Scugnizzi.
SCUGNIZZI
An old postcard of historical scugnizzi.
I want to be a scugnizzo! So what the fuck is a scugnizzo? A scugnizzo, (plural, scugnizzi) is an orphan or abandoned street kid of Naples, Italy. They are practically a tradition, although there is surely nothing acceptable or humane about hordes of scugnizzi running amok in a city, without homes or parents, resorting to wit and ingenuity and theft for survival. Nevertheless, there is a certain romantic character about them. They have an utter freedom, the only reason I would want to be one, apart from their enviable youth. When not scrounging, they are swimming unclad in the Bay of Naples.
Other Italian cities have had neglected street kids over the decades, not to mention other cities of the world. Look at Rio de Janeiro! One thinks too of Vittorio De Sica's devastating neo-realist film masterpiece Sciuscià (Shoe Shine) where we saw a Roman assortment of abused boyhood in conflict with the law and consigned to the hell of juvenile prison. But none were called scugnizzi. That is a word associated exclusively with stray kids of Naples, as though it were an admirable form of civic pride.
Scugnizzi are so famed that many historical postcards of Naples have images of them. They were tourist attractions pictured on cards used for writing messages home! A scugnizzo by the name of Alfonsino appeared in the Naples episode of the Rossellini's masterpiece Paisan (Paisà), where he befriends a black G.I. only to steal his boots. Scugnizzi were also the subject of a pleasing 1989 film called, aptly enough, Scugnizzi, by director Nanni Loy, whom I was once introduced to in a Bologna palazzo. It is about one very humane man who teaches street kids to perform in a musical about their lives, given at the San Carlo Opera House. The film is filled with beautiful things, beautiful songs, and beautiful kids amid some heartbreaking realities. Why is it a fact of life that tragedy can be beautiful?
An old postcard of historical scugnizzi.
I want to be a scugnizzo! So what the fuck is a scugnizzo? A scugnizzo, (plural, scugnizzi) is an orphan or abandoned street kid of Naples, Italy. They are practically a tradition, although there is surely nothing acceptable or humane about hordes of scugnizzi running amok in a city, without homes or parents, resorting to wit and ingenuity and theft for survival. Nevertheless, there is a certain romantic character about them. They have an utter freedom, the only reason I would want to be one, apart from their enviable youth. When not scrounging, they are swimming unclad in the Bay of Naples.
Other Italian cities have had neglected street kids over the decades, not to mention other cities of the world. Look at Rio de Janeiro! One thinks too of Vittorio De Sica's devastating neo-realist film masterpiece Sciuscià (Shoe Shine) where we saw a Roman assortment of abused boyhood in conflict with the law and consigned to the hell of juvenile prison. But none were called scugnizzi. That is a word associated exclusively with stray kids of Naples, as though it were an admirable form of civic pride.
Scugnizzi are so famed that many historical postcards of Naples have images of them. They were tourist attractions pictured on cards used for writing messages home! A scugnizzo by the name of Alfonsino appeared in the Naples episode of the Rossellini's masterpiece Paisan (Paisà), where he befriends a black G.I. only to steal his boots. Scugnizzi were also the subject of a pleasing 1989 film called, aptly enough, Scugnizzi, by director Nanni Loy, whom I was once introduced to in a Bologna palazzo. It is about one very humane man who teaches street kids to perform in a musical about their lives, given at the San Carlo Opera House. The film is filled with beautiful things, beautiful songs, and beautiful kids amid some heartbreaking realities. Why is it a fact of life that tragedy can be beautiful?