There are few sounds so closely associated with Southern Lazio as the voice of the zampogna. It is not a polished concert instrument, nor one that asks for silence. Its music belongs outdoors, where the long, steady drone carries across valleys, mingles with the wind and travels from one hillside to another. For centuries it accompanied shepherds on the high pastures of the Apennines, sounded through village streets on feast days and announced the approach of Christmas before the church bells began.

 

For many people, the zampogna is now associated almost exclusively with the Nativity. Around Christmas, pairs of musicians in traditional cloaks appear in towns and villages, playing before churches and presepi, the nativity scenes found in Italy's squares and chapels. Their melodies have become part of the country's Christmas soundscape.

 

Christmas, however, is only the final chapter of a much older story.

 

Long before it became a symbol of the season, the zampogna belonged to shepherds who moved their flocks between mountain and plain. Their lives followed the seasons, and the instrument accompanied them through long periods on the high pastures. It offered companionship in the evenings, marked village celebrations and was heard at weddings and religious festivals. The musicians were known as zampognari, but few earned their living from music alone. Most were shepherds or small farmers whose music grew naturally from the world they inhabited.

 

The origins of the instrument remain uncertain. Some scholars trace its name to the Aramaic sumponyah, a musical instrument mentioned in the Book of Daniel. Others see its ancestors in the bagpipes known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. By the Middle Ages, the zampogna had become firmly rooted in the pastoral culture of central and southern Italy, where it remained for centuries.

 

From Shepherds to Symbols

 

Each autumn, as the high pastures began to empty and Christmas approached, many zampognari set out on a different kind of journey. They left their villages and travelled on foot to towns and cities across central and southern Italy, playing outside churches, in market squares and before the presepe, the Nativity scene that occupies such a central place in Italian Christmas tradition.

 

Their arrival was among the first signs that Christmas was near. During the Novena—the nine days leading up to Christmas—people gathered to hear the deep, continuous voice of the zampogna blend with the brighter melody of the ciaramella. Families welcomed the musicians at their doors, offering coins, food or a glass of wine in return for the blessing their music was believed to bring. These seasonal journeys also provided shepherds with useful income during the quieter winter months.

 

By the nineteenth century, the zampognari had entered Italy's cultural imagination. Artists found them irresistible subjects, dressed in distinctive cloaks, leather gaiters and broad-brimmed hats, and carrying instruments that immediately evoked the pastoral life of the Apennines. Among those captivated was the Roman engraver Bartolomeo Pinelli, whose works helped establish the zampognaro as an enduring symbol of rural Italy.

 

Writers took notice as well. In 1841, the Tuscan poet Giuseppe Giusti referred to the “excellent Ciociarian bagpipers and piffero players,” acknowledging the reputation these musicians had earned beyond their homeland. Later, Gabriele D’Annunzio, in La Vergine Orsola, described musicians from Atina drawing music “from a sheep’s bladder and a bundle of hollow reeds”—a vivid image of the instrument’s humble construction and distinctive voice. For Michele Santulli, such references reinforce the close association between the zampognari and the pastoral communities of what is now Southern Lazio. Whatever the limits of that interpretation, the references show that the zampognari had become cultural ambassadors for those communities.

 

Like many rural traditions, the world of the zampognari changed dramatically during the twentieth century. Mechanisation transformed agriculture, transhumance declined and fewer young people chose the demanding life of a shepherd. As villages lost population and families left in search of work elsewhere, music that had once formed part of everyday life became increasingly rare.

 

The tradition did not disappear. Across Southern Lazio and neighbouring Molise, musicians, instrument makers and local associations continued to pass on their knowledge. They regarded the zampogna not merely as an instrument but as part of a shared cultural identity, formed over centuries by pastoral life, seasonal migration and a close relationship with the land.

 

One person who devoted his life to preserving that heritage was Flavio Fiorletta, founder of the folklore group Aria di Casa Nostra. Fiorletta researched local traditions and regarded music, dress, customs and oral history as parts of the same inheritance. Through performances, teaching and historical research, he and the group have helped new generations appreciate these traditions as living practices rather than museum pieces.

 

Scapoli is widely regarded as the home of the Italian zampogna. Its Museum of the Zampogna preserves historic instruments and documents the craftsmanship behind them, while the village's annual international festival attracts musicians and visitors from Italy and abroad. The same heritage is celebrated in nearby communities, including Acquafondata, showing that it belongs to a wider region rather than a single village.

 

If you visit Southern Lazio in the weeks before Christmas, you may hear the zampogna before you see its players. Its deep drone, accompanied by the brighter ciaramella, carries through streets and village squares much as it has for centuries.

 

The world that produced this music has largely disappeared, but the instrument has not. It survives through musicians, craftsmen, families and local associations who continue to play it, make it and pass on what they know.