Every rooster pitcher is accompanied by a card with the Rooster of Fortune legend.
The €œRooster of Fortune €� myth
Legend has it that Giuliano dei Medici (1516) was saved from an attempted assassination when he was awakened by the crowing of local roosters.
Since that time, the Rooster image has been used to convey good wishes for blessings, prosperity, and well-being.
More about the Legend of the Rooster Pitcher...
The origin of Rooster Pitchers dates back to the early Renaissance period in the Republic of Florence.
The leading family in the republic at the time was the Medici Family.
Its patriarch was the famous Lorenzo the Magnificent, whose younger brother was Giuliano.
They were the wealthiest and most powerful family in the republic. Their only serious rival for power was the Pazzi Family, which was trying to wrest this power using the normal methods of the time: assassination.
The Medici Family's wealth was partially based upon their large land holdings, which their peasants in the nearby villages worked on.
The Medici Family were benevolent landowners for their time and occasionally threw large festivals in these villages for the peasants.
The Pazzi Family had plotted to kill the Medici Family many times, and on one occasion, they schemed to kill Guiliano the night after a festival when they thought he would have consumed too much wine and his bodyguards would be most vulnerable.
Therefore, they had someone suggest to Giuliano that he throw a festival in the small village of Gallina, where one had never been thrown before.
Giuliano agreed, and in the fall of 1478, he and his entourage of bodyguards, cooks, tailors, artists, entertainers, and craftsmen of various trades went to Gallina (which no longer exists) to throw a festival.
The Pazzi Family hired assassins to sneak into the town late at night after the festival and kill Giuliano and his guards.
They would have succeeded but they forgot one minor detail: the yards in and around the village were filled with roosters!
The large number of roosters who were unaccustomed to activity so early in the morning, started cackling in a great frenzy that awoke Giuliano and his guards.
The assassins were so startled that they were unable to flee and were caught and executed. Their patrons, the Pazzi Family, were eventually exposed after later attempts to kill Lorenzo failed and were executed or exiled and their fortunes confiscated.
Giuliano was so thrilled that the roosters warned him and saved his life that he threw another festival the following evening.
He ordered his artisans to create ceramic replicas of the rooster and adorn them with various designs to be used as wine vessels.
He gave these to the peasants and his friends for good luck in warding off assassins.
It is now tradition to give a new rooster pitcher to a friend or family member as a wedding or housewarming gift as a symbol of good luck and to protect them from trespassers, danger and misfortune.
Size: 9.5H (1 LITER - 34 OZ.- 1 QT)
