Nomadelfia is a community founded in the thirties by Don Zeno Saltini, a priest originally from Carpi, who grew up in Catholic and socialist culture. The idea was born to welcome orphans and poor children but in a short time a real extended family is created, made up of people who want to live following the ideals of communion and brotherhood inspired by the Gospel. Its name derives from the union of two Greek words: nomos e adelphia, which mean “where fraternity is law”.
The first settlement of Nomadelfia dates back to 1947, in the former concentration camp of Fossoli, a fraction of Carpi. The recognition of the Vatican arrives but the community is faced with economic problems and hostility on the part of Catholic institutions; Don Zeno is nicknamed the “red priest” and accused of apology for communism.
The community then moved to a rural area near Grosseto, to the land donated to it by Countess Giovanna Albertoni Pirelli. In 1962 Pope John XXIII sanctions the rapprochement of Nomadelfia with the ecclesiastical hierarchies.
Nomadelfia is a community parish in which there is neither money nor private property; goods are shared and work is unpaid because everyone offers his help to allow all the inhabitants to live together in harmony. In 2017 the photographer Enrico Genovesi approached this reality thanks to a national collective project that asked to develop a reportage on the family. Even though he did not know the community in depth, Genovesi chose Nomadelfia as his subject, considered “a family of families”.
The photographer thus approaches Nomadelfia but as a layman and fearing to find himself in a closed environment, hostile to those coming from outside. On the contrary, he knows a group of welcoming, open people who interact continuously with the outside world, while defending their evangelical utopia. The initial idea of making a short documentation then expanded into a long-term project, which lasted four years and from which the book was born. Nomadelfia. An oasis of fraternity (Crowdbooks), accompanied by the texts of the photo editor and curator Giovanna Calvenzi, the poet Franco Arminio and the sociologist Sergio Manghi.
.