CURIOSITIES about Cerreto

PROFESSION OF THE CERRETANS
According to some plausible hypothesis, the word “Cerreto” comes from the word “cerro” (old term for “oak”): indeed, in the middle of the main square there was an oak and the whole mountain where Cerreto developed was covered by oak trees. The coat of arms for Cerreto is a two-sided shield with the picture of an oak between two climbing white bears. The head of each bear contains the emblem of the Orsini family. At their feet, a three-arched bridge crosses a river: this is a reference to the bridge over the Nera river. The bears indicate the familiarity between Cerreto and the noble Orsini family (“orso”=bear); they are white because this was the colour used by the supporters of the Emperor, the Ghibellines. The Italian Academy of the Crusca, in its 1612 dictionary, described the inhabitants of Cerreto as follows: “Cerretano”, a person who sells ointments or other drugs in the squares, draws teeth out and performs conjuring tricks , also known as “ciarlatano” (charlatan). …From the word Cerreto, a town in the Umbria region which was the birthplace of this kind of people, who used to earn their living by cheating.

FAMOUS CERRETANS
The Cerretans wandered around the Italian peninsula and beyond its borders: they were druggists and apothecaries who, taking advantage of people’s naïveté and good faith, sold empirical spices and miraculous ointments or pretended to be seriously ill so as to be given alms. They were forbidden to carry out these activities in 1577, when the authorities of the time, together with the College of Doctors in Perugia, banned the profession of “cerusico” (surgeon). Even Machiavelli, in his famous comedy “Mandragora”, uses the word “cerretan” as a synonym for “charlatan”, a false doctor who praises the virtues of the mandrake, the plant of the title. As early as the XV century, mgr. Teseo lists in a complete book the 39 specialised professions of the Cerretans, which include: sellers, cheaters and beggars. Cerretans were even deemed to use a mysterious language to speak to each other so as not to be understood by the people they wanted to cheat.