"Cuntastorie" posters
Giovanni Virgadavola - born on 14 August 1940 in Vittoria - Ragusa, Sicily, comes from a peasant family with six children. Growing up in the difficult post-war period, as a child he attended primary school and worked as a shepherd, later abandoning his studies to help his father in the fields. In the evenings, his family gets together to tell stories and local legends. Giovanni continues working in the fields until, in 1965, he recognises the changes brought about by industrialisation to replace the cart with motorised vehicles. He then decided to preserve the Sicilian cart, starting a collection that would lead to the creation of the “Carretto Museum” in Vittoria. The collection includes twenty-nine carts, the oldest dating from 1890, as well as carts, carriages, gigs, work tools, harnesses, Sicilian puppets ("pupi") and several paintings.
The Cantastorie (storyteller) is an itinerant entertainer figure once quite widespread in the Italian tradition, especially in the south. This figure used to travel from village to village telling a legend, a story or a fact with the help of graphic representations, such as large canvases, billboards or posters on which the main scenes of the narration were illustrated. These were ancient stories that either really happened or were purely imaginary. The Cantastorie (storyteller) lived off the offerings of his spectators and settled mainly in the main square of small towns, and his arrival was a real event for the community. For a long time, moreover, the Storytellers represented the only cultural link between the illiterate people and the more cultured world of epic poetry.
The 'Cuntastorie' posters are paintings created by Giovanni Virgadavola between 2000 and 2006. These large posters narrate significant stories related to the Sicilian historical heritage and recent news episodes from the province of Ragusa, as well as legends and imaginary tales. Originally designed in squares with twelve vignettes, they later feature a central design with minor framed sequences. Virgadavola created fourteen posters, all with titles in Sicilian dialect and painted in bright colours. Each poster is accompanied by a text in dialect, then translated into Italian, for oral recitation. The typefaces used by Virgadavola (purely handmade) for the titles of most of his paintings are characterised by a strong geometrization of the volumes. The corners of the letters themselves, in fact, have angular and precise shapes. Other letters, on the other hand, seem to have a medieval flavour, such as the 'A's of the poster 'The Barons of Donnafugata', which almost give the impression of referring to the scenery and the era in which the story takes place.
