The terracotta mask isn't a souvenir. It's a piece that belongs to an ancient tradition, that of the apotropaic masks of the South: objects made to protect, to keep evil away, to stand at the door of the house with a precise meaning.
 

 
In Calabria they've been used for centuries. Masks of the sun, the moon, the winds, the goddesses: shapes tied to the earth, the sky, the seasons. They weren't decoration: they were presence. Having them on the door or the wall meant something, both for those who looked at them and those who hung them.
 

 
Each one is handmade by Maurizio in his workshop in Altomonte. The clay is worked by hand, the decoration painted before firing. No two masks are identical: the same shape, the same hands, but every piece carries the mark of that moment.
 

 
It hangs on the wall, on the door, in the kitchen. Or it's given as a gift to someone you want to protect.
 

 
An ancient object, still alive. Carrying with it a story longer than our own.