Seventy-seven is 'e diavulille, the little devils. The board does not put the Devil here; it puts a crowd of small ones, which is a different and more Neapolitan idea.
Neapolitan lists print 'e riavule, with the same d-to-r shift that turns Madonna into Maronna at square 8. Both spellings are current and neither is a mistake.
- 77
- 'E diavulille
- the little devils
- Row 71–80 of the tabellone
Where the figure comes from
Not recorded. The repeated 7s attract the usual after-the-fact shape stories and none of them has a source.
Other things filed on 77
In Neapolitan life
Italian Wikiquote collects a Neapolitan proverb, «'A fémmene mette nu punte a coppe au riàvele», the woman goes one better than the devil, and glosses it as a play on the board: the devil is 77 and the woman next door at 78. Wikiquote is community-edited and no printed collection has been produced for it, so treat the gloss as plausible rather than established. The adjacency itself is on every list.
77 in the smorfia — frequently asked
Both. Neapolitan turns the d between vowels into an r, and printed lists disagree about whether to spell the sound or the origin.
No. The figure is plural and diminutive: little devils, imps. The board has no square for the Devil himself.