Puppet Characters - Castello dei Burattini

Puppet Characters
Sganapino
The mask of Sganapino was invented in 1877 by
the amateur comic and puppeteer Augusto Galli.
His full name is Sganapino Posapiano Magnarazza:
simple yet smart, he was first put on stage in the
puppet theatre of Angelo Cuccoli, whom Augusto
Galli worked for. Sganapino has a large up-tilted
nose and is dressed in a black-and-white checked
swallow-tailed coat and wears a cone shaped peaked
cap. He talks in falsetto, mispronouncing his ‘esses’
and making a lot of grammar mistakes; gentler
than Fagiolino,
Advertisement fot the play “Two magic rings” of Angelo Cuccoli
he settles his issues by using the broom instead
of the club. His name derives from the word
sganappar, which in the dialect of Bologna means to
eat greedily.
Angelo Cuccoli on Fagiolino
Ghittara Spadacc
Ghittara Spadacc is the personification of the law: invented by Augusto Galli, the mask presents
the characteristics of both the policeman derived from the Guignole tradition and Italian carabiniere.
In fact Galli brought together two distinct characters (Ghittara and Spadacc) which Angelo Cuccoli
used to put on stage in order to arrest the various criminals in his plays. Ghittara has a thick
moustache and wrinkled eyebrows, and wears a uniform which resembles that of the Piedmont
carabinieri in 1820. He is always beaten and talks in an idiom mixing words from the dialects of
Rome and Naples: «Annamo ragazzino mio, annamo in prigione e se me cerchi de scappà,
mannaggia li pescetti, te do no maledetto pappagnone con la morte in coppa. All’armi Ghittara,
all’armi Spadacc!»
The Hunchback of Damascus
The Hunchback of Damascus was the leading character in the comedy I tre gobbi di Damasco
(The Three Hunchbacks of Damascus) which was already performed at the time of the Commedia
dell’Arte and was one of the most exploited pieces in both the puppet and the marionette theatres.
The plot deals with three humpbacked, cross-eyed and lame triplets: one of them, leaving the
other two, marries a brandy seller who turns out to be the master of Harlequin – the character
can become Famiola, Gianduja, Sandrone, or some other mask, according to the company
performing the play. Obviously, the perfect likeness between the three siblings gives place to a
huge series of misunderstandings.
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Puppeteers
Bertoni Ciro (Bologna 1888 – 1986)
At the age of 12 Ciro Bertoni worked in a company of amateur actors; when he was 13 he already
performed legerdemain, or sleight of hand, shows. A great reader of the ancient classics (Pluto,
Terence, Aristophanes), and of the works by Goldoni and Gozzi, two years later he started
working for the puppeteer Ferruccio Permiani but he did not perform animation shows exclusively
he also worked in the prose theatre. In 1905 he worked with the puppeteer Gozzi and then
presented the show I misteri della Camera Nera (The Mysteries of the Black Room) together with
the illusionist Professor Sisti. At the same time he worked as a decorator at the stage design
company Gardenghi & Pontoni, but he would often ask to go home early because he used to do
the voice-over in the films which were shown at the Sempione Cinema, the first in Bologna («We
… would stay behind the curtain and watch the film from the back … until we had memorised
all the movement of the actors. Then, by the first projection, we would be ready to improvise
…») During the course of his career, he co-operated with different puppeteers such as Enrico
Ponti, Gualtiero Cavadini (who was the teacher of Gualtiero Mandrioli), Antonio Vezzali, Primo
Bazzi, Armando Vignoli and Umberto Malaguti. During the Great War he was enrolled as a footsoldier and performed for his fellow soldiers at the front. Very skilful at speaking different dialects,
he wrote for and directed a prose company; nonetheless the forms of art he preferred were
animation and legerdemain. The Teatro dei sapienti burattini (The Wise Puppet Theatre) of the
magician Ciro Bertoni was renowned all over the North and the Centre of Italy. His wife Maria
Saguatti and his son Eros used to help him in the puppet performances; his repertoire included
Il rapimento di Giselde (The Kidnapping of Giselde), Il Figliuol Prodigo (The Prodigal Son),
Sandrone Re (Sandrone the King), I tre gobbi (The Three Hunchbacks), Le 99 disgrazie (The 99
Misfortunes), Bertoldo alla corte di Re Alboino (Berthoud at the Court of King Alboino).
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Advertisement card of Ciro Bertoni