The Municipality of Nonantola (Modena, Italy) has hosted for almost 1,000 years the agrarian ‘Partecipanza’, a shared area of 760 hectares today, result of a donation from the Abbey dating back to ...1058. Through very complex historical events, this common good, different from a ‘civic use’ or a collective property, is still used by a part of the population where each “participant”, with an allotment every 12 years, assumes the responsibility for the economic use of a part attributed to him with periodic rotation. From the medieval era, in which its use was partly farming partly ‘woody’, since the nineteenth century it passed to a mainly agricultural use, but with the rise of the postindustrial era it experienced an ‘ecological turning point’ not only with the forest rebirth, but also with enhancement and fruition projects in the direction of an ‘environmental education’ which now affects the entire population, including immigrants. Relations with the Municipality are very close, and allude to innovative forms of self-government and widespread socio-territorial responsibility that make Nonantola an exemplary case of participatory democracy.
A coordinated set of initiatives of cultural value also useful for the acquaintance and tourism development of the territory must have as solid basis the study of the ancient testimonies of the path ...of travelers and pilgrims. Cassiola road was a Roman road, continuing north of Cassia road, disused during the occupation of the Longobards of West Emilia, and reopened by the longobard king Astolfo in the middle of the eighth century. Today the different stretches of Cassiola or Piccola Cassia road are still accessible on foot, on horseback, by bicycle, and touch places of high historical, architectural, artistic and cultural value. The study of many other medieval roads deriving from Roman ones has verified the persistence of the use of the road name itself (such as Fiamenga da Flaminia or Cassiola da Cassia) or the use in medieval documents of the term strata, which always indicates a road of importance not only local but at least regional or trans-regional. Via Cassiola can be found in medieval documents from this name, in the vulgar Latin transformed into Cassola, or in the historical cartography of Modern age with the name of Cassola or Cassoletta. Its path to the plain between Modena and Bologna covered important Benedictine abbeys rich in relics, such as S. Silvestro di Nonantola and S. Maria in Strada, and medieval hospitals for pilgrims, such as S. Bartholomew of Spilamberto. On the hills, the road touched the abbey of St. Lucia of Roffeno and wandered the Apennine to the passage of the Arcane Cross, where a great cross was driving the passengers. On the way to the pass, pilgrims could stay at the church of S. Colombano in Fanano, while in the valley of the Ospitale torrent one could find refuge in the hospice of S. Giacomo of Val di Lamola, both still existing. In Tuscany, the road allowed to arrive in Pistoia, the end of the Roman Cassia road, where pilgrims could adore the relics of saint James in the cathedral, or reach the Garfagnana and Lucca, where the Holy Face attracts the devotion of thousands of faithful men and women from all over Europe.
La fondazione dell’abbazia di Nonantola nel 752 da parte del duca Anselmo con il sostegno di re Astolfo segnò profondamente la fisionomia dell’Emilia orientale. L’ente ricevette dal re longobardo e ...dai successori carolingi di diversi complessi fiscali con lo scopo di sottrarli al controllo ordinario degli ufficiali del regno, riservandoli alla propria disponibilità diretta. Dopo l’875, si affievolì il rapporto diretto tra abbazia e potere centrale, Nonantola e il suo cospicuo patrimonio di beni fiscali divennero così ambita preda di alcune delle figure vescovili più eminenti. Il saggio indaga la competizione politica giocata tra i re carolingi, i vescovi italici e l’abate Teodorico, che mirava all’autonomia politica e patrimoniale della propria abbazia.
Il saggio, pubblicato per la prima volta in tedesco nel 2003 sulla rivista lussemburghese «Galerie. Revue culturelle et pédagogique», compendia i risultati delle ricerche pregresse e ricostruisce la ...storia dei ragazzi di Villa Emma, nel contesto della politica razziale fascista e delle sue conseguenze per i profughi ebrei in Italia. Vi sono descritte le condizioni di vita nelle varie località in cui soggiornò il gruppo durante i cinque anni di fuga e di aliyà, e particolare attenzione è dedicata al periodo trascorso a Nonantola e a come, durante l’occupazione tedesca, l’iniziativa da parte ebraica e la spontanea solidarietà degli abitanti resero possibile la fuga dei ragazzi in Svizzera e dunque la loro salvezza.
The essay, first published in German in 2003 in the Luxembourg journal “Galerie. Revue culturelle et pédagogique”, summarizes the results of previous research and reconstructs the history of the children of Villa Emma, in the context of Fascist racial policy and its consequences for Jewish refugees in Italy. It describes the living conditions in the various places where the group stayed during its five years of escape and aliya, with particular attention to the period spent in Nonantola and how, during the German occupation, the Jewish initiative and spontaneous solidarity of the inhabitants made the children’s escape to Switzerland and therefore their salvation possible.
LA SOBRIETÀ DEL BENE Zevi, Adachiara
La Rassegna mensile di Israel,
2020, Letnik:
86, Številka:
2/3
Magazine Article
Il testo ripercorre la vicenda del concorso “Davanti a Villa Emma”, bandito nel 2018 e concluso l’anno successivo, per la realizzazione di un luogo che racconti, visualizzi e faccia rivivere la ...storia avventurosa e a lieto fine dei 73 ragazzi ebrei in fuga dal nazismo. Come configurare un monumento dedicato a una comunità di salvatori? Fra le 37 proposte inviate, il progetto vincitore è apparso alla giuria il più consono ai presupposti storici, teorici ed estetici discussi per anni collettivamente nell’ambito della Fondazione Villa Emma. Un memoriale “diffuso” che dalla Villa, epicentro della storia, si irradia sul territorio a toccare i luoghi di salvezza e di socialità dei ragazzi. Un organismo dinamico e policentrico, che guarda ai luoghi di provenienza, orienta in quelli della storia nonantolana per accennare alla destinazione finale in Palestina. Sia il concorso sia il memoriale sono indagati sullo sfondo di altre vicende concorsuali e memoriali che hanno impegnato dal dopoguerra istituzioni, intellettuali e opinione pubblica nella ricerca del contributo dell’arte e dell’architettura all’elaborazione della memoria delle tragedie passate, alla luce di quelle contemporanee.
The text traces the story of the competition “Davanti a Villa Emma,” (Facing Villa Emma) launched in 2018 and concluded the following year. The call was for the creation of a place that tells, visualizes and revives the story of the adventurous and happy ending of the seventy-three Jewish children fleeing from Nazism. How should a monument dedicated to a community of saviors be designed? The winning project, out of thirty-seven proposals submitted, was the one the jury deemed the most appropriate to the historical, theoretical and aesthetic assumptions discussed collectively for years within the Villa Emma Foundation. A “widespread” memorial that from the Villa, epicenter of history, radiates through the territory to touch the children’s places of salvation and sociality. A dynamic and polycentric organism that looks at places of origin, orients in those of Nonantola’s history to hint at their final destination in Palestine. Both the competition and the memorial are examined against the background of other events and memorials that have engaged post-war institutions, intellectuals and public opinion in the search for the contribution of art and architecture to the elaboration of the memory of past tragedies, in the light of contemporary ones.
