Under the municipal loggia, in Piazza Saffi, another farewell is about to take place: at 6 pm, the Edicola Cicognani will definitively cease its activity. Mrs. Liana, the last owner, is retiring after 65 years spent behind that counter. “I started on May 2, 1960 – she declares – when I was just 11 years old, supporting my grandmother Giuseppina Zaccheroni in Bottoncini and then my mother Iolanda. My heart aches but I believe that, having reached my age and after so much effort, it is right to stop.”
The Cicognani newsstand is the last outpost of the Bottoncini empire, started in 1908 and capable of reaching up to five sales points, all in the historic centre: Liana remembers that her grandmother operated in front of the Genovese oven, in via delle Torri, while her Aunt Germana was in Largo De Calboli. Under the municipal loggia there was the distribution of newspapers: you entered through a small door that still exists and went down to the warehouse. “Everything has changed – admits Cicognani – young people are always on their cell phones and no longer read the newspapers, the expenses are high and the earnings are increasingly reduced.”
Mrs. Liana had been thinking about closing for a while: in March she began to test the waters to possibly find a successor, but in vain. In the next two or three days she will return to the place, just to return the returns to the distributors and pick up her things.
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