Guido Lucarno
L’evoluzione recente e la diffusione geografica del tamburello in Italia
Abstract: The recent evolution and geographical spread of the tambourine game in Italy
As many other games of the great ball sports family, tambourine claims unlikely origins dating back to Greek civilization. However, the modern tambourine, with rules and sports tools similar to the present ones, goes back at least to the seventeenth century when it spread in some European countries of the western Mediterranean and particularly in Italy. The heroic period of this sport, with famous professional players, had its top after the First World War, when it was played also in indoor courts of some cities in northern Italy. Then this sport declined, but, after the Second World War, in the sixties and seventies, there was a period of rebirth in Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino, as well as in some limited areas of central and northern Italian regions. After the suppression of the National Workers Assistance Organization (ENAL), in 1977, the Italian Tambourine Federation (FIPT) entered the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) and some rule modifications made it a more modern and dynamic sport. A period of expansion of this sport outside of traditional areas of diffusion seemed to start, but after about forty years this research looks at the current spread of the tambourine practice in Italy, noting that expectations didn’t achieved: if tambourine sporadically spread in the central and southern Italian regions and developed international relationship with a few other federations in the world, in Italy it suffered a decline in the number of practitioners and teams.
Keywords: Tambourine, History, Sport Geography
GEOTEMA_54_Lucarno_09
