In 2020, with 2.353.932 votes, Italians wanted to demonstrate their love for the Italian cultural and environmental heritage: the best result ever for the FAI census.
A surprising participation that in the year of the Covid-19 drama is charged with meaning and tells of a cohesive, vital and proud Italy of its beauties, which looks to the future with hope, despite everything. The ranking sees:
- in 1st place the Cuneo-Ventimiglia-Nice railway
- in 2nd place the Castle and Park of Sammezzano in Reggello (FI)
- in 3rd place the Castle of Brescia
- in 4th place the Via delle Collegiate in Modica (RG)
- in 5th place the Hospital and the Church of Ignazio Gardella ad Alexandria
It was the 6 May 2020 When, in the midst of the Coronavirus emergency, the FAI - Italian Environment Fund kicked off with great civil passion to tenth edition of "The Places of the Heart", promoted in collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo. The invitation addressed to the Italians, powerful and of considerable emotional impact, was to express love for one's country in a time of such great difficulty, voting for the places dearest to them, the ones they had strongly missed in the days spent necessarily locked up in the house and they would have liked to ensure, thanks to this census, protection and enhancement. And the response to this exhortation was truly exceptional: the votes collected up to 15 December, the closing day of the initiative, were 2.353.932, best result ever, with over 39.500 places reported in 6.504 municipalities in Italy (82,3% of the total).
Italy is one cultural power, its heritage is made up of thousands and thousands of masterpieces. To mark their favorite place with the highest number of votes, the Italians have created a wonderful and thrilling competition. The proverbial parochialism of the Bel Paese went wild, generating unpredictable upsets in the provisional rankings. It was a high-voltage edition, not only for an order of arrival that was never taken for granted, but above all because the committees and citizens' associations that took action to collect votes faced each other loyally with unrivaled competition, worthy of the most important sports competitions, without ever interrupting its race towards the finish line since last spring. And we don't just have to think about city against city or village against village: the small and wonderful city of Modica has generated two nominations that entered the top 10, in a few square kilometers.
This edition of the FAI census won not only the places with the most votes, with their fascinating stories and their need for care, restoration and attention, but also the entire Italian cultural and environmental heritage, whose immense value for the community in terms of identity, memory, social ties, life experiences and future hopes emerges clearly by scrolling through the variegated ranking of the "Places of the Heart" (available on the website www.iluoghidelcuore.it). An increasingly successful project, with over 9.630.000 votes collected in total from the first edition of 2003 to today, able to amplify in a simple and direct way the need to be heard by many citizens, well aware that living in urban centres, whether large or small, with a protected and valued fabric, represents an element of well-being, as much as being surrounded by a well-preserved landscape and environment.
If it is true from Lombardy, Sicily and Piedmont – the three most active regions with respectively 328.591, 301.826 and 241.727 votes collected – more than a third of the total reports have arrived, the map of loved sites involves throughout the national territory and amazes for heterogeneity of types: from churches to natural areas, from castles to villages, from archaeological areas to urban gardens, from railways to bridges, also in this edition of the census a perfect representation of the priceless cultural wealth of our country. And, surprisingly, it was the Molise, in the other editions always quite out of the way, the region with the most votes in relation to the number of inhabitants, While the Liguria is in first place for votes in relation to its surface.
But what is the reason that drives you to participate in the "Places of the Heart" census? Give value and guarantee protection, through the FAI, to the "cultural heritage" of the territoriesunderstood - according to the definition given in the Faro Convention, finally ratified by Italy last September - as "a set of resources inherited from the past that theand populations identify, regardless of who owns them, as a reflection and expression of their own values, beliefs, knowledge and traditions”. And to commit themselves to achieving this goal, as ambitious as it is important, are above all the committees mobilizing to get their loved place voted for - in 2020, 302 were registered, 32,5% more than the previous edition – clear expression of principle of subsidiarity referred to in Article 118 of the Constitution. Their action is the beating heart of the census, the act of love that people dedicate, as "ambassadors of the territories", to the places they want to save from decay and abandonment, or simply to make known.
“In a time of extraordinary difficulty, the fact that there were over 2.300.000 votes for 'Places of the Heart' is a sign that Italians consider their beloved country as a lost paradise to be found. It is clear that there is an increasingly widespread awareness of special places scattered throughout the peninsula, so well distributed and numerous as to make Italy a 'cultural power' and to encourage the FAI to play its subsidiary role in helping public institutions ever better to protect and promote its heritage of art, history and nature", he has declared Andrea Carandini, FAI President.
Since 2004 Intesa Sanpaolo has been supporting FAI in this initiative in favor of the protection and enhancement of the country's artistic and natural beauties, an area in which the Group is personally involved. Added to this is the widespread presence on the Italian territory which supports the well-distributed presence of the Bank in all Italian regions.
Gian Maria Gros-Pietro, Chairman of Intesa Sanpaolo, commented: "The brilliant result of votes that FAI's 'Places of the Heart' have collected in such a particular year testifies that the desire for art and beauty has not died out with the pandemic and that people remain sensitive to small and large expressions of heritage local and participate in the census with the aim of safeguarding them. In addition to the meritorious aims of protection and participatory citizenship of the project, this year the contribution is added to give space to the professions of art, restoration, landscape in difficulty and to feed local tourism. The emphasis given to health places evokes the due recognition of health personnel, consistent with the support and attention that Intesa Sanpaolo has ensured in recent months".
The slogan of the initiative – YOUR VOTE SAVE – contains the hope of give a future to small and large beauties of Italy, that becomes more concrete the greater the number of votes that can be collected (see box Prizes and next steps): in addition to the prizes for the first classified places and the possibility, for properties with at least 2.000 votes, to participate in the tender to request an intervention for enhancement or restoration, a good placement also allows the citizens' requests.
And here then is that 75.586 Guests have expressed their preference for the Cuneo-Ventimiglia-Nice railway, place at 1st place in the national ranking, also thanks to the commitment of three committees – Friends of the Wonder Train, Friends of the Cuneo Ventimiglia-Nice Railway e Amis du Train des Merveilles – who wish to strengthen the line and its valorisation. A work that blends the rugged nature of the Maritime Alps with human ingenuity, conceived by Cavour in the mid-96th century, when Nice was under the Savoy family, and which in its 33 km length includes 27 tunnels and 1.000 bridges and viaducts, covering a difference in height of 18 meters and touching 1943 Municipalities, mostly mountain villages. Semi-destroyed by the retreating Germans in 2013 and rebuilt in the XNUMXs with an Italian-French agreement to be renewed, the railway is a necessary infrastructure for residents, with important tourist potential. In XNUMX it risked being decommissioned and has unfortunately been interrupted since last October due to the landslide of Colle di Tenda caused by the flood that isolated the Val Roya.
Al 2 th with 62.690 votes ranks the Sammezzano Castle in Reggello (FI), unparalleled building in Italy and with few comparisons even internationally for the re-enactment in 13 monumental halls of architectural masterpieces of Indian and Moorish art, already winner of the eighth census "The Places of the Heart" (year 2016). Stranded in a complex ownership situation, which in recent years has seen a succession of deserted auctions and companies in liquidation, the castle, together with the 190-hectare park that surrounds it, has been in a state of serious neglect for decades and is devoid of all the furnishings historians. At the end of 2019 it returned to Sammezzano Castle srl, after a bankruptcy procedure, but the committees Savesammezzano e FPX extension they have returned to collect votes to keep the attention high on an asset that deserves to be recovered and enjoyed.
Il 3 th it is instead occupied by the Castle of Brescia, reported by 43.469 Guests. Mighty fortress that reflects the history of the city in its stratifications, from its foundation in Roman times to the Visconti domain, from the government of the Serenissima up to the Austrian era, which saw it protagonist of the city's Risorgimento, houses a museum itinerary and is a venue for events. The collection of votes, which was also attended by various institutions, associations and companies in the area, was promoted by Friends of Cidneo onlus committee, created to enhance the castle and Colle Cidneo, considered a unicum in Italy by size, extent of green areas and location.
Al 4 th is the Via delle Collegiate of Modica (RG), thanks to 40.521 votes collected. A path that ideally unites the Cathedral of San Giorgio and the churches of San Pietro and Santa Maria di Betlem, testimony of the history of the city over the centuries, from the late Gothic to the late Baroque. The committee Le collegiate of Modica #culturacheunisce it was set up for the census, to enhance and promote recovery interventions for the great heritage preserved here, which risks deteriorating.
The tenth edition of the census was also distinguished by the attention registered by two special rankings launched at the start of the initiative. The first, dedicated to Historic places of health in homage to the healthcare personnel engaged in the fight against Covid-19, it has seen a triumph the Church and Hospital of Ignazio Gardella in Alessandria, 5 th of the national ranking with 30.391 votes: while the hospital has been rearranged and is functional, the church, the first work of the great rationalist architect, is in a profound state of decay and needs timely restoration. This ranking shows how much the tradition of care has centuries-old roots in our country, with a widespread heritage of goods from different eras, which involves hospitals, such as the Morelli complex of Sondalo (SO), an avant-garde village-sanatorium from the XNUMXs, churches linked to treatment complexes, historic pharmacies, convents and villas that have changed their destination, such as theAmbrogiana of Montelupo Fiorentino (FI), Medici residence which in 1886 became the first criminal asylum in the Kingdom of Italy, and still thermal complexes and green areas, such as the gardens of theTaranto Military Hospital, where for a particular microclimate there are hill species and typical of the undergrowth.
The second special ranking concerns theItaly above 600 meters, territories of great environmental and historical value, with few inhabitants and considerable potential, but often characterized by problems of hydrogeological instability, lack of infrastructure, services and economic resources as well as a strong tendency towards depopulation, to which the FAI has long undertakes to give voice. It was the winner Cuneo-Ventimiglia-Nice railway, but the prize up for grabs, which cannot be combined with the one assigned to the absolute winner of the census, belongs to theHermitage of Sant'Onofrio al Morrone in Sulmona (AQ), complex perched on a cliff overlooking the Peligna Valley and linked to Pope Celestine V, al 9 thof the national ranking with 22.442 votes. Thousands of places reported, including villages, such as Vico Pancellorum (LU), Apennine fraction of Bagni di Lucca where the imaginative Arivaresque language was born; asked, like that of Santa Maria Gesù Lo Piano in Polizzi Generosa (PA), in the Madonie park; naturalistic places, such as the Path of the Brigand in the province of Reggio Calabria, a route of about 130 km between the Aspromonte National Park and the Serre Regional Natural Park; symbolic places of popular tradition and devotion, such as the Museum of the Mysteries of Campobasso, where the eighteenth-century "wits" used during the Corpus Domini procession are kept, which conquered the 10 th national, and even an en plein air theater which is also a work of art, the Andromeda Theater in Santo Stefano Quisquina (AG), created in the nineties by the sheep shepherd Lorenzo Reina, with 108 white stones to form the homonymous constellation.
Even in the 2020 edition, the list of loved sites is full of surprising places. Examples of this are the Aqueduct bridge in Gravina in Puglia (BA) - to the 7 th of the national ranking – spectacular 90-metre arched structure featured in a scene from the new James Bond film no time to die; Villa Ottelio Savorgnan in the province of Udine, where an English scholar has hypothesized the story transformed by Shakespeare into took place Romeo e Giulietta; the small Mill from the “Zorzini” Tower in Mezzana (TN), with its old millstone; a funerary monument of the Roman age with a pyramidal cusp structure, known as “Fescina”, in Quarto (NA); the Rio Grande basin in Amelia (TR), tributary torrent of the Tiber which flows between the Amerini Mountains, meeting two ancient barriers; Park and Casale della Cervelletta, a fortified complex in the Valle dell'Aniene Nature Reserve, which won first place in Lazio for the second consecutive census, and Fort Aurelia, which today houses an operational headquarters of the Guardia di Finanza, both in Rome; The Villa for Michelangelo Antonioni in Gallura (SS), a "Dome" perfectly integrated into nature, designed by the architect Dante Bini and now abandoned; The Garden of the Angels in the province of Bologna, park full of flowers and plants created in memory of a young girl who died in 2006.
AWARDS OF THE 10th CENSUS "THE PLACES OF THE HEART" AND NEXT STEPS
Al first, second and third place of the “Places of the Heart” 2020 census – Cuneo-Ventimiglia-Nice railway, Sammezzano Castle and Park and Brescia Castle – will be made available by FAI and Intesa Sanpaolo, only in front of the presentation of a project to be agreed, contributions of 50.000, 40.000 and 30.000 euro, to which they will be added 5.000 euros extra for the two sites that have exceeded 50.000 votes. The prize of 20.000 euros up for grabs for the winners of the special classifications Historic places of health e Italy above 600 meters, will be assigned, respectively, to the Hospital and Church of Ignazio Gardella and to the Hermitage of Sant'Onofrio al Morrone; the latter will receive it instead of the Cuneo-Ventimiglia railway, since in no case can the prizes be combined. The same goes for the prize up for grabs for the place that received the most votes via the web, for which the FAI will take care of the creation of a storytelling video: the recipient will be the Gravina Aqueduct Bridge, which will collect it instead of the Castle of Sammezzano.
In addition, the referents of the places they have obtained at least 2.000 votes, will be able to apply to the FAI, through the call that will be launched in March 2021 a request for recovery or valorisation, linked to concrete projects, which can be implemented in certain times and with co-financing that ensures real support. As in previous editions, FAI and Intesa Sanpaolo will select the winning places by November.
Il FAI it will also be done spokesperson for all reports received and, also through the capillary action of its Delegations present throughout the country, it will urge the relevant institutions to pay attention to the places, sensitizing especially i Mayors of all the 6.504 Municipalities involved and all the Regions.
The census was carried out under theHigh patronage of the President of the Republic and with the Sponsorship of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism.
The Public Service has always been at FAI's side. But this year the Rai testifies in an even more vivid way, if possible, to the meaning and pride of this collaboration: in a country where the pandemic unfortunately forces us to limit our travels, that "window on beauty" that the Rai media are in becomes even more essential condition to open wide, bringing millions of citizens into direct contact with the "Places of the Heart" voted for in the 2020 census.
