of a devastating earthquake, the one that happened in 1693 in Noto. Alessi studies the “cagnoli” very closely and asks himself why such opulence, why such monstrosity? Was the intention to amaze or terrify the passers-by? Or did they represent the memory, the fear of those wretched souls? And thus Alessi had the idea of creating large anthropomorphic vases in terracotta, the faces of which represent terror and desperation but also the unscrupulous
wickedness of the jackal and man becomes animal, beast, lion. Alessi thus rewrites the history of those days. Ever since I first met Alessi, when I went into his “putia” (a craftsman’s studio-cum-boutique) looking to buy something, I have forgotten the world. I have entered into his world, carried away by his enchanting storytelling, in which everything, art, crafts, culture, religion is reunited in the joy of discovery, of rediscovery, of the proving of a theory. All with the typical modesty
of the craftsman, as he always refers to himself, with the consciousness of the ceramist who knows about ceramics and the history of ceramics, with the joy with which he creates and lives it. “To understand it you have to touch it; feel the fingerprints from the wheel” he says. “You have to hear it ring!” with this he takes a ball vase and beats it with one finger. It rings. Then he pauses on the decoration and starts to tell a story and there’s no stopping him.
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