In recent days in Gallico at the “Don Bosco” Oratory, a meeting organized by the Colocrisi Study Center was held in which local history authors from Reggio participated: Giuseppe Caridi, Renato Laganà, Franco Arillotta, Antonino Sapone, Aurelio Guarnaccia, Antonio Natale Costantino , Fortunata Bertè, Albino Passalacqua, Biagio D’Agostino, Angelo Siclari, Domenico Arrigo, Antonino Coppola, Antonina Marra, Giuseppe Mandica and Teresa Pensabene.
The meeting was organized by Matteo Gangemi who had the aim of meeting Roberto Schena, a professional journalist from Milan, current curator of the website www.iborghidimilano.it, which collects the history of the 11 ancient rural communities of Milan aggregated in the capital in 1923 .
Writers and curators of the Reggio Calabria area have, in their writings, documented the history of the villages with municipal administration, annexed in 1927 by order of the then Mussolini Government at the request of the Genoese mayor Zerbi. The aggregate municipalities, as is known, are called Cataforio, Catona, Gallico, Gallina, Pellaro, Podàrgoni, Rosalì, Salice Calabro, Sambatello, Villa San Giuseppe. The Royal Decree also included Campo Calabro, Cannitello, Fiumara and Villa San Giovanni, but a few years later they managed to break away again and regain municipal administration. The meeting between writers and scholars of local realities was very interesting, as we will see, the topic is gradually taking on a national significance.
In his speech, Roberto Schena spoke to his friends from Reggio about the centenary of the Milanese aggregations, 11 in total, which occurred exactly a century ago. Reggio presents a similar story four years later. During the meeting the Reggio writers established that the Centenary of the aggregations must be proposed in the interest of the city, underlining “without celebratory methods”, i.e. solely for the purpose of understanding how the area affected by the administrative earthquake has evolved, or devolved of that time in various Italian cities.
A century after the facts, the time has now come to understand whether these aggregations were really useful, what worked and what didn’t, whether the urban expansion within the thus enlarged municipal area has benefited the territory or not and to the inhabitants. A century ago we spoke of Greater Reggio, but also Greater Naples, Greater Genoa, Greater Milan, Greater Venice, a definition valid for all those realities that have experienced the enlargement of the municipal territory.
From the interventions of those present it emerged that there are problems common to all large metropolitan areas: the aggregate municipalities then, today, constitute the respective suburbs of the cities, they have all undergone a process of development but also of notable degradation. It is very interesting to note how certain themes, from the north to the southern tip of the country, are analogous, especially due to the loss of cultural identity and authoritative points of reference, with the inhabitants who still today, in Reggio as in Naples or Genoa, in fact have not benefited from any real integration, more than anything they have suffered a stripping of resources, if not even the destruction of precious monuments, including some of high historical and artistic value. In general, today they are all or almost all areas with notable problems of degradation, but it is precisely these former municipalities, or what remains of them, in fact, the historic centers of the suburbs, constituting an opportunity to re-propose an integrated and identifying background.
Among the Milanese journalist’s meetings in the following days were also the president of the Order of Architects and Engineers Ilario Tassone and Professor Antonella Sarlo; the Environment Fund in the persons of Dina Porpiglia and Rocco Gangemi; Salvatore D’Aleo curator of the history of Pellaro. It was proposed to everyone to remember the Centenary of the aggregations in the most appropriate and visible ways for the population of Reggio Calabria, attracting great interest.
From these meetings, says Roberto Schena, the desire to continue with other meetings to prepare the next centenary event emerged.
