The presentation of Roberto Baldi’s new book “C’era una volta Prato” will be held today at 6pm at Palazzo Buonamici. The book is accompanied by an introduction by the deputy director of La Nazione Luigi Caroppo and the Strega prize winner Edoardo Nesi. It will be a journey into the history of Prato with the words of Roberto Baldi. Then there is the buffet with local products and the S. Martino choir which will cheer up the evening. The volume, already on sale in bookshops, newsstands and on the same evening at Buonamici, tells the story and characters of a city, born from nothing and committed to building fabric from rags, until it became the European capital of fast fashion, integrating with immigration first from the south and then from all over the world. A book-revival that can be a topic of reflection even for the younger ones, hoping that the publication constitutes one more reason for confident reliance on the future. The book exudes the inevitable nostalgia for times gone by, amidst the creaking of carts, the gores in the centre, the fresh little fish “from Bisenzio alive” as Silvio Livi known as Brocciolo sang; the donut seller who shouted early in the morning “I’m angry with the oil” and the weaver in his undershirt who had worked the night shift: “I’m angry with your mother who woke you up at this hour “. It was the Prato colored with improvised carts and scented with uncontaminated horse dung. Via Garibaldi, then Via de’ Sarti, full of sellers of sommommoli, mandorlati and mother-in-law sleepers; Bertino with the sodas in the bucket, the chiccaio “cry children, your mother will buy it for you”, in a kaleidoscope which had the textile industry as its epicenter and the innocent things of the city for fun, which used Florence as the parlor of the region, where he went to see the premieres of the films that arrived in Prato three months later. It is a Prato to be read and rediscovered with the ironic streak and affection that Baldi has always had for his city. While politics, trade unionism, business and economics dialogued with each other, the Prato loom beat the night all night of the year in the heart of the city. In this new volume, fuel is offered to reflect the present through the rearview mirror with the precious photos of Studio Ranfagni.
