Last May 30th, class III B of the IC Sigillo secondary school met the author from Gualdo Sebastien Mattioliwho presented the book “An angel in the mine“, focused on grandfather’s lifea miner in France in the 1950s and 1970s and unfortunately died there, still young, during an overtime shift.
Over the course of the year, the children, with the Geography teacher, read the story of Angelo Mattioli and for the meeting with the writer they prepared questions both on his particular profession and on the content of the book.
The class also visited the Gualdo Tadino Emigration Museumdrawing further information and impressions.
There are fifteen children in III B and many of them have grandparents, uncles and parents who have migrated and some of these have remained abroad. Many aspects of Mattioli’s book struck them, made them discuss and made them more aware of the experiences of their relatives abroad. Also there tragedy of Marcinellecited in the book, made them think a lot about the harsh conditions and serious dangers of mining work.
The meeting was much appreciated and was an opportunity to better understand the many aspects of the experience of writing and storytelling.
Sebastien Mattioli, a young author, immediately started a direct and engaging dialogue with the kids and satisfied all their requests.
The author placed the emphasis onimportance of family tieson the awareness of one’s own identity and on the correct value models to follow, insisting on the concept (which serves as the epigraph to the book): “When the roots are deep there is no reason to fear the wind”.
Prof. Patrizia Biscarini IC Seal
The reading of the Mattioli book is part of the three-year project “The emigrant miners of Sigillo“, conducted with the collaboration of Lino Lepriformer miner and emigrant and now active pensioner.
Lino Lepri, have been sealing, for many years, on the occasion of the Feast of Santa Barbara, sets up an exhibition with documents, photographs, tools, objects of daily life, statuettes and images of Santa Barbara and of other miners who emigrated abroad. During a visit made a few years ago, the idea of carrying out a project with the literature teacher was born Patrizia Biscarini and its own class.
In the 2021/2022 school year with the then IB, in which the teacher taught Geography, the project was started which carried out many activities over the three-year period: meetings with Lino Lepri who presented his experiences and those of his classmates of work in the mines and abroad. Her biography was studied.
The exhibitions of Santa Barbara, at the deconsecrated church of San Giuseppe a Sigillo, were visited for three years and video and photographic documentation was collected.
Interviews, poems and chronicles were composed by the children. Some passages from books on migration were read and the reading of Sebastien Mattioli’s book began in November 2023. Almost every week passages from the book were read by the teacher or by the children, in rotation. There were reflections and exchanges of ideas on what was read.
Questions were gradually written to ask the author on the day of the meeting about the writing profession and the content of the book.
