Forty-seven is 'o muorto, the dead man. Plain, silent, and the setup for the most famous square on the board next door.
Matilde Serao fixed the pair in print in 1884, walking a reader through a dream: «Avete sognato un morto? — quarantasette — ma parlava — allora quarantotto». You dreamed of a dead man? Forty-seven. But he spoke? Then forty-eight. That is the Neapolitan arrangement and it has not moved since.
- 47
- 'O muorto
- the dead man
- Row 41–50 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
The number itself is unexplained. The relationship to 48 is the documented part, and it is one of the clearest illustrations of how the smorfia handled detail: an extra fact about the dream moved you one square along.
Other things filed on 47
In Neapolitan life
Rome disagrees, and the disagreement is famous enough to have a film attached. In the Roman smorfia the talking dead man is 47, not 48, which is why the 1950 Totò comedy adapted from Ettore Petrolini is called 47 morto che parla. Petrolini was Roman. Lists from Chioggia, Fabriano, Foggia and Livorno also put the speaker on 47; Venice avoids the whole business and puts saints on both squares. If you are told the Neapolitan number is 47, you have been given the Roman one.
47 in the smorfia — frequently asked
In Naples, 48. In Rome, 47. Both are correct in their own tradition, and the Roman version is the one the Totò film made famous.
At least to 1884, when Serao printed the sequence verbatim: 47 for the dead man, 48 once he speaks.