Fifty-seven is 'o scartellato, the hunchback. The Neapolitan word is built on scartiello, the hump, and Italian lists translate it il gobbo.
Italian folk belief treated the figure as lucky and touching the hump as luck-bringing, which is why the little hunchback charm is still sold beside the horn and the horseshoe on Neapolitan souvenir stalls. That belief is about the figure, not about the number: the board assigns a picture and makes no claim about what the wheel does.
- 57
- 'O scartellato
- the hunchback
- Row 51–60 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
The number is unexplained. The folklore around the figure is well attested and long predates any printed smorfia.
Other things filed on 57
In Neapolitan life
Naples runs a whole trade in portable luck — the red cornicello, the horseshoe, the hunchback, the scaramanzia gestures — and the smorfia sits beside it rather than inside it. One is an index of images; the other is a set of objects people carry.
57 in the smorfia — frequently asked
The figure is a traditional luck-bringer in Italian folk belief and is sold as a charm. That says nothing about the number 57, which the smorfia simply assigns him.
From scartiello, the Neapolitan for a hump. Italian lists translate the figure as il gobbo.