A testa di moro is a Sicilian ceramic head, and of all the rooms in a house the entrance is the only one where putting it there is not a decorating choice but a gesture with a history behind it. The reason is the threshold: in Mediterranean culture the point where you pass from outside to inside has always been the point you guard, and the ceramic head is the last of those objects still in use.
What the object means is told in full in what teste di moro mean. Here we only deal with how to solve the room.
Why the threshold
Whoever arrives meets the entrance for a few seconds, and in those seconds they form an idea of the house. It is the same reason the entrance was where the protective symbols went: it is the border, and it is the one point everybody crosses.
Two practical consequences follow. The first is that the piece should be chosen to hold a brief look, so with a clean profile rather than decoration meant to be studied close up. The second is that the entrance is also where keys, bags and post get put down: living alongside those things is decided in advance, not endured.
The console: depth before length
The right piece of furniture for an entrance is not the longest one, it is the one deep enough. The base of the head has to sit entirely on the surface with a margin front and back, and the piece has to stay back from the edge, where coat sleeves pass.
If the console is one of those slim wall models, there is little depth available and a contained size is the sensible call: in the catalogue the 25 and 30 cm sizes, roughly 10 and 12 inches, were made for surfaces like that. On a regular console, a piece above 38 cm, roughly 15 inches, brings the face close to the eye level of whoever walks in, which is the condition where it gives most.
Working out the height against the eyes, and the question of what stands behind, applies to the whole house and is set out in where to put a testa di moro.
The mirror: mind the back
Nearly every entrance has a mirror, and nearly everybody hangs it above the console. That produces a situation which does not exist in other rooms: the piece is seen from two sides at once, the front in the room and the back in the reflection.
Two ways to handle it. The first is to move the head off the axis of the mirror, towards one end of the surface, so the reflection shows the room and not the back of the neck. The second is to keep it on the axis, but only after checking how the back of the piece you are choosing is finished: some finishes carry the decoration all the way round, others concentrate the work on the front.
There is also an advantage to use. If the entrance is dark, the mirror doubles what little light there is and sends it back onto the piece. On a pearl finish the difference is easy to see.
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The two options are towards the door, so towards whoever comes in, or towards the inside of the house, so along the direction people walk.
Towards the door the head welcomes and is seen at once, but for the rest of the time the people who live there always meet it from behind. Towards the inside it accompanies the movement into the living room and stays visible to anyone already in the house, though whoever arrives sees it at three quarters rather than head on.
One thing usually goes unsaid: there is no handed down rule. We asked in the workshop, the people who have been making these heads for more than twenty years. In the houses of Caltagirone there is no right way and wrong way round, and anyone telling you otherwise is adding folklore to an object that does not need any.
So the choice is yours, and it is made on a practical test: where will you look at it from most often. If you walk past that console ten times a day, turn it towards your route and not towards the door.
If the entrance is narrow, or does not exist
Many houses have no real entrance: they have a corridor, or the door opens straight into the living room. The problem still has a solution.
- Narrow corridor. Instead of a console, a shallow wall shelf with a piece of contained size. In a passage where people brush past each other, anything that sticks out gets knocked sooner or later.
- Door onto the living room. The first piece of furniture you meet on the way in acts as the entrance, even if it was never meant to. The criterion does not change: you choose the surface that is seen first.
- A niche or recess. If there is one, it is the best place in the house for a single piece, because the emptiness around it is already drawn by the wall.
- A shared landing. Outside the door the piece is exposed to outdoor temperature and humidity, and that needs thinking about before anything else.
What not to put next to it
Entrances accumulate. A tray full of keys, the day's post, the umbrella stand, a plant. If the head shares the surface with all of that, it stops being the object you look at and becomes the backdrop to a mess.
The simplest answer is to give it one end of the surface and leave the other to everyday things, with a stretch of emptiness between them. The border shows, and it holds over time.
Common questions
One or two?
One solves an ordinary entrance. The pair makes sense when there is symmetry already there, for instance the two sides of a wide mirror or the ends of a long console.
Does it work if the entrance has no window?
Yes, and in that case artificial light becomes the deciding factor. A lamp aimed from the side, rather than a ceiling light straight above, is what brings out a face in relief.
Which finish works best at the entrance?
Pale finishes, because entrances are nearly always the least lit part of the house and a dark piece against a wall in shadow does not stand out.
Can it be hung instead of placed?
The heads in this catalogue are made to stand on a surface. They are not intended for wall fixing.
In short
A surface deep enough, the piece set back from the edge, the back checked if there is a mirror, one stretch of the surface left clear. Four checks that take a minute and decide whether the object will hold the entrance for years.
For an entrance the choice that goes wrong least often is a pale finish, which holds up even where there is little light. It is in linea madreperla.
