Paciugo and Paciuga

The Legend of Paciugo and Paciuga for the Folklore Contest of the Traditional Artists Club.

This is an old legend of my hometown, Genoa (Italy). It concerns a married couple that lived in the XI century in the then prosper maritime republic of Genova. I found a nice recounting of it on an Italian website and I took the liberty of paraphrasing and translating it for you [link]
Paciugo was a sailor and spent long moths away from home, while his wife, Paciuga, patiently waited for his return tending to their little home and children.

One unfortunate day, during one of his travels, Paciugo was captured and imprisoned by the Saracens. Everybody at home thought he was dead, except Paciuga, who could not resign to his loss. She fervently believed her sweetheart was still alive somewhere and would come back to her one day. So she kept thinking of him and every Saturday she walked to the Sanctuary of the Vergine Incoronata (in the village of Coronata [link] it's quite a walk!) to pray for his safe return.

After 12 years, her prayers were finally fulfilled; Paciugo escaped his jailers and reached Genova on a Saturday, of all days. Surprised in finding the house empty, he ask a neighbor where his wife might be. The woman, who had always been envious of the love that united our heroes, answered that Paciuga pretended to go to the Sanctuary in Coronata but actually was meeting another man in secret there.

Blinded with jealousy, Paciugo, decided to confront his wife immediately. So he went to Coronata himself. Along the road, he actually met Paciuga, who was overjoyed to see him and proposed to return the next day to the Sanctuary to give thanks to the Virgin for this miracle.
Paciugo agreed, but proposed to take a boat trip first. When they were at sea, he questioned Paciuga about her alleged affair. She was so astonished he would ask such a preposterous question to her that she hesitated and looked stunned. Paciugo, interpreting her stupefied silence as an admission of guilt, was so furious that he stabbed her to death and pushed her in the depth of the sea.

As he stared at the figure of his beloved disappearing under the waves, he came to his senses and was horrified at his violent and unmerciful action. Desperate with grief and deeply ashamed of his cruelty, he ran to the Sanctuary to prostate himself in front of the Virgin and do penance.

There, as he entered the church, he found his wife, Paciuga, alive and well, kneeling in prayer by the altar. The Virgin had taken pity of the two lovers and had saved Paciuga to repay her of her faith and give her a chance to spend her life with Paciugo. Needles to say, they lived happily ever after.

Now, I am not so sure I would want to spend any time with somebody that has just stabbed me and thrown me off board....but those were different times...and these two were really close. Actually, paciugo is a word that is used to indicate something that's completely intermixed and cannot be taken apart (by extension it indicates a mess)...and it also refers to a kind of gelato, a mix of ice cream and fruit (cherries, traditionally) or choccolate.

I used a couple of references for the depiction of the harbor, the Coronata Sanctuary ([link]), and the little chapel behind the Paciughi (I cannot find all the links again at this time…I’ll update this with the info asap...however, they were all pictures I found randomly over the internet and NOT on dA).

Disclaimer: keep in mind that there are tons of geographical/architectural/historical licenses in the drawing... For example, in the XI century they hadnothing close to the Lanterna, the lighthouse that has become the symbol of Genova, although they probably had some structure with similar function....

As always this was done in Copic markers on Bristol paper. Highlights were applied with a white gel pen.