Mano cornuta and mano fica: gestures against the evil eye
From the Neapolitan horns described by Andrea de Jorio to the Roman fig hand: origins, forms and meanings of the protective gestures of the Mediterranean.
Among the defences against the evil eye, gestures have an obvious advantage: they are always to hand. In Southern Italy two figures have dominated this silent language for centuries. The mano cornuta, the horned hand, extends the index and little finger and folds the others; the mano fica, the fig hand, closes the fist with the thumb thrust between the index and middle fingers. Both have been turned into amulets of coral, silver and bone, and they still hold a place in everyday gesture.
Andrea de Jorio and Neapolitan gesture
The most famous description of these gestures is owed to Canon Andrea de Jorio, a Neapolitan archaeologist and scholar, who in 1832 published La mimica degli antichi investigata nel gestire napoletano, on ancient gesture studied through Neapolitan gesture. The work, accompanied by illustrated plates, compared the gestures of the people of Naples with those depicted on ancient vases, frescoes and reliefs, in the conviction that the city had preserved a body language dating back to Greek and Roman antiquity.
De Jorio devotes specific pages to the horns, distinguishing their different uses according to context: as an insult, when they allude to marital infidelity, and as a charm against jettatura and the evil eye. The book is still a precious source for scholars of gesture, because it records with precision a repertoire that would otherwise have been handed down only by imitation, from one generation to the next.
Ancient origins
The origins of the mano cornuta are debated. In Mediterranean cultures the horn is a symbol of strength, fertility and abundance, linked to the bull, the goat and the crescent moon. The finger gesture would recall this vital force and set it against the threat of the gaze. Direct evidence for antiquity, however, is scarce, and many reconstructions remain hypothetical: secure documents on the protective use of the horns multiply above all in the modern period.
The mano fica, by contrast, is well documented in the Roman period, in the form of small amulets in bronze, bone or glass paste, sometimes combined with the phallus in a single object. The gesture has an evident obscene value, linked to the female sex, and precisely this obscenity, as with the fascinum, served to distract and repel the malign gaze. Some scholars have also compared it with the gesture with the thumb between the fingers that Ovid, in the Fasti, describes in the rites of the Lemuria to drive away the spirits of the dead.
From amulets to popular culture
In the nineteenth century the horned hand in red coral or silver became one of the most typical souvenirs of Naples, sold to Grand Tour travellers and later to tourists along with the coral horn. In composite amulets such as the cimaruta, a silver sprig of rue laden with symbols, a small hand appears beside the moon, the key and other figures. Even today the horns gesture accompanies, often ironically, an unwelcome piece of news or the passing of someone thought to be unlucky.
Apotropaic gestures are historical documents in their own way: they travel through time by means of the body, with no need for books. De Jorio's work showed that a movement of the fingers may conceal a long history, made of ancient symbols, popular beliefs and ironic reinterpretations. Knowing it helps us look with fresh eyes at a language that many people use without knowing where it comes from.