Santini are the small printed images of saints and martyrs that many people in Italy still carry around today in their wallets or purses. Not just a religious image, they are also thought of as a kind of “protector” to the person carrying the image. Although they were at the height of their popularity at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th century there has been a kind of renaissance in recent times with new modern figures being added to the list of sacred images .. most notably that of Padre Pio – St. Pio of Pietrelcina (25 May 1887 – 23 September 1968) was a Capuchin priest from Italy who is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. source
During the election campaign in Barga this month, the Insieme per il futuro – Bonini Sindaco group decided to print out a series of small pocket sized images of all of their candidates who them distributed them to electorate in the hope of jogging their memories and getting them to vote.
These printed cards were quickly dubbed “santini” by the Barghigiani and people started to collect the whole set of 20 figures.
Not content with that, there were also some very creative additions to the images which were then put up in some of the bars and restaurants in the city during the election campaign.
Card games using some of these santini was then the next logical step. …. not the first time there has been a strange set of playing cards doing the rounds in Barga anybody remember the Barga Playing Cards?
The elections are now over and so we can publish some of these “doctored” images without fear of trangressing the strict laws of electoral publicity.
[SWF]http://www.barganews.com/barganewsFILMS/rotational_voices/santini.swf, 610, 300[/SWF]