rightly Don Piero: the Carrara cathedral It’s so beautiful that it doesn’t even need praise. But it needs to be able to be known and best enjoyed by visitors and tourists. And this is precisely the project Don Piero Albanesi, parish priest of the Cathedral and responsible for all the churches in the center and in the villages upstream, he continued with determination, managing to equip the abbey, but also the entire city, with modern and cutting-edge instrumentation which – if it were possible – it made one of Carrara’s most important attractions even more beautiful. A large group of people including simple believers, cathedral enthusiasts and the curious, followed the presentation of the new system, inserted to the side of the main door of the abbey which allows you to use a beautiful touch screen connected to the new cathedral website, specially created and therefore to access all the historical and artistic contents relating to the thousand-year-old church. Also present were the councilor for culture Gea Dazzi and the president of the Crc Foundation, which supported the project, Enrico Isoppi. This is not big news, because similar systems have existed for some time now in almost all historic and non-historical churches, but the station inserted in the Carrara cathedral also allows you to virtually visit the cathedral in all its parts, including those inaccessible to the public like the crypt, the bell tower and the attics which are located almost twenty meters above the ground. Furthermore, the station is also equipped with a coin-operated button panel which allows, by inserting 50 cent, one and two euro coins, to partially or totally illuminate the church for four minutes to truly see it at its best. splendor. “To create this system – explained Don Piero – we had to domotize the entire electrical system of the cathedral by inserting a series of repeaters throughout the church. It was truly a very challenging job. The project was born to bring together different needs: we wanted to keep the cathedral’s visitors’ book updated both for a journey of faith and for an artistic journey, we needed to have a safe that could accommodate any donations from those who want to support the maintenance of the structure, we wanted to provide a comprehensive information point to anyone coming in to visit the cathedral and we needed to be able to adjust the lighting system both to allow visitors to see the cathedral fully illuminated and to accommodate the high costs of electricity supply that keeping the cathedral lit requires. So we inserted the touch screen connected to the cathedral website which is a continuously updated website and which we intend to enrich with the translation of the texts into other languages. For this reason we have already started a collaboration with the students of the city’s linguistic high school and art high school who will give their contribution in this area. We are also in an experimental phase for lighting: for now with 50 cents you can illuminate the Cassanelle, with one euro you can illuminate the central nave, with one euro you can illuminate the side naves and with two euros you will have the cathedral completely illuminated for four minutes. This was necessary because until now, the cost of electricity bills for the cathedral was over 300 euros per month and was no longer sustainable. There are six seven workers on this project.” Don Piero showed the complete digitalisation of the cathedral inserted into the touch screen created by Micheal Bertola, owner of the start up Be-different, a company committed to promoting the Carrara area. “It will also be possible to visit inaccessible places such as the crypt located under the tomb of Cybei. We still have other spaces in the works that can be visited virtually. In fact, we will also include a visit to the bell tower, for which we will see if we can also organize it live. For now it is possible, with the touch screen, to see the bells of the cathedral which are very ancient, the middle one is from 1888, and have a particular history. One was broken on November 4, 1918 as it was rung to announce the end of the First World War. The middle bell is also the heaviest bell in the diocese of Massa Carrara and Pontremoli: it weighs 1700 kilos and when it rings you can hear it. It was then recast and is still in the bell tower. I intend, among other things, to have the bells cleaned. Then there is also the clock from 1825 which was donated to the cathedral by Pellegrino Rossi and is located in a room under the bells. The church will however have fixed lighting on the apse and in the entrance area in front of the touch screen station”.
“This is a great opportunity to approach this place with greater awareness – said the councilor for culture Gea Dazzi – and more respect. The sustainability of a place is fundamental today and making the cathedral sustainable is an important step. I thank Don Piero and all those who collaborated. This system can be exportable and therefore also applicable to other places. Finally, I am pleased to see Don Piero’s enthusiasm in bringing important messages both as a place of faith and as a place of culture. And this enriches the city greatly. Approaching the cathedral even just for cultural purposes certainly brings you to a place where you find, if not faith, which may not belong to everyone, interiority, spirituality and connecting with a higher dimension that belongs to everyone”.
