Corsica is a French island, just above Sardegna, in the Mediterranean Sea.
It is French since the end of the Eighteenth century but was under Genoan domination for centuries before that, reason why the Corsican language is close to Italian and the Corsican culture is marked by its Genoan history.
The Vendetta is now considered as the classical Corsican knife, but its history is a bit particular.
Everything started with a novel from Prosper Merimee: Colomba, that came out in 1840. The book is about a vendetta, or vengeance, between two families.
This book came along a development of tourism in Corsica and merchants from Ajaccio, the capital city, got the idea of making a knife typical that tourists would bring back.
They, of course, turned toward Thiers for the manufacturing.
The knife is inspired by the Corsican stylet, coming itself from the Genoan stylet, a thin dagger.
The knife is characteristic with its thin spear point blade, its very long top bolster, that takes roughly half of the handle and the recess in that bolster to make it look like a stylet.
The handle was traditionally made of bone or ivory with ink decoration, usually arabesques and flowers. The moor’s head, traditional symbol of Corsica, appeared later.
The blade was often etched with mottos relating to the vendetta theme:
Vendetta Corsa : corsican vengeance
Vendetta Morte : vengeance until death
Vindica l’Unore : avenge the honor
Morte al Nemico : death to the enemy
The knife was a commercial success but not really popular with the locals, favoring more traditional knives like the curnicciolu, famous with the shepperds.
However, since the 1990’s, some cutlers from the island revived the type and increased the quality. It was then, again, produced by Thiers’ cutlers
Today it is still typical from the “Island of beauty”, as we call it, and a very interesting knife
Find some on http://knives-of-france.com
