Seventeen is 'a disgrazzia, misfortune. It is the one square where the board and the national superstition agree, and it is also one of the best-attested entries in the whole grid.
Michele Zezza's satirical Naples smorfia of 1835 already has Disgrazia at 17. Matilde Serao quotes it in 1884, walking a reader through how a Neapolitan turns an event into a bet: a young man knifed by a woman gives «diciassette, la disgrazia — diciotto, il sangue — quarantuno, il coltello». The Trapani board has a risgrazia at the same number. Fifty years apart and two hundred miles apart, and the square does not move.
- 17
- 'A disgrazzia
- misfortune
- Row 11–20 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
Here the arrow points the other way from usual. Italy's suspicion of 17 is older than the smorfia and independent of it: XVII in Roman numerals rearranges to VIXI, I have lived, the perfect tense a Roman tombstone uses. The board is recording a fear the country already had rather than inventing one.
Other things filed on 17
In Neapolitan life
The avoidance is documented well outside folklore. Renault sold its R17 coupé in Italy as the R177; Alitalia's cabins ran from row 16 to row 18. The date to watch on an Italian calendar is venerdì 17, Friday the seventeenth, not Friday the thirteenth.
17 in the smorfia — frequently asked
Because Italy already treated 17 as the unlucky number before the board existed. XVII anagrams to the Latin VIXI, I have lived, which on a tombstone means the writer is dead.
At least 1835, when Zezza's printed Naples smorfia gives Disgrazia at 17. Serao quotes the same value from Naples in 1884.
The avoidance is national, but its force varies. It shows up more reliably in product names and seat rows than in architecture.