Conza Lavezzi — tinker of copper utensil — Zompini — Arti #20

Gaetano Zompini - Arti che vanno per via - plate 20 - Conza Lavezzi - tinker of copper utensil

Conza Lavezzi — plate 20

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

Conzo lavezi roti, e castro gati;
Meto peze a caldiere, e alle fersore;
Col fil de fero cuso squele, e piati.

Translation

I repair broken kitchenware, and castrate cats;
I patch copper pots, and cooking pans
With metal wire I fix bowls, and plates.

Notes

The conza lavezzi repaired kitchenware of every kind.

A caldiera is a copper pot for cooking.

A fersora is a cooking pan, also of copper.

A scuela or squela is a deep plate or bowl for soup.

See Boerio (1829), entries CONZALAVÈZI, CALDIERA, FERSÒRA and SCUELA.

How and why this trade also involved castrating cats, I have no idea, if not that the procedure involved the metal wire the conza lavezi had in his toolbox.

The woman in the doorway has a cat in her arms.

All images

Related articles

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.

More translations …


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