Crotone – The administration will install a stele near the city cemetery, in memory of Giulio Marino. This was communicated by the Councilor for Culture Nicola Corigliano. The resolution was approved by the City Council on the proposal of the councilor for Toponymy Giovanni Greco after the opinion expressed by the Toponymy Commission. Giulio Marino is cited by the novelist George Gissing in his work “On the shores of the Ionian”.
Marino was a civic guard at the city cemetery, a figure who greatly impressed Gissing and with whom the English writer entered into a long dialogue, later reserving words of profound admiration for him in the novel. Before carrying out that task, Marino had been in the service of a nobleman in the citywith whom he had traveled extensively in Europe.
Gissing underlines, in his book, his kindness, goodness and availability as well as the care with which he maintained the cemetery of which he was custodian. It was this sense of hospitality, which connotes the feeling of welcome of the Crotone people that has been handed down to the present day, to strike Gissing who underlines his civic commitment and sense of belonging, beyond the obligation to work. An example of an exemplary citizen and worker whose figure we must pass on.
“To this figure of a gentleman from Crotone, collecting the requests of numerous citizens, of the world of cultural associations and in particular of Italia Nostra, we felt it was our duty to provideinstallation of a stele in front of the city cemeteryor, inside which it is still possible to find the tomb of Marino’s wife, Maria Francesca Scalise” declares councilor Corigliano.
