Twenty-seven victims. Hundreds injured. Thousands displaced. The collapse of historic buildings, towers, castles, churches and places of work. Homes and schools damaged and unsafe. And then damage to places of cultural life: museums, theatres, and libraries.
The local library of Mirandola, elegantly named after Eugenio Garin, was the most important of those affected by the earthquake on 20 May 2012. Located in an ancient Jesuit monastery, it is now seriously unstable. Its holdings, with precious incunabula and sixteenth century texts, including some early editions of the works of Giovanni and Giovan Francesco Pico, have been partly moved to special locations near Bologna, and made available by the Superintendent of libraries of the region Emilia Romagna, and partly to a school in Mirandola.
Who would have imagined an earthquake in Emilia? And in the low Plain, too… No one.
Not even the anti-seismic regulations. No one had ever considered the plain a part of the African plate that from the Apennines pushes with terrifying force against the Alps. Yet we all heard the boom that on 20 May made Emilia dance with a shake that mainly affected the Modena, and then Ferrara and Mantua areas. In Modena the tremor was felt over a wide area, across the whole of North-Central Italy and even half of Europe. A profound and emotional wound, deep in the bowels of a land, psychologically and anthropologically, much more used to helping, than being helped.
And so “that great piece of Emilia,” in the words of Edmondo Berselli, suffered, clenched its teeth, and reacted. And a land of nihilists, but empirical, of the peculiar, but creative, gave birth, between Bologna, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Ferrara and Mantua – which is only part of Lombardy on the map – to a thousand initiatives of support and assistance; of social cohesion and civic pride.
The first to mobilise were the singers, then the artists, and soon after, the writers. As chance would have it, the earthquake hit the places where the most important Italian cultural festivals take place. Abandoning whims and editorial straightjackets, the best of Emilian intelligence joined in the realization of this non-profit, promoted by the Mondadori publishing house and the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation. There are famous novelists along with very able young people, leading intellectuals and journalists and promising newcomers. Artists and poets, singers and comedians. There’s even a cook, the best in Italy. All generously and passionately committed to saying something on behalf of Emilia.