Dto the ancient Salina Camillone of Cervia (RA), submerged by the flood of last May, to the path designed in the eighteenth century of Via Vandelli, between Modena and Massa. From the Belvedere of Villa Mirabellino, an ancient place of leisure, rest, friendship and openness to beauty, in the park of the Royal Palace of Monza, to the Church of Santa Luciella in Naples, famous for the skull with ears. There are many, 23, and very different from each other “Places of the Heart” that FAI – Italian Environmental Fund ETS has selected for the most important Italian awareness campaign of citizens on the value of heritage and the need to protect, restore and enhance it, in collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo. Projects which – this is the objective – will be sparks for the recovery of territories and the rediscovery of little-known and very special worlds.
From Bergamo to Enna, the 23 favorite places that will have new life thanks to FAI
The projects financed as part of the 11th census of “The Places of the Heart” concern thirteen regions and ten new provinces – who had not received support from the campaign until now – and they understand restoration interventions and enhancement activities. With these 23 interventions, the projects financed from 2003 to today rise to 162 thanks to the FAI census.
But the funds allocated with the “Places of the Heart” campaign are above all sparks that, hopefully, will act like the “stone in the pond”. Their inevitably limited impact will multiply in many “circles”, attracting attention, new contributions and subsequent interventions. It has already happened in many cases throughout Italy. It can happen again.
From cloistered nuns to the young people of Naples: the small communities behind the Places of the Heart Fai
What is striking and fascinating about these places are the stories behind them: the stories of the small communities that belong to these places. People who are committed to the valorisation of these places, which they recognize as a testimony to their identity and tradition, but also as a space for social aggregation and development.
For example, for the recovery and reopening of small and ancient abandoned churches in Naples, a young people’s association has been involved which has also involved the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. A group of cloistered nuns are fighting for the monastery of Oristano. While in Valduggia (VC) the molds of the foundry active since the Renaissance will be used to create a carillon of bells for educational use, thus handing down a tradition rooted in the younger generations. And that is the ancient art of casting – and ringing – bells. Furthermore, the co-financing for the restoration of the wooden choir of the parish church of Guarda Veneta (RO) was raised thanks to a choral activation: Fourteen individuals participated, from private citizens to an agricultural company, from the town bar to small local businesses, who paid contributions from 20 to 1000 euros.
Walks, churches, frescoes
Among the most interesting funded projects, the “place of the widespread heart” of Via Vandelli. That is, the extraordinary carriage road created in the eighteenth century to connect the then capitals of the Estense duchy – Modena and Massa Carrara. Cross the Apuan Alps in a route of 171 kilometers touching twenty-one municipalities. Today it has become a path, with several original sections still preserved, which will be better signposted, in collaboration with the CAI, with indicator arrows, stage signs and educational panels.
A panoramic point of the Via Vandelli path, between Modena and Massa.
Fascinating, in Oristano, is the valorisation, also through the virtual reconstruction of its original appearance, of the Church of Santa Chiara. Among the most important in the city, it was built together with the Monastery in 1343 at the behest of King Peter III of Arborea. Here lives a small group of cloistered nuns who were activated during the 2022 census
In the Cathedral of San Giusto in Susa, however, the fresco that emerged in the apse following the removal, for conservation reasons, of the fourteenth-century wooden choir will be restored. One of the most important archaeological discoveries of recent years.
The Plexus of San Michele which stands in Torre de’ Busi, between Bergamo and Lecco, has a strong identity value. on a wooded cliff that can be reached on foot from a mule track. Long abandoned, it preserves a fifteenth-century fresco with the Deadly Sins inside the bell tower.
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