Salvatore Leone ^©  

(Caltagirone, 1912)

Salvatore Leone "U Nnacchiareddu" was born in Caltagirone on April 13, 1912. He attended only the first grade and started working as a bricklayer from an early age and then became passionate about working with clay from the age of 18 at the Mastro Nino Abela cookery shop. . Here he began to make whistles and nativity figures strictly respecting tradition. He took the clay from the San Giorgio district, near his city and initially worked it by hand and then placed it inside the casts previously sprinkled with lime powder to prevent the clay from adhering to the casts. Finally he gently overturns the cast so as to make the figurine come out, which must be retouched with wooden and iron sticks. In this phase, the 2-3 cm whistle is attached with a small amount of clay. After letting the whistles dry for a few days, he proceeded with cooking in a small furnace and then dipped them in lime milk and finally painted them. His figures are made in a coarse and very imaginative way using pure colors to attract the interest of the children, to whom the whistles were intended. & Nbsp;