Fifteen is 'o guaglione, the lad. Of every word on the board this is the one that has travelled furthest: guaglione is understood well outside Naples and turns up in Italian films, in emigrant speech and in a great deal of music.
The figure is an adolescent rather than a child. Two is the small one, fifteen is the one out on the street.
- 15
- 'O guaglione
- the boy
- Row 11–20 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
No recorded reason. The board simply needed a young man and put him here.
Other things filed on 15
In Neapolitan life
Guaglione, written by Nisa with music by Giuseppe Fanciulli, won the Festival di Napoli in 1956 in versions by Aurelio Fierro and Grazia Gresi. Its French rewrite, Bambino, made Dalida's career, and Pérez Prado turned it into a mambo instrumental in 1958. A word that started as a square on a tombola board ended up as a dancefloor standard in three languages.
15 in the smorfia — frequently asked
A boy or young man, roughly between child and adult. It is one of the few Neapolitan words in general Italian circulation.
Only through the word. The 1956 song took the Neapolitan noun into international pop; the smorfia had it on square 15 long before.