this got me wondering if the sound of Baron Scarpia's name is just coincidence or if there's more of a connection

I'm not sure either, but the similarity would be obvious to an Italian. (Perhaps, something along the lines of calling a cop a flatfoot or a detective a gumshoe in English.) Italian scarpa comes from a Germanic word skarpa meaning 'shoe'; cf. OHG scharpe. There is a synonym in Italian, scarpa 'embankment' from *skrapa 'pier, support'.

And since the House of Savoy and its pretender to the Italian throne is lately in the news, I've remembered a Genoese proverb that says that "Any Piedmontese with one shoe calls himself a count." I'll try to find the original wording.

[Found it, and it's less scurrilous than my half-remembered one.]

In Piemonte, a chi ha due scarpe in ti pê ghe dixan conte. (In Piemonte, chi ha due scarpe nei piedi gli dicono conte. / In Piedmont, whoever has two shoes on his feet, calls himself count.)

[In Ennio Celant, 1990, Proverbi liguri: curiosità, origini, storia, p. 111.]

Last edited by zmjezhd; 06/28/2006 4:23 PM.