It happens with many words in common use that they are employed without knowing the reasons for the meaning they have acquired. Sometimes the term appears so explicit that it needs no further explanation.
This is the case with “norcineria”, which designates the activity of processing pork, a name that derives from the town of Norcia, even though it is a practice in use throughout the country, widely diffused in the centre-north and called in the various places by dialect words.
Among the many terms in use to indicate “the one who kills the pig and processes its meat”, Italian adopted the toponymic “norcino” and, without questioning the historically documented reasons for this choice, people preferred to foster the conviction that this activity was an exclusive prerogative of the inhabitants of Norcia.

On the origin of this specialization an actual foundation myth has even been built, one that traces the birth of the profession of the “norcino” back to none other than the Flavian dynasty, which is said to have set aside its vast properties in the territory of Norcia, birthplace of Vespasia Polla, mother of Vespasian, for the raising of pigs, entrusting their care to the Jews deported by Titus after the conquest of Jerusalem in 70 AD, “set to guard herds of pigs, employing them in the preparation of their meat, certain that they would not consume it, because it was forbidden by their religion”. This hypothesis, endorsed even by some scholars, is not only unsupported by any documentary evidence (not even in the biography of Vespasian written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, who nonetheless had a taste for the minute piece of news and for the anecdote), but it fails to consider that the biblical precept forbids the Jews not only to eat pork, but even to touch its carcass, thereby making them unavailable for the processing of the meat.
Equally legendary is the hypothesis that the inhabitants of Norcia were instructed in learning the art of processing the pig by the Benedictine monks, defined, in a publication of the Università dei Sapori of Perugia, as “true pioneers of the processing of pork”, as would be attested by the texts they “wrote throughout the Middle Ages”; but in truth the writings of the monks had quite another subject, and there exists no text attributable to the Benedictines devoted to this topic.

This alleged specialization finds no support even in the “Statuti di Norcia”, printed in 1526, in which the generic term “macellari” or “beccari” is used, with reference to the “arte delli macellari”, for the slaughter, processing, and trade of meat, without any distinction between cattle, pigs, and sheep.
A first useful trail for uncovering the etymology is found in the report of the apostolic visitation to the territory of Norcia carried out by Monsignor Innocenzo Malvasia in October 1587, in which are listed the various activities to which the inhabitants of the castles and hamlets of this mountainous area devoted themselves, compelled by the inhospitable nature of the place to practise seasonal trades in other localities, especially in winter. This migration concerned first of all the shepherds who practised transhumance to the Roman Campagna, but since this was a destination connatural to the area it is not taken into consideration by Malvasia. Interest is directed instead to singular activities such as, among the many mentioned, those of the saffron traders, the alum carriers, the key-makers, and the bird-catchers. In particular, the “macellari di carne porcina” in Rome coming from Montebufo di Preci are noted, while the inhabitants of Abeto and Todiano turn out to be settled as porters of the Customs house in Florence, where they had founded the Confraternita di S. Giovanni Decollato dei Portatori di Norcia.

The appellation “norcino” was in fact attributed by the Florentines to the inhabitants of the hamlets and castles in the area of Preci, at that time under Norcia, who were charged with bringing the pigs to the communal slaughterhouse. The trade of porter, apparently humble, was one of great responsibility and well paid, because the carrier had to certify that the animal was perfectly healthy before proceeding to its slaughter, and for this task the “forestieri” were chosen precisely because they guaranteed greater impartiality. In Bologna the Compagnia dei Beccai made use of Lombard porters, while in Florence there operated the “Norcini” who, already known as “cerusici” and “chirurghi”, entered the 1852 edition of the Vocabolario Universale della Lingua Italiana with the definition we know: “Norcini. Also said of those who in Florence slaughter pigs and are so called because for the most part they are from the town of Norcia”.
Depictions of the “portatore di maiali” carrying a pig carcass on his shoulder are present as early as the mid-seventeenth century in the engravings of Annibale Carracci and Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, authors of the “Arti per via a Bologna”, but without any reference to the “norcino”, while revealing is the “Veduta di Mercato. N. 8” by Carlo Lasinio, produced between 1790 and 1795 as part of a series of hand-coloured etchings illustrating “I gridi di venditori ambulanti” in Florence. The illustration, which depicts in the foreground a carrier of pigs and, against the background of the public slaughterhouse of Florence, a butcher cutting up a carcass, is accompanied by the couplet “Venghiam da Norcia ognun di voi ci chiami/A ammazzar porci e imbusecchiar salami”, and it is significant that of the fourteen trades represented, only for the Norcino and for the bread-seller, “Son Panaia di Campi…”, is the place of origin of the itinerant vendor expressly indicated.
Indeed, it was a seasonal activity, exercised therefore as a second trade practised in itinerant form or at the public slaughterhouse. Recourse to a “specialist” was justified by the complexity of the working process, which required first of all a thorough knowledge of the animal’s anatomy, in addition to a proven ability and a consummate experience both in slaughtering and in the transformation of the meat into a varied range of food products capable of keeping over time.
The killing of the pig, the cutting up and the preparation of all its parts, without throwing anything away, not even the bones used to make soap, constituted the phases of a working process with elements of rituality in the sequence of operations and in the gestures that made the “norcino” a singular combination of a priest and a surgeon.
Once this activity was transferred from the domestic environment or the small artisan workshop into the factory, to be carried out at an industrial level, it inevitably lost all the characteristics of what was once considered “l’arte della norcineria”.