Il maiale e la norcineria tradizionale italiana: cultura materiale e simbologia

[Machine translation] The essay The pig and the traditional Italian butcher shop: material culture and symbology investigates, from a historical-ethnographic perspective, how the pig was a central element in Italian rural society, to the point that it can be considered today, astronomically and not only, one of the country's main identity traits. The pig, and in particular the moment of its killing, is in fact a constant figure in the medieval depictions of the cycles of the months, an icastic representation of the agrarian production calendar, as well as an element present in the hagiographies of some saints particularly linked to popular religiosity: Antonio Abate, Biagio and Nicola. The essay also addresses the issue of the presence of knowledge related to pig farming, its killing and the processing of meat in Italian ethnographic museums. This picture is reconstructed on the basis of vast folkloric literature, as well as drawing on the author's ethnographic research experiences.