L’Esca, e Solferini — plate 52
The Arti che vanno per via nella città di Venezia (1753, 1770, 1785, etc.), by Gaetano Zompini (1700–1778), contains sixty engravings of common, mostly poor people, peddling their trades on the streets of Venice in the mid-1700s.
Text
E lesca, e piere, e solfarini in mazzo E azzalini mi gho per bater fuogo E pur che venda, vivo senza impazzo.
Translation
Both tinder, and stones, and matches in bundles
And fire steel, I have to make fire
And if I sell, I live without trouble.
Notes
The title L’Esca, e Solferini translates as “tinder and sulphur sticks.”
This street vendor sold tinder, flint, fire-strikers and sulphur sticks for making fire.
Starting a fire easily was essential, as lighting was by candles and oil lamps, and fireplaces served for heating and cooking. All fires were put out in the evening, due to the fire hazard, so each morning saw the need to start a new fire.
The traditional way of making a fire is by having a tool to create sparks on some tinder, then blowing on the embers until they flame up. See also plate 18 — Dai Foli — sellers and repairers of bellows.
The simplest way of making sparks is by striking a piece of flint on a stick of carbon steel (a fire-striker — an azzalin).
In Venice, the tinder was often stoppa — fibres of flax or hemp also used for caulking — mixed with saltpetre (potassium nitrate) to help it catch fire.
The solferini were stoppa or sticks of pine wood, soaked in sulphur, which together would also easily catch fire. As such, they could replace tinder for making fire, reducing the need to blow on the embers to get flames.
Friction-igniting matches are from the 1800s, much later than this engraving.
See Boerio (1829), entries LESCA, SOLFARIN, STOPA, AZZALİN and IMPAZZO.
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Bibliography
Boerio, Giuseppe. Dizionario del dialetto veneziano. Venezia : coi tipi di Andrea Santini e figlio, 1829.
Zompini, Gaetano. Le arti che vanno per via nella città di Venezia inventate ed incise da Gaetano Zompini, Aggiuntavi una memoria di detto autore. Venezia, 1785.
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