Dong. Giulietta Banzi Bazoli. Dong. Livia Bottardi in Milani. Dong. Alberto Trebeschi. Dong. Clementina Calzari Trebeschi. Dong. Euplo Natali. Dong. Luigi Pinto. Dong. Bartolomeo Talenti. Dong. Vittorio Zambarda. Eight bell tolls – rhythmic, slow, clear but tiring – to orchestrate the most painful ritual of a city. Five seconds pass between one shot and the next, not one more, not one less. All counted in mind with a lump in the throat. «Every year I get sick of it, it never goes away».
The ritual that repeats itself
Every May 28th for over ten years Mario Margotti wakes up early in the morningtake via Beccaria, open a small door and climbs the 54 steps that lead up to the astrarium clock in Piazza della Loggia. It is prepared with silence and concentration. At 10.12 he is there, closed in the room on the top floor among gears, trinkets and machines. While twenty meters further down the people of Brescia mourn the dead of the neo-fascist massacre against the background of the stele and the pillar still gutted by the bomb, the 73-year-old grabs an iron rod that moves a series of tie rods: the hammer starts and when released hits the bell. Dong.
The clock of the Macc de le Ure – Photo Christian Penocchio © www.giornaledibrescia.it
A gesture repeated for less than a minute, but 50 years long. “It’s a commitment that makes me responsible and I always feel very involved because I identify with those constitutional values which then – as well as today – led people to take to the streets.”
Half a century ago, while Brescia’s deepest wound was about to be opened, Mario was on his honeymoon far from Piazza della Loggia. He still remembers those moments: «I would return to work a few days later, when the news spread I was shocked, like all the people of Brescia». Since that day in 1974, his private life and the public dimension of his city have run hand in hand, marking the same anniversaries. So once a year he writes the score of collective pain, but he struggles to describe the emotions felt.
Talks about “suspended soul”, in a mix between “concentration and emotion”, despite never having a view of the square. He closes his eyes, lets himself be carried away by the silence of his outpost, carefully chooses the interval between the chimes – those five seconds which are the distance that Mario has identified to “mark the solemnity” of the day.
The commitment
«It’s not simple – says Margotti -. Not for the effort of the mechanical action, but for the emotional effort involved in doing so.”
This year Mario assures that he will feel the celebrations even more than in the past, but the presence of the Head of State Sergio Mattarella it will not influence him: “I have always done it and will continue to do it with deep and respectful commitment to pay homage to the eight victims and the 103 injured.”
Even though he is the arm (and also the brains) of the harmonic ritual, the 73-year-old is not the only one who ensures that everything runs smoothly every May 28. Also accompanying him are Claudio Berardi, Franco Martignon and Claudio Bulgarini – all members of Arass Brera, the association for the restoration of ancient scientific instruments which since 2007 has been responsible for the management and maintenance (ordinary and extraordinary) of the astrarium clock complex in Piazza della Loggia. At the time of the agreement with the municipality of Brescia, the clock had been stopped for months, a condition that required an important series of restoration interventions. And that even fifty years later will allow us to give a sound to the condolences.
