PESCARA. Between April 25th and Giacomo Matteotti the bond is close. This year, in fact, we celebrate one hundred years since the death of the socialist deputy, murdered in 1924 by the fascists of Mussolini. And from 5 April until 7 July, the precious exhibition “Giacomo Matteotti. A story of everyone”, promoted by the Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo Foundation, curated by the historian Stefano Caretti, and conceived by Maria Volpato And Maria Ludovica Mutterlewho directs the Casa Museo di Giacomo Matteotti.
Numerous organizations and foundations supported this event and it contains a small but important contribution from Abruzzo: a Waterman safety pen in black Bakelite, which was probably purchased in England after 1910, as it was equipped with a clip and a nib. retractable which prevented ink leaks together with the sealing cap.
It is a simple work object that has however become a secular symbol that links Abruzzo to the socialist martyr. To tell it to Center And Marina Campana Magnothe daughter-in-law of Orsogna’s lawyer Pasquale Galliano Magno who was the civil defender of Velia TittaMatteotti’s widow, at the farce trial which took place in the Court of Assizes in Chieti, between 16 and 24 March 1926, in which the material executors of the murder which took place on 10 June 1924 were judged. This short writing by Marina Campana reveals new insights into an ancient bond.
«The fertile plain of Rovigo welcomes us with the yellow of the rapeseed fields, which recall the paintings of Michele Cascella, and explosions of tufts of impatient poppies, you forget that their month is June. It wasn’t always like this however, at the end of the 19th century the fog rose to envelop the fields at dusk and in that grayness the Matteotti brothers all fell ill with tuberculosis. Only Giacomo with his indomitable character managed to survive. The magnificently renovated noble palace of the Roncale family in Rovigo now hosts the exhibition, hosted in numerous rooms with an educationally well-planned itinerary and, in one of these, under various letters by Velia displayed on the wall, a glass case houses the pen of Giacomo Matteotti which was donated by the family to the lawyer Pasquale Galliano Magno for his consultancy during the Chieti trial in 1926. A gesture which cost him dearly and penalized his career.”
«Velia Matteotti», continues Marina Campana, «this is how her letter dated 29 March 1926, sent to the lawyer Magno, concluded: “I take this opportunity to thank you for what you have done in this painful situation, convinced that much will be given to you esteem and consideration from all those who still know and can appreciate goodness of soul and uprightness of conscience”. This letter was followed by one dated 2 April in which Velia declared herself “available to cover whatever expenses were necessary” to make it possible to defend her rights. But it wasn’t exactly as Velia hoped: Magno in his Abruzzo suffered harassment of all kinds for his moral uprightness, including the damnatio memoriae, and never requested any contribution for his work or court costs. As a sign of gratitude, therefore, Velia donated her husband’s pen to the lawyer Pasquale Galliano Magno, who as an old man still showed it with shining eyes to those who came to visit him in his office, almost a secular relic of her socialist faith. And if the possibility of carrying out genetic studies had existed at the time”, concludes Marina Campana, “a mixed trace of the DNA of Velia, Giacomo Matteotti and Galliano Magno would have been detected on that pen, who in Chieti everyone called “the Matteotti’s lawyer”. Even their stories, so distant at the beginning, met and bonded forever, like the traces on that pen, as a future memory of shared values.” (lc)
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