The cultural heritage

Following the earthquake in May, the urgent need to safeguard the damaged historical and artistic heritage and prevent any possible subsequent dispersal became clear. Just a few days after the first tremor, Gian Carlo Menis, the director of the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art in Udine, set up a collection and restoration hub in the church of San Francesco in Udine, in collaboration with Mayor Candolini. The first item to arrive at the centre, on May 14, was a wooden altarpiece salvaged from the rubble of the cathedral in Gemona, one of the Municipalities that were worst affected by the earthquake. The artefacts, which were recovered by teams of volunteers, were photographed by students from the ‘G. Sello’ Art Institute in Udine, and inventoried by several scholars, including Luciano Perissinotto and Luciana Marioni Bros (here's an interview). The latter recalled the months spent inside the church, and the support received from the local authorities, in December 1976: «There was sincere commitment on the part of many mayors and parish priests to save what could be saved». Approximately 1,500 items were collected.

Alongside this initiative, defined by the then Minister for Cultural Heritage, Mario Pedini, who arrived on a visit in July 1976, as «an important contribution to the reconstruction», the Regional Council also took action in May to establish, still in Udine but at Via Manzini 35, a second Collection Centre for artworks and for the safeguarding of cultural and environmental heritage, the coordination of which was entrusted once again to Gian Carlo Menis.

To facilitate the organisation of the activities for salvaging and transporting the works, the area affected by the earthquake was subdivided into eight intervention zones comprising several Municipalities, each assigned to cultural heritage experts, some of whom came from outside the Region: the zone of Gemona (Luigi Menegazzi), Artegna (Giuliana Ericani), Osoppo (Roberto Baldissera), San Daniele del Friuli (Giuseppe Bergamini), Tarcento (Mirabella Roberti and Sandro Piussi), Moggio (Pietro Marchesi and Anna Serra Nigro), Carnia (Franco Quai) and Pordenone (Antonio Forniz and Giuseppe Maria Pilo). Other collection centres were set up in the Seminary on the Viale Ungheria in Udine, in the Civic Museum of Pordenone and in the premises of the Palazzo Campeis building in Tolmezzo. The commitment of the Diocesan Museum and the Region was joined, firstly, by the initiative of the individual municipalities, including Venzone, where Remo Cacitti set up a local committee and a depot in the Alpini barracks, used until September 15; secondly, in Rome, the creation in June 1976, by Decree of the Italian Minister for Cultural and Environmental Heritage, of a ‘Joint Committee for the coordination of the interventions on the cultural heritage of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region hit by the earthquake in May 1976’ with the function of liaising and coordinating the interventions.

With the organisational machine set up to secure the damaged works, local institutions began to consider how to plan the processes necessary to ensure their preservation.

Even before a temporary restoration laboratory for wooden artefacts, donated by the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Federal State of Bavaria, was set up in the Church of San Francesco in early October 1976, the Regional administration had intervened to expand the functions of the Cataloguing Centre at Villa Manin in the Municipality of Passariano, which had been provided for by Regional Law No. 27 dated July 21 1971. With Regional Law No. 43 dated August 16 1976, the tasks of the Centre were modified, assigning it the project of compiling and updating the catalogue of cultural heritage and promoting restoration, so that on December 7 of the same year, the Centre was finally established. On March 22 1977, under the supervision of Marioni Bros, the first four-year course was launched, with theoretical study and practical exercises. Regional Law No. 60 dated November 18 1976, was another decisive measure concerning restoration. Issued after the September tremors, it was designed to finance work for the conservation, restoration and enhancement of movable assets considered to be of artistic, historical and archaeological interest.

The State Superintendency office took action in the area of wall paintings and immovable heritage. In the initial phase, it surveyed works in the towns of the seismic crater, shoring up numerous historic buildings and detaching frescoes from collapsing walls to place them on temporary panels. Once the emergency had passed and the extent of the damage had been determined, the State allocated 100 billion lire to the Superintendency for a five-year period, from 1977 to 1981, through Italian Law No. 546 dated August 8 1977. Although the contribution was substantial, the restorations, which were coordinated by the superintendents and architects Riccardo Mola and Pietro Scurati, proceeded slowly. In 1976, the management of cultural heritage was inadequate. Following the earthquake, the Office of the Superintendency for Cultural Heritage in Udine was established, but with insufficient staff to manage the emergency. This initial phase of disorder was noted not only by the Diocesan Pastoral Council, which, on November 18 1978, expressed its disapproval in the document The reconstruction and rebirth ofthe earthquake-stricken areas of Friuli: «The situation also appears gravely deficient with regard to the matter of cultural heritage. The extraordinary allocation of 100 billion […] risks dissolving into a disordered shower of uncoordinated interventions, lacking any overall plan referring to the reality of the earthquake-stricken areas.» Cacitti, conversely, had done what was possible in Venzone from the very first hours after the earthquake; this was long before the publication of Le pietre dello scandalo, the white paper on cultural heritage policy in earthquake-stricken Friuli, in 1980. This work was written in collaboration with a group of intellectuals active at a national level.

A change of direction had to wait until January 1 1981, when Gino Pavan took over the leadership of the Superintendency. His commitment to the recovery of cultural heritage was crucial, so much so that he is remembered as one of the main architects of the ‘artistic reconstruction’ of Friuli. At the end of his term, in January 1986, 670 artistic assets had been restored, and 301 architectural works recovered.

The Superintendency oversaw hundreds of restoration projects throughout the earthquake-stricken area. Among the most complex interventions were the restorations of the Castle of Udine, the Cathedral in Gemona (reopened for religious functions in January 1986), the walls and the reconstruction of the Cathedral in Venzone, which reopened its doors to its citizens on August 3 1995. The restoration specialists of the Superintendency also recovered many cycles of frescoes, such as the fifteenth-century decoration in the small church of Santo Stefano in Artegna, a masterful example of on-site detachment and relocation.

These measures excluded all buildings that were not classified as «of artistic or historical interest» under National Law No. 1089 dated June 1 1939. A shift in approach came with Regional Law No. 30 dated June 20 1977, which aimed to re-evaluate this part of the cultural heritage of Friuli. Article 8 of this legislation recognised that certain local buildings possessed «environmental, historical, cultural and ethnic values», qualifying them for restoration. Following reports from the relevant local authorities, the Regional Department for Environmental and Cultural Heritage was tasked with compiling a list of « buildings, including those not used for residential purposes, that were damaged by seismic events and represent stated values». This list was created by recording and cataloguing all submitted information, which was then assessed and approved by the Regional Council. As a result, over 1,500 examples of rural and vernacular architecture in Friuli were restored or rebuilt, receiving the same level of protection as properties that qualified as cultural heritage under the legal definition.

In addition to safeguarding the heritage, there was a fear that all the artefacts would be removed from their original context. It was therefore vital that, once restored, they all returned to their rightful places, wherever possible. Giuseppe Bergamini, the current director of the Diocesan Museum, articulated this concern, stating that «the works of our land [...] had meaning; they had their own validity precisely because they were embedded in ongoing contexts that continue to resonate with our people to this day». Therefore, it became essential not only to rebuild individual houses and churches and restore individual works, but also to «recreate the environment, a human environment and a Friulian environment, for which all this had been created». Most of the artefacts were returned to their original locations, while the more fragile pieces, or those from completely collapsed buildings, were housed in the Diocesan Museum in Udine.

In this context, efforts were made to raise awareness among the communities affected by the earthquake, so that, amidst collapsed houses and the injured, concern for monuments and works of art would not be seen as ‘marginal’. To this end, exhibits, debates and conferences were held in Friuli. Among these were the ‘Conference on the problems of reconstructing the historical and artistic heritage of Friuli and the restoration of historic centres’, held in Cividale del Friuli on November 21 1976, and a series of lectures in Trieste, in 1977, entitled ‘Friuli May 6 1976’, in which Menis, from the perspective of a reconstruction focused on the people of Friuli, emphasised that «the most urgent restoration must be that of the community itself; in other words, we must rebuild the human fabric in areas that have been devastated».

There was also a series of exhibitions focusing on art history. First and foremost was ‘Masterpieces of art in Friuli. A culture to be saved’, curated by Aldo Rizzi, the Director of the Municipal Museums of Udine, and staged at Villa Manin from September 5 to December 31 1976. This was followed in May 1977 by ‘Friaul lebt - 2000 Jahre Kultur im Herzen Europas (Friuli lives - 2000 years of civilisation in the heart of Europe)’, a travelling exhibition conceived by the archbishops of Vienna and Udine, which toured various locations in Austria for a year with the dual aim of raising funds for the restoration of sacred monuments and showcasing the artistic ties between Austria and Friuli

Another major exhibition, held in over twenty towns and cities with Friulian communities in Europe and America, was ‘Friulian culture: past and present’, which opened at Villa Manin in Passariano on May 10 1980. This venue also hosted the ‘Exhibition of wooden sculpture in Friuli’ in 1983, which focused on heritage assets severely affected by the earthquake. Another notable exhibition held there was ‘Friuli Reconstruction 1976–1986’. Organised in 1986 by the Extraordinary General Secretariat in collaboration with the Regional Government, it provided an overview of the initiatives that contributed to the rebirth of Friuli over the course of ten years.

The underlying idea, which took shape in the preservation and restoration of the historical, artistic and architectural heritage of Friuli, stemmed from the belief, as Remo Cacitti wrote, that «no people can survive for long without the enduring memory of their past».