Copparo Let’s get back to talking about Garibaldi roosterwhose story in Copparo (and not only) is well known, if it is true that on Sunday Kodami, the well-known online magazine dedicated to the relationship between man and animal (with one million followers) published a long article on the history of the rooster, launched by our newspaper after the report by Alberto Vezzali, the Copparese citizen into whose garden the rooster flew while fleeing from the Friday morning market in the center of Copparo. The article, written by Federica Pirrone, within a few hours received thousands of views and hundreds of comments, even from Ferrara residents who were well aware of this finished story, let us remember, several times on news programs and in-depth programs on national television.
The story
“The story of the Garibaldi rooster is now famous. The rooster has become an icon of Copparo, province of Ferrara, after he managed to escape from whoever had bought him at the usual Friday morning market. From that moment the animal settled in Alberto Vezzani’s garden. After more than a year of staying, Garibaldi now seems to be in the company of another hen, promptly baptized snow-white. However, Garibaldi’s story does not end with a love story. The rooster, in fact, has antagonized the neighborhood by crowing at four o’clock every morning, and now that the windows remain open due to the heat, his high-pitched crowing can be heard loud and clear, causing the protests to begin again, more bitterly than ever. So the residents of the neighborhood decided to launch a petition against the poor rooster and a meeting between the residents has been set for Friday 24 June 2022 to find a solution to the problem”. Thus writes the Kodami journalist, who then retraces the intricate stages of the story, then involving Giovanni Mazzorana, a popular activist from Coppare, a friend of Vezzali, who fought not to have the rooster sent away. He collected signatures in the square (it was a huge success), he made television appearances but there was nothing to be done, even if all “These events contributed to increasing the notoriety of the Garibaldi rooster so much so that on the Facebook group “You are from Copparo if.. .” his image was the most voted, thus becoming the symbol of the social page and, by extension, of the small Ferrara community. However, looking at the facts with the rooster’s eyes, it is possible to see how the animal was treated like an object, purchased for 1 euro on the market, an anthropocentrism that we still struggle to free ourselves from. The rooster was not only treated as if it were a commodity like fruit and vegetables, but its ownership after the escape was attributed to Vezzani, even though Garibaldi independently chose to settle in the man’s garden. All this because it seems impossible to conceive that a rooster could be free. Does a rooster always have to belong to someone? “, Pirrone writes again in the article.
New life
The rest is known history, on 29 June 2022 the rooster was taken by Vezzali himself to a farm in the Copparese area, never made known to try to dampen the clamor behind this story. A year later, however, it was there too some problemsdue to the aggressive nature of the animal, which in August 2023, imitating its much more famous namesake, was further moved, arriving in the Comacchio area, with a large green space at your disposal, a stone’s throw from the pine forests, where many people go to visit him. Once again, however, Mazzorana (who had just run for mayor in Copparo) tried to bring the rooster back to Copparo, given that according to him and many other people, it had now become its symbol. «I am launching an appeal on behalf of the many people from Coppare who want their rooster back, a symbol of freedom and courage. I extend a warm e heartfelt appealbrought back to the Garibaldi home after the kidnapping on that morning of June 29, 2022. He is a rooster who escaped a credible destiny, taking refuge in a courtyard in Copparo where many were looking at him happily, except for those nine people who asked the Local police to push him away because he was disturbing with his singing. He, and Copparo, have been talked about on TV, it has become a national case and yet there are those who still hate him.”
