From the book… to the theater. And so the stories of the past become interesting even for the youngest. Riccardo Boggi’s book, ‘Serene sky, dark earth. Tales of signatures, fears and a rediscovered essay’ will be adapted into a theatrical version, thanks to the actress Cristina Sarti, who on 20 July will present an unpublished theatrical text entitled ‘Signatures, voices, sounds and signs of ancient culture’, with the accompaniment musical by Meme Lucarelli. Boggi, we remember, is a freelance journalist, recently awarded by the Order for 40 years of activity, he began writing with the opening of the Lunigiana news of the Nation and always remembers that our newspaper was the training ground that gave him taught to adopt essential writing that is understandable to all. The book is dedicated to the memory of Germano Cavalli, pioneer and master of the historical and ethnographic studies of Lunigiana, the title is the formula for healing from sunburn in the town of Vecchietto, which would be ‘Clear sky, dark earth, cooked meat returns raw’.
The formula is curiously similar to the spell that appears in a song by De André. The book boasts beautiful watercolors by Anna Kunitz which illustrate the nine unpublished stories of men and women met by Boggi 50 years ago: people who knew the healing formulas, published for the first time in the volume published in 1977 and just reprinted. There is the story of Clorinda who receives the formulas as a wedding gift, that of Luigi, an illiterate who confuses the Trinity with generic Madonnas, that of Delina who removes the evil eye by applying a relaxation technique without knowing it. There are formulas still widely practiced to free from the evil eye and the fearsome shingles. “I didn’t think there would be so much interest in a book I wrote at 24 years old – explains Boggi -, it was still sought after on the stalls of antique dealers. In the book there is not only the magical peasant world, but the photograph of the popular traditions of Lunigiana at the beginning of the seventies, religious festivals such as San Genesio and the Madonna in Gaggio, popular such as the fires of Sant’Antonio in Filattiera and San Nicolò in Villafranca, tales of fear such as the wandering souls at the gates of the towns”. The book had an extraordinary success: over 850 copies were printed and it was presented in almost all the municipalities of Lunigiana, in Albareto in the province of Parma, at the Museo dell’Immaginario in Piazza al Serchio, in La Spezia, in Massa, in Carrara; other presentations will be at the castle of Tresana, at the castle of San Giorgio della Spezia, in Pontremoli, in Filetto and perhaps in the Tuscan Regional Council. “Every time the book is presented there is curiosity – he concludes -, everyone wants to know what I think of the evil eye, of the traditional rites that were practiced and are still practiced. In public presentations the book becomes a pretext to address the problem of the relationship between the church and magic. When they ask me what magic is for me, I quote Pavese: I don’t know exactly what magic is, but I know that it always starts when you no longer want to leave places, thoughts, people.”
Monica Leoncini
