Posted By BillHeise on February 28, 2009

I just can’t imagine why anyone would invent the ocarina, or why, but it turns out that there’s a compelling story behind it. It reminds me of the stories told by Horatio Alger.

It seems that a youthful Giuseppe Donati (1836–1925) was restless. There were no child labor laws in Italy at the time, so he dropped out of school and got a job at a local brick-making establishment.
Brick-making was a menial job which didn’t pay all that much. The young Giuseppe was smart and eager, and he was fooling around with a Helmholtz resonator (fascinating article all on its own; lots of math).

The other brick-makers were probably telling him “Get back to work,” but apparently the very lazy Giuseppe kept working on his resonator until one day he invented a “little goose.” That’s Italian for ocarina.

He realized at once that his invention would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams, so he quit his brick-making job and set up a little shop in the town of Budrio. He must have been a marketing genius, because he got others to play the ocarina. They are known as ocarinistos. (I am not making this up). The local ocarinistos formed a guild, called the Gruppo Ocarinistico (once again, not making this up).

Wealth quickly followed; and, when it did, Giuseppe moved to the Big City (Bologna).

When he moved to larger premises in Bologna in 1878, a fellow musician of the Gruppo Ocarinistico, Cesare Vicinelli, continued the Budrio workshop.

Giuseppe lived happily for another 50 years after getting out of Budrio.

Categories: Stupid Stuff
Tags: ceramic sweet potato, Horatio Alger, Walden