The Ferrari Company

Italo Ferrari was born in Casalfoschino di Sissa on 27/04/1877. He was the son of a labourer, and he fulfilled his father’s desire to learn the craft of shoemaker. A passionate spectator of the puppet theatre, he improvised comic dialogues for his friends until, after building some puppets from wooden poles, in the winter of 1892 he staged La foresta perigliosa in a stable in Roncopascolo (PR) helped by his friend Giuseppe Avanzini. The evening went well, but the following day Italo was thrown out of the shop where he worked.

Together with Giuseppe he decided to undertake the profession of puppeteer, discovering however, to his cost, that it was something that was difficult to improvise. After a few failures they met the puppeteer Arturo Campogallliani who at first took them on as helpers and then sent them to his brother Francesco: Giuseppe returned home, but Italo stayed with the great “Cecchino” (Francesco Campogalliani), whom he forever considered his maestro.

After this period, he decided to form a company of his own and returned to Sissa to find Giuseppe who, in the meantime, had continued to build material: the two young men (they were then about twenty years old) started giving shows again and this time things went a little better.

The company broke up when Giuseppe, for sentimental reasons, decided to definitively devote himself to the more profitable profession of baker.

Italo thought of dedicating himself to prose theatre: he placed an advertisement in the newspaper and was called by a company that worked in Torre Pellice; afterwards, he acted for the company of Achille Zaggia, but eventually returned home where he went back to being a puppeteer.

In 1905, he married Ebe Avanzini, who helped him in the puppet booth by performing the female roles. On the 7th of December of that same year, Giordano was born, followed over the years by Emilio (1910), Ermelinda (1916), and Maura (1928).

In Parma in 1914, in the farce I contrabbandieri del caffè, Italo staged the character that his son Giordano would make the darling of the Parmesans: the cobbler Vladimiro Falesi, also known as Bargnòcla – so called after the lump he sports on his head.

When Italy entered the war (1915), Italo had to leave as a soldier, but once his military service was over he went back to performing in Emilia and Turin where he enjoyed some success.

In 1922, he returned to Salsomaggiore, where he had worked ten years earlier. The very famous Preti company had also been performing in this spa town for a long time, but Italo presented shows with a decidedly fresh repertoire and material. He worked in Salsomaggiore in the interwar period for around six months a year, from May to October, and among his spectators were artists such as Petrolini, Zacconi and Ebe Stignani, to name but a few.

Although Salsomaggiore represented a fixed destination, it must be remembered that Italo continued to give shows in the remaining period of the year, touching on regions such as Liguria, the Marches, and Emilia Romagna, of course. In 1936, the book Baracca e Burattini was published, written by Italo himself along with Francesca Castellino.

“On the occasion of an engagement at the Turin Press Fair in 1942, the company staged the comedy Sandrone al manicomio... The version developed by Italo includes a sung ending whose protagonists are Stalin, the propagator of communism; Roosevelt, who promises loans to everyone; Churchill, the harbinger of democracy; Samuel, the Jew, devoted to commerce.”

“The four characters sing alternating in an overwhelming finale ... they represent the madness of the world that must be shielded and contained, just like that of a madman among the walls of an asylum” (Remo Melloni, Paolo Parmiggiani, I Ferrari di Parma, Parma, MUP Editore, 2009, p. 109)

During Fascism, our puppeteer managed to avoid particular problems with the regime and in the dark years of the war he gave shows at the “Dopolavoro” recreational association. After the war, which was the period when the great crisis in puppet and marionette theatre began, the company split to cope with the spiralling costs: Maura, a costume designer, stayed with her dad Italo while Giordano kept him company until 1956, when he lost his voice following an operation on his vocal cords.

In 1952, Italo Ferrari’s puppets performed for one of the first experimental TV broadcasts in Italy.
Italo continued to perform until a month before his death on the 9th of March 1961.

Giordano learned the art of puppetry in his father’s booth; he began to lend his voice to characters from the age of nine, although his professional début would not take place until two years later in Sestri Levante in the comedy Il Castello dei Briganti. In 1921, he was entrusted with the character of Bargnòcla, but it was only twenty years later that he would be able to give him a leading role in the booth.

Unlike his father, he began sculpting puppets from an early age, gradually creating his own instantly-recognizable style: the heads were born many times from an encounter with an unsuspecting “model” whose features were caricatured in the drawing phase before the carving. From Italo he learned to play the guitar, which he would use to accompany himself in comic duets and for a musical number with his brother Emilio, who played the violin.

The Salsomaggiore “period” (which lasted twenty-five years) was for Giordano one of the most fruitful: after the performances he would go to the Ferrario Theatre where the various acting companies performed, from whom he took inspiration; he wrote the comedy Soldi, Amore e … Pignatte Rotte, and “hired” for the company Bianca Anesi, a soprano from Salsomaggiore who would become his wife.

In collaboration with his father and Leonida Baracchi (who worked with the company) he wrote the operetta Fra i selvaggi which was staged with the accompaniment of a nine-piece orchestra conducted by his brother Emilio; the latter also played in dance halls and when there were “themed” evenings, Giordano would make the scenery, using painted cardboard cut-outs.

Bianca gave him two sons, Luciano and Italo known as “Gimmi”, who learned and continued the family art by gradually covering all the roles inside the booth: electrician, set-designer, musician and, of course, puppeteer. The company participated in an international festival in Rome in 1961, then in those of Bochum, Munich, Mantua and Zurich, and eventually took their shows from America to Thailand, enjoying great success everywhere.

In 1973, they recorded I tre bravi alla Prova for TV and in 1974 they took part in Bernardo Bertolucci’s film Novecento . Artists of the calibre of Dario Fo and Franca Rame collaborated with them.
Luciano Ferrari, who for a certain period was considered the soul of the company (being its director and impresario, as well as the voice of Bargnòcla) died prematurely in 1978. He was survived by Giordano, who died about ten years later, on December 20th, 1987.

The direction of the company passed to Gimmi, the masterful interpreter of Bargnòcla, who worked until 2006 assisted by his wife Manuela, his son Giordano, and his niece Daniela.

Some titles of the Ferrari repertoire, which has been handed down from father to son (albeit with different undertones) include: L’acqua miracolosa, I tre bravi alla prova, Bargnòcla in cuccagna, Il castello dei Briganti, Morgana, Sandrone re dei Mamalucchi, Il gatto con gli stivali, L’ovo magico, L’avaro burlato.

To these must be added La favola delle teste di legno: taken from a work by Francesco Campogalliani. Developed and updated by all the members of the Ferrari family, this is a small history of puppetry made using shadow puppets, marionettes, hand puppets, etc. This is currently one of the most important spectacles that make up the educational projects of the Castello dei Burattini.