The besieged Citadel of Alexandria. From waste- Corriere.it

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A machete. This is what it would take to plow like Indiana Jones through the infesting jungle that blocks certain passages between one barracks and another in the Citadel of Alexandria up to the roofs. What a shame … C ‘to blush in front of the garbage dumps among the ruins of collapsed buildings. To the wagons of asbestos, broken-down refrigerators and poisonous waste abandoned in a disused warehouse with a gutted shutter. To the remains of burnt books thrown here and there. To the tiles crashing to the ground where by law they cannot be touched. To the walls of vegetation behind which you can only guess the existence of the beautiful eighteenth-century bastions. To the saplings that sprout among the chimneys. To the trees that have swallowed their roofs causing them to collapse.

A view from above of the Citadel of Alessandria designed by the architect Ignazio Bertola (1676-1755)

Heaven’s fault, Ileana Spriano and Sergio Serafini smile bitterly and the volunteers of the Italian Environment Fund who have been taking care of the abandoned fortification for ten years. Better: ailanthus, the Paradise plant of oriental origin introduced in the mid-1700s at the time when Piedmont based a large part of its fortunes on silk production. Plant at that time donor of prosperity, but infesting. Very long roots. Amazing rapidity of growth. You get distracted, it leaves and you don’t hold it anymore. To the point that it can reach up to thirty meters high: that of a ten-story building.



Too convenient, for, to unload everything on the ailanthus: the first responsible for the historical, environmental and cultural disaster are in fact those who have dealt with it since 1994, the year of the disastrous flood in Piedmont. When the Citadel, built starting in 1728 and considered a masterpiece of military art unique of its kind, with its complex of walls and moats, in the shape of a six-pointed star that become twelve in the outer circle, was invaded by the wave of full of the Tanaro. A disaster. Which prompted the military to decide to gradually dispose of the beautiful logistic garrison and pass it on to civilians. From one state property to another, the same state. Disaster bis: the first begins to neglect the property he was leaving, the second to wait to have full ownership of everything before making a move. Result: when the last of the soldiers, Maurizio Sciaudone, left in 2007 (to become an enemy of administrative sloppiness) he was already in very bad condition. Destined to worsen due to the absence, with the exception of a building taken over by the Bersaglieri for their museum and another building taken by the Cultural Heritage, for maintenance.

The state of deterioration of the fortification (photo by Gian Antonio Stella)
The state of deterioration of the fortification (photo by Gian Antonio Stella)

Until 2011, thanks also to a complaint from the Corriere, the void was precisely interrupted by the Fai which, in agreement with the Municipality that put 150 thousand euros, began to take care of the monumental complex. An action continued over the years thanks to the Citadel without bars project of 2012 which provided, in agreement with the Municipality and Penitentiary Institutes, that the Alexandrian prisons identify prisoners willing to collaborate for the salvation of that heritage that was going to waste. Central objective: The containment and eradication of the ailanthus.

An image of the fortification (photo by Gian Antonio Stella)
An image of the fortification (photo by Gian Antonio Stella)

That’s the point: that beautiful but mephitic weed he found an ideal environment in the Citadel. Even on the roofs. In fact, between the roof and the tiles, the buildings of the complex historically have a layer of sand and earth to contain the damage caused by a possible cannon shot. The military knew this. And as a seedling emerged, they removed it before it grew. The insane indifference to the problem, perpetually waiting for a great and extraordinary resolutive intervention (why spend a few pennies a day instead of waiting for a megaproject of archistars and millionaire contracts?) Had been catastrophic.

Six years after the restart of the maintenance, in 2018, things were better. But the decision to slow down the rotating involvement of a dozen inmates (about a hundred in all, praised for their dedication) and the closures due to the pandemic have interrupted the process. With incalculable damage. Our photos say it all, taken last week. Judge for yourself.

A glimpse of the Citadel of Alexandria (photo by Gian Antonio Stella)
A glimpse of the Citadel of Alexandria (photo by Gian Antonio Stella)

There is who to say, playing down: on Monday 14th an Invitalia call for the assignment of the technical services preparatory to the implementation of the “conservation and enhancement of the military citadel of Alessandria” expires. Total: € 1,391,117.99 plus VAT. Hurray? Not at all: they are just initial and preparatory money to then start who knows when (on horseback!) The real work. And they arrive (if they arrive) five years after Dario Franceschini’s commitment in March 2016 for the allocation of 25 million never arrived. Plus 5 others from the Region, even those never arrived, denounce environmentalists. Five years: how long it takes a plant of Paradise to grow three meters and more. How long is there to wait: another decade, two, three?

Guido Ceronetti was right. When in the early 1980s, exhausted by what he had been forced to see, he wrote in his A trip to Italy disconsolate words: There is something immoral in not wanting to suffer for the loss of beauty, for the rolling homeland towards those who know what a sordid hell of dissolution, no longer capable of being a light in the world.

The current conditions of the fortification (photo by Gian Antonio Stella)
The current conditions of the fortification (photo by Gian Antonio Stella)

And not just a question of architectural or monumental heritage. That extraordinary Citadel of Alexandria today left to decay was a bit like the Bethlehem of Italy. Because it was there, on March 10, 1821, that our country’s first tricolor flag flew. There are those who wrote that the three colors were not yet white, red and green and that they were not vertical but horizontal: it may be, but it was the first flag chosen for Italy. And Colonel Guglielmo Ansaldi, who had taken command of the stronghold, thundered: Citizens, the banner of despotism forever bent on the ground between us. The homeland that has so far groaned under the weight of oppressive chains, finally breathes the sweet aura of brotherhood and peace. Citizens! The hour of the Italian Independence played !.

How it ended is known. The idealists who had staked everything (If we move away from the laws of military discipline for a while we are dragged by the supreme need of the homeland …) on the alleged will of Carlo Alberto to start a constitutional process and push for the unification of Italy were betrayed in their ideals, in their hopes, in their dreams. Worse: two hundred years after the homeland for which they spent their lives, even going to die for the freedom of others like Santorre di Santarosa in Greece, they are not forgotten. Okay, there was Covid. For…

June 6, 2021 (change June 6, 2021 | 22:12)

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