Among the resolutions of 2024 for Bolognese cultural policy, it was Elena Di Gioia who announced on our pages in January the desire to work around a new district called Via Manzoni cultural to enhance the set of places on the street. Now, starting with a workshop for girls aged 5 to 10, here comes the debut of this project with Operation Garisenda. Stories told, dreamed and lived, agenda of research and valorisation initiatives of the Garisenda Tower at the Medieval Civic Museum promoted by the Civic Museums Sector, in conjunction with the implementation of the extraordinary intervention plan that the Municipality has been coordinating since October 2023 for its safety and the restoration of the monument, symbol of the city together with nearby Asinelli. The idea behind Via Manzoni Culturale was above all to create a collaboration between museum institutions and cultural institutions of the city, because in fact it is enough to pass through the street to see a ‘constellation’: Palazzo Fava, the Medieval Museum, the Oratory San Filippo Neri with the Fondazione del Monte, then a few meters away in via Parigi San Colombano with the Tagliavini collection and going back, crossing via Indipendenza, you arrive in via delle Donzelle with the exhibition space of the Fondazione del Monte and up to Palazzo Boncompagni. In short, the reasoning had already started in 2023, when there was still no talk of dismantling Genus Bononiae, however, and indeed, a collaborative dialogue had begun with this museum center wanted by Fabio Roversi-Monaco, which now does not stop, but changes broken, evidently. “Here we are at the first stage of this project and for a narrative of medieval Bologna – states Di Gioia – which starts with this cycle of meetings around the Garisenda and which in June will see a first physical dimension relating to via Manzoni, the part on which working under the direction of Eva Degl’Innocenti, for a connection between the Portici festival and Bologna Estate”. And he continues, regarding the Genus places towards new management: “The dialogue with the Carisbo Foundation continues and we have activated a working table in recent months which is progressing on Via Manzoni Culturale, a table which we will reconvene as soon as we have new interlocutors with whom to go deeply on”.
From today to 18 December, every Wednesday at 5.30 pm and every other week, the two workshops for girls and boys Assalto alla torre and Bologna turrita are offered and from tomorrow until 11 June, the first cycle of five thematic conferences aimed at to the adult public La Garisenda and Bologna: history, art and literature with some of the greatest experts and connoisseurs of the monument. So we start tomorrow at 5pm with Carlo De Angelis and La Garisenda, curiosities and problems over time.
