Also called sprig of rue charm, cima di ruta, rue amulet, Neapolitan cimaruta
A silver charm from Naples shaped like a branching sprig of rue, with tiny symbols such as a key, a crescent moon, a heart and a hand hanging from its tips. It was traditionally hung over a baby's bed or worn to ward off the evil eye.
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Take care: Fresh rue (Ruta graveolens) can cause painful blistering burns when its sap touches skin that is then exposed to sunlight. Always wear gloves, never rub it on skin, and never take rue internally; it is toxic and especially dangerous in pregnancy.
Elworthy, who collected amulets on repeated visits to Naples, called the cimaruta the most distinctive Neapolitan charm against the evil eye, so familiar that locals rarely described it. Silver examples were hung over cradles or worn by children, who were thought most at risk from the jettatore, the caster of the evil eye.
Günther compared many examples and showed how the symbols varied by maker and region: keys, moons, hands, hearts, flowers, fish, snakes and cocks. He treated the charm as a cluster of separate protective signs gathered on the rue branch.
Raven Grimassi argued the cimaruta began as a badge of a witches' society devoted to Diana, with Christian symbols added later. This is a minority view drawing partly on Charles Leland's Aradia (1899); mainstream folklorists treat it as a Catholic-era folk charm.
Cimaruta is Neapolitan for cima di ruta, sprig of rue. Rue was a powerful herb in Italian folk medicine and was linked to childbirth and to warding off the evil eye, the malocchio, so a silver branch of it made a natural base for other protective signs. Each charm carries a mix: commonly a key, a crescent moon, a flower, a heart, a hand and sometimes a fish, snake or cock. Examples collected in Naples in the late 1800s are now in British museum collections, including the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.
The English antiquary Frederick Thomas Elworthy gave the cimaruta a full chapter in his 1895 book The Evil Eye, and R. T. Günther studied its structure in the journal Folk-Lore in 1905. Both saw it as a children's charm in a city where infant deaths were often blamed on the jettatore. In the late 20th century, Italian-American and Stregheria practitioners adopted it as a witch's emblem, a reading Raven Grimassi set out in 2012. Today it is worn by Italian families and witches alike.
An open right hand, often with an eye in the palm, hung in the home or worn to push back the evil eye and bless a household.
A blue glass eye bead hung in the home or worn on the body so that envious or admiring looks are caught and reflected before they can do harm.
A small twisted red horn, traditionally carved from Mediterranean coral, worn in southern Italy against the malocchio, the evil eye, and for luck and fertility. Coral itself has been an amulet for children since Roman times.
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