Il Tirreno Giornale (PISA, Italia, Sunday 17 June 2001)
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Yesterday at 4:47 PM, to the Sound of the Trumpets of Pisan Musicians,
the Key to the Tower was Redelivered to the City
A Small Disaster Between the Scenes Before the Ceremony. The "Storm of St. Ranieri" Has not Missed Being Punctual - It Made Authorities and the Police Band Look for an Escape |
 A Beautiful Image of the Piazza during the RAU Broadcast (foto Muzzi) |
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by Candida Virgone PISA. Moments of tension were not missing yesterday afternoon in the shade of the big lady, regardless of the centuries of palpitations and stresses that she has provoked in those who built her and in whoever has tried to restore her to health. It was not in fact the key to the door of the leaning tower, that symbolically waa redelivered at 4:47 PM, under a sea of camera flashes, from the new minister of infrastructures, Pietro Lunardi, to the president of the Primaziale, Pierfrancesco Pacini. The "appearance" in the end was made by an artistic key. A key that looks nothing like a modern Yale type that locks the green front door in the basin and the threshold has finally been crossed. To carry the symbol, to the sound of the trumpets of the pisan musicians, two native children born January 7, 1990, near the day the leaning bell tower was closed. Whistles and smiles all around when Frederico Fazzuoli, who presented the keys of the monument with Ilaria Moscato, on the stand prepared under the Tower, gave the word to the "mayor of Siena", only to correct it after a few seconds. While the police band, a group that has been active for almost two centuries and has more than one hundred instruments, tuned up with a piece from the Beatles, the "storm of St. Ranieri" arrived punctually and a brief thin rain, in the heat of a June that has brought summer in advance, put the authorities on the stage for a moment along with the same musicians. The mistress of the piazza, the tower, naked of wrapping, hoops and lead that covered it unworthily, has finally returned to appear vain to the looks of tourists and lovers of art, a specail challenge of human talent to the difficulties of the nature. The biggest absentee of all, unjustified on an historical occasion and a unique event for a cultural patrimony that belongs to humanity and for a monument that is considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world, was the office of the cultural good: not at random has all the demonstration occurred in the area of the workyard of this public work. Today, the Office of Infrastructures, following the rulings of the Ronchey decree, in which the Arp and Bocelli are not allowed to charge for their expenses, has taken due precautions. Among the customary discourses, the show has seen the exhibition of bands and musicians, the counsel of the elderly of the Play of the Bridge lined up for the occasion and the little 11 year olds dressed as pages of historical tribes. After the delay and delivery of a sigh, red confetti has flown from the tower dressed with the colors of Pisa, while the bells have resumed playing idled for years by safety concerns. "This grand day", said Fontanelli, "puts an end to a period that in 11 years has seen moments of great worry. It is an extraordinary fact that today the tower has a sure future because the maintenance of the cultural good is the first appointment that we must have". "This event", he told Lunardi, "is an important signal for our country, in the recovery of the artistic good, in the rediscovery of a cultural, historical and technical pride, and in the exploitation of the tourism that should be the first Italian industry". Translated by Gary Feuerstein, 11 August 2001, from the Il Tirreno article
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