… because the Carrara local administration wanted this fresco and insisted that it be located in the conference hall.
“It is our tribute to martyrs and to the Resistance fighters, but also to the extremely significant action taken by the local administration from the post-war period to the current day to help the cultural development of the town. And as a major slice of the cultural life of this town passes through this hall, it seemed natural to place the fresco here.”
The fresco executed by Pardini is therefore not – nor does it intend to be – an isolated fact, a mere homage: instead, it is interwoven into the very fabric of the cultural policies implemented by the left-wing administration of Carrara. Cultural policies which have their reference point in the urban layout designed by the town planner Piccinato; in the impulse lent to the council library which is located in the rooms of the old town hall (a room is also being set aside for debates and encounters with writers and cultural figureheads) and which today is much-used by both students and workers; in the packed meetings on future projects, schooling, socialist unification and healthcare reforms carried out in the town council’s meeting hall which the administration has made available to all the democratic cultural associations and bodies of the town.
The fresco, besides its artistic value, represents a symbolic connection between its contents and the values of the Resistance and the activities of the local administration. The latter, in its everyday dedication to offering the town not only services but also precise visions of economic, social and cultural development, has always been inspired by these very values: liberty and the dignity of mankind, the struggle for peace and for work.
CARLO DEGL’INNOCCENTI
Essayist, historian and art critic, notable activist in the Resistance and in Italian politics.
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