Home | Valente and DiRenzo Family History - From Our Correspondent in Geneva
A poor, small house in Via Serrone
In its old, historical state this house would be an example of what in Gambatesa was called a catapecchie de case, a pejorative (socially stigmatizing) dialect expression for a small, dirty old house (Maybe "stone hovel" would be an equivalent).
La maggior parte di quelle catapecchie non hanno che un'apertura che serve da porta, da finestra e da camino. Nell'interno, per lo più senza pavimento, con i muri a secco, abitano, dormono, mangiano, procreano, talvolta nello stesso vano, gli uomini, le donne, i loro figli, le capre, le galline, i porci, gli asini.
"Most of those hovels have no more than one opening which serves as doorway and window and chimney. Inside, in most cases without a paved floor, with rude walls, live, sleep, eat, procreate, sometimes in the same room, men, women, their children, the goats, the chickens, the pigs, the donkeys." (Ignazio Silone, Fontamara, «Prefazione» | "Preface", trans. RWA)
Figuratively such a house was also referred to as a ruttelle, a dialect word meaning a place dug out of the tufo ("compacted sand") under Gambatesa, where chickens were kept. Ruttelle comes from the dialect word u rute, which comes from the Italian word la grotta ("grotto").
