There was a lot of emotion at the start of the week at the village cemetery, where the Scandalli accordion joined its owner who died in 1962. A desire from the grandchildren Patricia Morand and Pascal Casanova to pay tribute to their grandfather Thomas Mariani who had a special destiny: “Our great-grandmother Catherine Mariani, born in the village of Moltifao (Corse)was a widow with her seven children at the age of twenty-six. Her husband died in the trenches.”.
But this drama is only the first: “A suitor from the village wanted to marry my great-grandmother. She rejected his advances and he murdered her.”
Declared a ward of the nation, Thomas Mariani then left his village of Canavaggi “at the age of seven with his brothers and sisters hidden in the holds of a boat”.
Shoemaker, army and music
When he arrived in Toulon, the young person was welcomed by “a certain Madame Marengo who took care of him”. With her, “he learned the trade of shoemaker, he discovered music by ear thanks to a traveling artist. He listened to a piece of music and reproduced it with his accordion. He had perfect pitch. He joined the army where he acquired the rank of master corporal and the specialty of master bootmaker. He worked for a time as a shoemaker in the Routes district, rue Pierre-Montaigne. details the grandson Pascal Casanova, professor of modern literature, a child from the hamlet of Dardennes.
But the hectic life of Thomas Mariani has only just begun: “He also left for Indochina where he had ten workers with him in his mission as master bootmaker. My grandmother Constance and he lived in the forges in Dardennes. With the army, he left for Morocco and Algeria. “
On the other side of the Mediterranean, Thomas made shoes for the man who would become Hassan II, king of Morocco: “During their discussions, my grandfather explained to him that he played the accordion and he played for him. It was then that he was surprised to be offered a beautiful accordion which he took home, here at Revest.”
He made the village dance
With this instrument, the musician made the whole village dance during the Sainte-Rose festivals: “With the drummer, the banjo and him on the accordion, they formed the group Jazz Tom.” Then came the period of the Algerian War, “where he remained there for many years without anyone knowing where he was. A very difficult time for my grandmother.”
It was only much later that the Mariani family learned of Thomas' death, on January 20, 1964, in Marseille: “His body was exhumed and reburied in the small cemetery of Revest, where his wife joined him in 1971.”
Pascal Casanova concludes his story: “I grew up with this accordion that no one had to touch and was jealously guarded by my mother. With my sister, we each collected a mother-of-pearl button from an accordion so that we could wear it as a bracelet in homage to our grandfather.”
