Frost. A letter to the five candidates for mayor with the aim of finally managing to protect and enhance the historical and cultural heritage of the city. It was written by Nuccio Mulè, who has always been involved on this front. “It is a fact that the municipal administrations that up to now have succeeded to the government of the Municipality of Gela, beyond a few isolated cases, have not carried out a program of knowledge and relaunch of the Cultural Heritage (and not only) in the context of tourism if not in repeated declarations that have evaporated into the ether; Unfortunately, it has been ignored that their use could, and can, also provide an important economic and employment return. And so we watched helplessly as Gela was subsequently canceled from the island’s tourist itineraries; not only that, the Cultural Heritage itself has often become the object of such neglect that even with the indolence of the competent institutions their number in terms of usability has been significantly reduced in the last thirty years but their number has also been reduced; for example, nineteenth-century buildings, ancient churches and almost all of the paving stones of streets and alleys have disappeared, but also archaeological areas following their re-interment, as for example happened in the archaeological area of the former railway station, which for decades had been completely abandoned, and to the second complex of Greek baths in via Romagnoli with a valuable and rare mosaic, the latter being the subject of conferences in Spain, in Caltanissetta and never in Gela where it is even unknown. Even archaeology, the spearhead for the relaunch of tourism, was the subject of total disinterest on the part of those who had to look after the interests of the city, so much so that the Superintendency of Nisse and the previous one of Agrigento had a free hand to make things beautiful and bad weather especially in the transfer of a significant quantity of archaeological finds to their respective museums. And with this pattern of carelessness, disinterest and indolence none of the Gela administrators ever noticed anything, not even that between 1999 and 2001 as many as 936 (nine hundred and thirty-six) boxes full of archaeological finds were transferred from the Gela Museum by the then director archaeologist, thus worsening the impoverishment of our archaeological heritage. Gela, despite what has been stolen from its heritage with impunity, still possesses one of the largest and most important cultural deposits in the Mediterranean (see attachment), deposits whose exploitation can become the instrument of social, economic, cultural and civil redemption for the people of Gela. Our cultural heritage spans an extensive period of time from the Bronze Age to the 20th century. Necropolis and prehistoric villages, Greek settlements since the archaic period, Roman and more medieval remains (Castelluccio, walled historic center, etc.) and even those linked to the military archeology of the last war of which cornerstones of bunkers, casemates and shelters still remain anti-splinter. Not to mention the often unique finds found in our museum where there is, among other things, one of the most conspicuous monetary patrimonies from the Greek era and Attic red and black-figure ceramics from the Navarra collection. And what about the wrecks of ancient Greek ships and the Sea Museum currently being finished, which alone could represent a strategic factor for the relaunch of archaeological tourism. It must be agreed that Cultural Heritage represents the instrument for the social and cultural elevation of a population which through them is connected to the legacy of previous generations, to their values and to their centuries-old experiences and then transmits them to future generations. Finally, a secret hope is that the new government system, without going into the merits of the political colour, which will soon govern the fate of the city, can truly change this deplorable trend and allow the city to recover an important role with a view to relaunching the economy, employment and the recovery of ancient and immutable values which have always been the basis of a civil society. I truly hope that the new mayor and the council he will preside over can frame the entire issue of the city’s cultural heritage and the relaunch of tourism in the right resolution”, writes Mulé.
