Charcoal burners or Maremma labourers
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Charcoal burners or Maremma labourers
Giovanni Fattori, 1900. Oil painting on wood, 32 x 19 cm
The small wooden board, almost a monochrome colour of the earth, is entirely filled by the close up wall of a poor home, with a black arch and a window. On the doorstep, two tired, dirty men, who have perhaps just returned from days of work, are resting against the wall. Their faces are hidden by black hats with wide brims; they have heavy shoes, brown velvet trousers with their jackets flung over their shoulders, blue shirts tied at the collar with a red scarf, probably originally of political value. They have a brown band at their waist: it is the typical outfit of a Maremma worker, i.e. the countryside of southern Tuscany and northern Lazio, in particular of charcoal burners. Between them, a child comes out from inside the house, hanging on to the men's legs.
Charcoal burners, a traditional trade widespread in Maremma and in many other areas, and which has now almost totally disappeared, turned wood into charcoal. In “squares” in the middle of woods, the “charcola pile” was built, a pile of wood of about two metres, with a hole at the top through which burning embers were inserted: the wood began to “burn”, or “cook”.
With the help of large hoes and “corbelli”, which were wooden rakes, the pile was covered with a layer of leaves and well-pressed earth. In the environment with very little oxygen due to the compacted covering, with the smoke coming out of the hole in the top, the wood combusted for days and nights. At the end, when the charcoal kiln was dismantled, the charcoal remained on the ground, now cold, and was gathered up and packaged.
The charcoal (not be confused with coal or coke) was then sent from the woods to warehouses in nearby towns, where it was sold for cooking and heating together with wood. It is still used today in cooking, especially for barbecuing meat.
[Taken from Work path, by Sara Bruni, in the Fattori Civic Museum in Livorno: works, paths, links. Guide to the educational project by Antonella Gioli, Sillabe s.r.l. Livorno, 2016]