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Camerè porta mezz liter:
On our journey through the popular song, where stories and traditions are told, we cannot avoid, very often, talking about Inn songs.
So here is a typical tavern song from the 19th century certainly born, like many others of this genre, in the period of the great Risorgimento wars and perhaps even before.
The theme is always that of the farewell tragedy and uncertainty about returning home from the war.
Half-liter was imposed by an order of the Spanish government regent which in 1616 obliged every « the hosts, taverns and rooms-inns of this city, villages and holy bodies» that the jugs for wine had a capacity, established by law, of half a liter.
This is to avoid tricks, cheating and scams.
Why was the tavern so important?
In times when there was still no radio, television and when newspapers were reserved only to a few people who knew how to read and write, the tavern was the maximum meeting point and an information point for the people.
For information purposes, the radio was invented in 1895 by Guglielmo Marconi while the first radio station was opened in 1919 by Franck Conrad in Pittisbug.
Television was invented in 1925 by the Scottish John Logie Baird and the first official and regular programming in Italy, after the first experiments of 1934, started on January 3, 1954.
Although movable type printing was invented by Gutemberg in 1455, the first newspaper printed regularly was the 1650 Leipziger Zeitung while the oldest newspaper in Italy is the Gazzetta di Mantova whose first issue is dated 1664.
But the newspapers were read by few because in Italy, in the year of the unification of Italy in 1861, illiteracy was 75% of the population.
Today, unfortunately, 2 million illiterate people are still estimated in the boot-shaped country.
VIDEO:
Un abbraccio/ a big Hug
Marcus Dardi
