Folklore of Italy

Folklore of Italyrefers to thefolkloreandurban legendsofItaly. Within the Italian territory, various people have followed each other over time, each of which has left its mark on current culture. Some tales also come fromChristianization, especially those concerningdemons, which are sometimes recognized by Christiandemonology. Italian folklore also includes the genre of thefairy tale(where the term itself was born),folk music,folk danceandfolk heroes.
Below is a list of the folklore figures who have animated Italian folk tales sinceancient Rome.
Italian folk dancehas been an integral part ofItalianculture for centuries. Dance has been a continuous thread in Italian life fromDantethrough theRenaissance, the advent of thetarantellainSouthern Italy, and the modern revivals offolk musicand dance. One of the earliest attempts to systematically collect folk dances is Gaspare Ungarelli's 1894 workLe vecchie danze italiane ancora in uso nella provincia bolognese("Old Italian dances still in use in theprovince of Bologna") which gives brief descriptions and music for some 30 dances.
In 1925,Benito Mussolini's government set up theOpera Nazionale Dopolavoro(OND) or National Recreational Club as a means of promoting sports and cultural activities and one of its accomplishments was a wide survey of folk music and dance in Italy at that time. The work was published in 1931 asCostumi, musica, danze e feste popolari italiane("Italian popular customs, music, dance and festivals"). In September 1945 OND was replaced by a new organization, theEnte Nazionale Assistenza Lavoratori(ENAL), headquartered in Rome. In partnership with theInternational Folk Music Council, ENAL sponsored a Congress and Festival in Venice September 7–11, 1949 which included many of the outstanding researchers in Italian folklore as well as folk dance and music groups from various Italian regions.
ENAL was dissolved in late 1978 but earlier in October 1970, the Italian folklore groups who had been members of ENAL set up a separate organization, which in 1978 became theFederazione Italiana Tradizioni Populari(FITP). The FITP publishes a newsletter and a scholarly publicationIl Folklore D'Italia.An interest in preserving and fostering folk art, music and dance amongItalian Americansand the dedication and leadership of Elba Farabegoli Gurzau led to the formation of the Italian Folk Art Federation of America (IFAFA) in May 1979. The group sponsors an annual conference and has published a newsletter,Tradizioni, since 1980.
Italian folk musichas a deep and complex history.National unificationcame quite late to theItalian peninsula, so its many hundreds of separate cultures remained un-homogenized until quite recently. Moreover, Italian folk music reflects Italy's geographic position at the south ofEuropeand in the center of theMediterranean Sea:Celtic,Slavic,Arabic,Greek,SpanishandByzantineinfluences are readily apparent in the musical styles of the Italian regions. Italy's rough geography and the historic dominance of smallcity stateshas allowed quite diverse musical styles to coexist in close proximity.
The Celtic and Slavic influences on the group and open-voice choral works of theNorthern Italycontrast with the Greek, Byzantine, and Arabic influenced stridentmonodyof theSouthern Italy.In theCentral Italythese influences combine, while indigenous traditions like narrative and ballad singing remain. The music of the island ofSardiniais distinct from that of the rest of Italy, and is best known for the polyphonic chanting of the tenores.
The modern understanding of Italian folk music has its roots in the growth ofethnomusicologyin the 1940s and 1950s and in the resurgence ofregionalismin Italy at the time. TheCentro Nazionale di Studi di Musica Popolare(CNSMP), now part of theAccademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, was started in 1948 to study and archive the various musical styles throughout Italy. The Italianfolk revivalwas accelerating by 1966, when theIstituto Ernesto de Martinowas founded byGianni BosioinMilanto document Italian oral culture and traditional music. Today, Italy's folk music is often divided into several spheres of geographic influence, a classification system proposed byAlan Lomaxin 1956 and often repeated since.