Piedmont folk rombo

rombo

Italian for bullroarer; also a humming or roaring sound.

Etymology. The Italian name for a whirled noisemaker, carried down from Latin rhombus and Greek rhombos.

Two bullroarers in the Civico Museo del Paesaggio Sonoro at Riva presso Chieri, near Turin, carry the names of the men who made them. One, by Eugenio Reolon of Riva presso Chieri, is a thin rectangular board with rounded corners and bevelled sides, a nail driven into an end-tang, and a finely twisted cord nearly two metres long wound around the wood. The other, by Salvatore Pellegrino of Cambiano, is cut in the shape of a fish, and instead of a cord it is rigged with a chain of small stainless-steel balls linked by pins and finished with a length of nylon thread. Both belong to the Piedmontese sound-landscape collection assembled over decades by Domenico Torta.

Rombo costituito da una sottile tavola di legno a forma di pesce.

Bullroarer made of a thin wooden board in the shape of a fish.

Civico Museo del Paesaggio Sonoro, Riva presso Chieri, inv. 0217SM

Particulars

Object

Thin rectangular wooden board, rounded corners, bevelled sides, end-tang with nail to which a finely twisted thin cord is tied (inv. 0216SM, maker Eugenio Reolon, Riva presso Chieri); second fish-shaped example inv. 0217SM (Salvatore Pellegrino, Cambiano).

Function

Folk noisemaker.