In Naples perhaps more than anywhere else in Italy, craftsmanship is the fruit of ancient knowledge, handed down through the centuries.
Today, Neapolitan artisans are bringing their work into the present, fusing tradition with innovation, and nowhere more so than at the ceramics workshop, a “laboratory of art” opened in the 1990s by three brothers of the Scuotto family. Their mission: reimagining the presepio, the Christmas Nativity scene, long an art form in Italy.
The Scuottos, now joined by two sisters and other family members, combine the sacred with the profane, creating dreamlike settings populated with hand-sculpted, hand-painted (and sometimes sinister) ceramic priests, devils, angels, even mermaids.
A recurrent figure is modeled on 70-year-old Giacomino Dodicesimo, who has visited the Scarabattola shop daily for the past 15 years. “His childlike view of the world, the freedom of a mind that doesn’t work like others, inspires us, ” says Salvatore Scuotto.
And the name Scarabattola? It refers to the display cabinets that traditionally have held Nativity scenes, a nod to the past from a forward-looking team.
La Scarabattola (Via dei Tribunali 50) is open Monday-Saturday 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and 3:30-7:30 p.m. Works start at ; the Scuottos also restore old Nativity scenes.
More authentic buys in Naples:
(Vico San Domenico Maggiore 9)
Neapolitan mandolins become works of art in the hands of artisans at this workshop founded in 1825.
(Corso Italia 34/1, Marano di Napoli)
Flower bouquets, fairies, even Vespa scooters are rendered by Naples’s top porcelain artisans.
(Vico S. Severino 39)
Tambourines of all sizes, some painted with scenes of Naples, fill this workshop that also makes castanets.
This piece was written by Isabella Brega, the executive editor of Traveler’s Italian partner magazine, Touring.
In reality the Fascist appointees to the corpora
by Child-In-Time1961In reality the Fascist appointees to the corporations tended to take the side of the management and what resulted was really capitalism within a tight set of government controls. Since most of Europe and much of the rest of the world moved in that direction in the post-war era, Mussolini was in this also ahead of his times. And if the waning of the "Red" influence on Western economies in the post-Soviet era has led to some deregulation of business, the rise of the "Greens" has added a vast new area of government regulation. The precedent set by Mussolini is still being followed!
Today's History Lesson
by RedHotSexBombOn this day in 1907 Maria Montessori opened her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome.
She was born in Chiaravalle (Ancona), Italy. Montessori was the first female Italian physician in the modern era. As such, she was given a "menial" task: to try to educate the "mentally retarded" and the "uneducable" in Rome. She opened her first school, in Rome, on January 6, 1907.
The Montessori method of education that she derived from this experience has subsequently been applied successfully to children and is quite popular in many parts of the world. Despite much criticism of her method in the early 1930s-1940s, her method of education has been applied and has undergone a revival
15233+debunker? Nazis were socialist?
by TommysWhat next?
"chomsky said pol pot was great and didn't kill 500,000 people?"
what next?
"mussolini had the support of all the left unions in Italy'?
what next?
Stalin did not give the go ahead to FDR and the UK to kill the Yugo and Greek leftist partisans off?
what next?
"The USA went into WW2 to save the jews?"
my god.
higher education.
there are your results.
He was confirmed as a soldier of Christ
by dr_lapin3A) Hitler was baptized as Roman Catholic during infancy in Austria.
b) As Hitler approached boyhood he attended a monastery school. (On his way to school young Adolf daily observed a stone arch which was carved with the monasterys coat of arms bearing a swastika.)
c) Hitler was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church.
d) As a young man he was confirmed as a soldier of Christ. His most ardent goal at the time was to become a priest. Hitler writes of his love for the church and clergy: I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals
In Naples perhaps more than anywhere else in Italy, craftsmanship is the fruit of ancient knowledge, handed down through the centuries.
