The Cannatora

It’s the most typical and traditional choker necklace handmade in Pescocostanzo, so called because it was approached to the throat (in dialect “cannata”). It is composed of very small spheres in gold or silver, obtained by beating with an iron punch, using a mold engraved in relief, inside half lamina cups, obtaining an embossed relief. These cups, welded together, have surfaces embellished with tiny grains of gold. The realization’s techniques are various : in lamina, in fretwork and in filigree.

It’s an important jewel in the girls wedding dowry. The tradition is that every child, from the first year of age up to eighteen years old, receives every year, as a gift, a vague for the realization of a Cannatora of eighteen vagues, that will be a family dowry for the future bride, as a kindly and propitiatory ornament.

But also a mother-in-law could put the necklace on her daughter-in-law’s neck, as a sign of welcome in the new family. However, this jewel was handed down from mother to daughter, from grandmother to nephew, from mother-in-law to daughter-in-law.

This necklace is often combined with semifinished like hard stones, corals, pearls or filigree elements, to make it customized and exclusive

Texts by L. Sette 

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