L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2022 www.italoamericano.org 16 L'Italo-Americano W e I t a l i a n s love play- ing cards, b u o u r decks must be quality ones! M o d i a n o i s a b r a n d o f our Made in Italy known around the world for the beau- ty and quality of its playing cards, so much so that, since 2015, it officially supplies the Las Vegas World Series of Poker. The company is locat- ed in San Dorligo della Valle, some 10 miles from Trieste, in Friuli Venezia-Giulia, not far from the border with Slovenia. They produce a variety of play- ing cards, including Italian regional decks, collector decks, casino decks and tarots. They also dabble in the production of board games. T h e h i s t o r y o f M o d i a n o playing cards is long and inter- esting, let's take a look at it together. It was 1759 when the Habs- burg granted the right to pro- duce playing cards for the whole Adriatic coastline to a manufacturer in Trieste, which was the most important port of the Austrian Empire and a hub of commerce and import- export. In 1868 a young man from Salonicco, Saul David M o d i a n o , m o v e d t o t h e Northern Italian city seeking better fortune. Saul had plenty of initiative and quickly real- i z e d h e c o u l d m a k e g o o d money by producing and sell- ing cheap boxes of rolling paper to sailors and dock- w o r k e r s a t t h e p o r t . H i s hand-cut paper, sold in color- ful boxes, became a hit. Leg- ends say it was by observing h i s c u s t o m e r s t h a t S a u l M o d i a n o h a d t h e i d e a t o b e g i n p r o d u c i n g p l a y i n g cards because they seemed to favor that as a pastime: if dockworkers liked his rolling paper, why shouldn't they like his playing cards? So, in 1884, Saul expanded his trade by opening a lithog- raphy enterprise to produce art prints and playing cards. Before long, Modiano decks t u r n e d i n t o a m u s t - h a v e , because they weren't only beautiful, but of high quality. N e w f a c t o r i e s w e r e t h e n opened in Friuli Venezia-Giu- lia, but also in Croatia and Hungary, back then all part of the Habsburg Empire. At the beginning of the 20th centu- ry, Modiano would start pro- ducing artistic advertising posters, an activity they'll keep going until the 1950s. The company remained solidly in the hands of the Modiano family until 1987 when it was taken over by Grafad, a business belonging to the Crechici family special- i z i n g i n p a p e r p r o d u c t s , which decided to abandon t h e p r o d u c t i o n o f r o l l i n g paper and focus solely on that of playing cards. Today, Modiano cards are known for the beauty and quality of their prints and for the smoothness of the cards themselves, characteristics obtained thanks to the use of state-of-the-art machinery: in the end, if Modiano cards are used in Vegas for the world poker championship, there must be a reason! Perhaps, a l i t t l e a n e c d o t e w e f o u n d o n l i n e i s t h e b e s t w a y t o demonstrate how good Modi- ano cards are: apparently, sometime in the early 1990s, a foreign company producing playing cards decided to try and break into the Italian market, starting with Naples. S u r e l y , t h e i r d e c k s w e r e cheaper so people tried them – i n t h e e n d , w h o i s n ' t attracted by a bargain? How- ever, card players around the city quickly abandoned their new decks and went back to their trustworthy Modianos, not only because the printing on the cards was awful but because the quality itself of the product was very low. Today Modiano, guided by Stefano Crechici, remains one of the best and most impor- tant playing cards producers in the world, with 40% of their creations sold in Italy and 60% abroad. C hiodo is the Ital- i a n w o r d f o r "nail." While his- t o r i a n s a n d a r c h a e o l o g i s t s believe the first nail-like tools were used by the Homo Sapi- ens and the great Egyptians k n e w t h e m , t o o , t h e f i r s t archaeology-attested signs of their use belong to Roman times and it was them, our ancient, sandal-clad ances- t o r s , w h o m a d e t h i s n o w u b i q u i t o u s o b j e c t m a i n - stream. It was the Romans who began producing nails in l a r g e q u a n t i t i e s , t o b e employed especially in con- struction. C u r i o u s l y , R o m a n nails had strong ties with the army, for more than one rea- s o n . I t w a s c o m m o n f o r legions that were to settle for a relatively long time in newly acquired provinces to have their own blacksmith. The c r a f t s m a n w o u l d s e t u p a workshop in the camp and produce nails to be used, in large part, for the construc- tion of defense buildings. In Britain, the first attestation of the use of nails in the country comes from the archaeologi- cal digs of Inchtuthill, in Perthshire, where seven tons o f n a i l s l e f t b e h i n d b y a Roman garrison in 86 AD have been unearthed. Roman blacksmiths would extract iron ore and make nails by hand; their nails were squared and tapered, with a large head: the bigger nails were used to build wooden defensive stockades around the camp, while smaller ones were best to put together tim- ber roofing. But the ties between nails and the Roman army – and between this tiny tool and our famous ancestors – don't end there: they were also used to make shoes. We are all famil- iar with the traditional san- dals that Roman soldiers used to wear, we've seen them in so many movies! Well, you may not know that, despite looking like sandals, they were more l i k e w a l k i n g b o o t s , w h i c h could be also worn with socks. They were called caligae and consisted of a leather sole, with laces that tied at the cen- t e r o f t h e f o o t a n d a t t h e ankle. Nails served to rein- force the sole throughout, but also to allow soldiers to use their caligae as weapons to kick their enemies with! LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE I t a l i a n i n v e n t i o n o f t h e month: "i chiodi" Il nostro Made in Italy: Modiano playing cards O l d m e t a l n a i l s , f r o m a n a r c h a e o l o g i c a l d i g i n S u s s e x , U K ( P h o t o : C h r i s Cook/Dreamstime) On the left, the logo on an old box of old Modiano cigarette paper (Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons agreement. Alf van Beem. License: CC0).

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