Tour de France? Better Gir ad Fransa than Piaseinsa. For months now in the city, waiting for the great sporting event that will see the start of the third stage in Piacenza on July 1st, we have heard people speaking in French: Grande Boucle, Grand Départ…
The artist Maurizia Gentili, well known and appreciated for her ‘vinarelli’, has instead decided to set the record straight: we are in Piacenza, we speak piasintein. The Tour de France thus becomes Gir ad Fransa, highlighted clearly – or rather, in black and yellow – on one of the symbolic objects of the Piacenza people, the scudlein. The decoration is completed with the dialect version of one of the most well-known proverbs in the area and particularly suitable for cycling enthusiasts: t’è vuri la biciclëtta…e alura pedala!
The idea, says Maurizia Gentili, started from the Fahrenheit bookshop. “They asked me to do something for the Tour de France that they could showcase. So I thought of making this event Piacentini, using our dialect and our cups. What’s more Piacenza – he says – than scudleins?”.
Piacenza and wine are the distinctive features of Maurizia Gentili’s artistic activity, which she has cultivated since she was a girl and which in the last 15 years she has been able to fully develop, starting from the first editions of the Gutturnio Festival, in her town of origin Carpaneto. “The inspiration for creating vinarelli started like this, from the simple observation of the beautiful color of the wine” she says. Her thousand shades, capable of moving from ruby red to a deep violet, have become the ideal palette for true works of art. This production was also accompanied by the customization of the scudleins: the latest version is the one dedicated to the Tour…Gir ad Fransa, on display – and on sale – at the Fahrenheit Bookshop, together with books dedicated to cycling and a t-shirt created specifically for the ‘event.
