Twelve is 'e surdate, the soldiers. It is a small square with a visible editorial fault line running through it: the standard Italian reference table prints il soldato, singular, in one column and 'e surdate, plural, in the next, on the same row. Nobody has fixed it and both readings circulate.
The plural is the older-sounding one, and it fits the neighbourhood: mice at 11, soldiers at 12, guards at 24.
- 12
- 'E surdate
- the soldiers
- Row 11–20 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
Unrecorded. Twelve carries so much freight elsewhere — months, apostles, hours — that the lack of a stated reason here is faintly disappointing, and it is still the honest answer.
Other things filed on 12
In Neapolitan life
The dictionary attached to this number is calendrical in a way the figure is not: New Year, Carnival, the zodiac. Whoever compiled it seems to have felt the count of twelve even while writing soldiers over the top of it.
12 in the smorfia — frequently asked
Both are printed. The Neapolitan 'e surdate is plural; Italian tables often translate it as a singular soldier.
No source says so. The word-list around the number leans calendrical, but the figure itself is soldiers.