against blindness and misfortune and interestingly because it symbolises the sun’s power and masculine energy. I have no idea how old these earrings are but Estella Canziani did paintings of similar earrings worn by peasants in Italy and France that she saw during her travels in the 1900s, including in the area of Abruzzo where Granny lived.
Piedmontese peasant wood-pipe carved from cherry wood that writer, artist and folklorist, Estella Canziani presented to The Folklore Society of London in 1911. She donated it along with other items from her travels in northern Italy when she wrote and illustrated her first book, Costumes, Traditions and Songs of Savoy (before she ventured to the Abruzzo in 1913 to pen Through the Apennines and Lands of Abruzzi).
Zoë Boccabella 