Thirty years and not hear them. Because opening doors and gates on the beauties of our country (often hidden, inaccessible or unknown to most) is a timeless activity.
Fourteen thousand one hundred monuments have been open to the public since 1993 thanks to the FAI (Italian Environment Fund) which turns 30 this spring.
And if this number were not enough to understand its importance, another figure can equally well tell its success: 11 and a half million visitors who in recent years have lined up to discover (or rediscover) important pieces of our artistic heritage and cultural.
An anniversary that falls in a particular historical moment. In a decidedly different context from that which saw the first edition strongly desired by Giulia Maria Crespi who ran everywhere in Milan to deliver daffodils as a tribute to new members. And precisely in order not to close its eyes to current events, FAI has decided to use 100 thousand euros for the restoration of a Ukrainian art asset chosen in agreement with the Italian Embassy and the Ukrainian church.
Tour of the Italian beauties
But, since not even the war can manage to overwhelm beauty, in order not to fail in its mission and to celebrate the important anniversary in the best possible way, a real tour of Italian beauties has been imagined. In Rome, the sixteenth-century Casino dell’Aurora Ludovisi, with the only mural ever done by Caravaggio and Palazzo Corsini, seat of the Accademia dei Lincei. In Parma, the pharmacy of San Filippo Neri will be on display – with all its stills in the foreground. In Genoa, however, it will be possible to visit the Mackenzie Castle, built in the late nineteenth century by the architect Gino Coppedè. Florence will play its part with the Villa Medicea di Careggi and in Milan, for the first time, the Inps Palace was opened, designed by the great architect Marcello Piacentini and built between 1929 and 1931. But there is also so much south, in this journey among the monuments of the beautiful country: Lecce, with the former Warehouse Concentration Tabacchi in the workers’ village of Cardigliano, and Palermo with the “bunkerino” in the Palace of Justice of Palermo, now a museum dedicated to the memory of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, of the which, precisely this year, occur thirty years after death.
Volunteers
It is worth remembering the commitment of the hundreds of volunteers “who contribute – declared to Ansa, the Minister of Cultural Heritage, Dario Franceschini – to protect and tell Italians about the beauty of our territories”.
