L'Italo-Americano

D r e a m o f y o u r dead grandfa- t h e r a n d t h e number is 47. If he speaks to you, it becomes 48 instead. And if, in the dream, he men- tions something specific, an address, for instance, or a date, that number may be worth playing, too. The ratio- n a l e i s p r e t t y s i m p l e : t h e dead are traditionally consid- ered reliable informants, so ignoring what they tell you would be a waste. T h i s i s , i n e s s e n c e , t h e smorfia napoletana: the s y s t e m t h r o u g h w h i c h Neapolitans have for cen- t u r i e s t r a n s l a t e d d r e a m s , people, objects and events into numbers to play in the lottery. The system runs from 1 to 9 0 b e c a u s e t h e I t a l i a n Lotto itself uses ninety num- bered balls. In each drawing, five numbers are selected from one of the game's city- b a s e d w h e e l s , i n c l u d i n g Naples. That means every dream image has to be con- verted into a number some- w h e r e w i t h i n t h a t r a n g e . Interpreting the dream is the r e a l s k i l l : t h e p e o p l e w h o appear in it, what they do, what they say and even what the dreamer feels may all be assigned separate numbers and then read together. That is why 47 means the dead, w h i l e 4 8 m e a n s t h e d e a d who speak. T h e o r i g i n o f t h e w o r d " s m o r f i a " i s s t i l l d e b a t e d today. A frequently proposed ancestor is Morpheus, the G r e e k g o d o f d r e a m s , y e t Smorfia in ordinary Italian also means a grimace, which is oddly appropriate for a system built around inter- preting the strange faces and g e s t u r e s o f t h e s l e e p i n g mind. Jewish Kabbalah and gematria are invoked even more often, and the tradition i s s o m e t i m e s c a l l e d t h e c a b a l a n a p o l e t a n a f o r that reason, although the his- torical connection is more often claimed than clearly demonstrated. For a long time, the Smor- f i a c i r c u l a t e d o r a l l y , i n a largely popular culture where many people could not read; later, when printed booklets began to appear in the eigh- teenth and nineteenth cen- turies, they were often illus- t r a t e d , w i t h a n i m a g e accompanying each number so that the system could be used even by those with lim- ited literacy. They were sold in the streets alongside the pianeti della fortuna, print- ed fortunes selected from a tray by a caged parrot for anyone willing to pay. The Smorfia, however, only makes full sense when placed beside the lottery that gave those numbers practi- cal value: the Italian Lotto had originated much earlier i n G e n o a , w h e r e p e o p l e b e g a n b e t t i n g o n w h i c h names would be drawn from an urn during elections to the senate. Naples adopted the game in 1682, but it was under the Bourbons in the eighteenth century that it became firmly established as a state-run public monopoly. A t o n e s t a g e , e a c h o f t h e ninety lottery numbers was associated with the name of a poor girl from the king- d o m , a n d t h e f i v e w h o s e n u m b e r s w e r e d r a w n received twenty-five ducats each, enough to contribute t o a d o w r y . N e a p o l i t a n s c a l l e d t h i s i l g i o c o d e l l e zitelle, the spinsters' game. B y 1 8 1 6 , L o t t o d r a w i n g s were being held weekly. The game also became closely a s s o c i a t e d w i t h B o u r b o n r u l e : p a r t i c i p a t i o n f e l l sharply during the republic of 1799 and rose again after the dynasty returned. B y t h e t i m e M a t i l d e Serao published Il Paese di Cuccagna in 1891, the Lotto was no longer simply a p o p u l a r a m u s e m e n t . H e r novel follows the game week by week through a series of N e a p o l i t a n h o u s e h o l d s , showing families consumed b y t h e h o p e o f a w i n n i n g c o m b i n a t i o n a n d o f t e n r u i n e d b y i t . H e r f a m o u s judgment, that the Lotto was the "brandy of the poor," captured the darker side of a s y s t e m t h a t c o u l d t u r n d r e a m s i n t o c o m p u l s i v e bets. I n d e e d , t h e C h r i s t m a s game of tombola is tradi- tionally linked to attempts to c u r b t h a t e n t h u s i a s m . According to Neapolitan tra- d i t i o n , t h e D o m i n i c a n f r i a r G r e g o r i o M a r i a R o c c o u r g e d t h e k i n g t o abolish the Lotto altogether and the compromise was to s u s p e n d t h e g a m e o v e r C h r i s t m a s , w h e n p e o p l e w e r e s u p p o s e d t o d e v o t e t h e m s e l v e s t o r e l i g i o n instead. Neapolitan families r e s p o n d e d b y c r e a t i n g a domestic substitute: they p l a c e d t h e s a m e n i n e t y n u m b e r s i n a w i c k e r p a n a r i e l l o , u s e d p r i n t e d c a r d s a n d d r i e d b e a n s t o c o v e r t h e s q u a r e s , a n d turned the state lottery into a family game played around the table. The name tombola i s s a i d t o c o m e f r o m t h e sound of the small wooden n u m b e r p i e c e s k n o c k i n g together as they were drawn. W h e n y o u l o o k a t t h e numbers of the Smorfia and their association, you really get a miniature portrait of N a p l e s . N u m b e r 8 i s ' a Maronna, the Madonna; 13 i s S a i n t A n t h o n y ; 2 5 i s Christmas; 33 is the age of Christ; 84 is the church and 85 the souls in purgatory. A l o n g s i d e t h e m s i t 1 6 , ' o culo, the backside, which in Neapolitan culture can also suggest good luck; 22, the madman; 75, Pulcinella; and 90, 'a paura, fear, the final n u m b e r i n t h e s e q u e n c e . Sacred, obscene and domes- tic life all sit side by side, preserved in dialect and with the jokes intact. S o m e p e o p l e w e r e believed to be especially gift- e d a t i n t e r p r e t i n g t h e s e signs. Naples called them assistiti, the "assisted ones," because they were thought t o r e c e i v e h e l p f r o m t h e other world. That belief had o n e o f i t s m o s t s t r i k i n g e x p r e s s i o n s a t t h e Fontanelle Cemetery, a vast tufa quarry in the San- ità district that contains the remains of victims of the 1656 plague and other dead later arranged there as an o s s u a r y . D e v o t e e s w o u l d "adopt" an anonymous skull, clean it, light candles for it a n d p r a y f o r i t s s o u l . I n return, they hoped the dead person would appear in a dream, reveal a name and, ideally, provide numbers to play. A skull associated with a s u c c e s s f u l p r e d i c t i o n might be rewarded with a proper box or shrine; one that failed to produce results could simply be returned. In 1 9 6 9 , t h e A r c h d i o c e s e o f Naples finally prohibited the practice, judging it incom- patible with Catholic teach- ing. T h e s a m e w o r l d o f dreams, ghosts and numbers r u n s t h r o u g h N e a p o l i t a n popular culture, if it's true that Eduardo De Filippo's Non ti pago, first performed in 1940, is built around a dispute over a winning com- bination supposedly given in a dream by a dead father. Totò's 1950 film 47 morto c h e p a r l a t a k e s i t s t i t l e directly from the Smorfia: 47 is the dead man, while 48 is the dead man who speaks. And when Massimo Troisi, L e l l o A r e n a a n d E n z o Decaro formed the comedy trio that made them famous in 1977, they called it simply La Smorfia, confident that a Neapolitan audience would immediately understand the reference. GIULIA FRANCESCHINI The dead are reliable informants: Naples and the Smorfia THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 16 L'Italo-Americano The Smorfia napoletana turns dreams into numbers to be played in the lottery; inset, the cult of the anime pezzentelle at the Fontanelle Cemetery reflects the older Neapolitan belief that the dead could offer guidance to the living (Original images created for L'Italo-Americano with the assistance of AI) LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE

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