The Friuli earthquake’s exhibition: experience it in English

INTRODUCTION

To mark its 80th anniversary, the Messaggero Veneto has chosen to look back on its history, its role and its contribution to the Friuli community throughout this long and pivotal post-war period. A period of formidable economic and social transformations that changed the face of Friuli, as well as that of Italy as a whole, redeeming it from the marginalised status it had suffered until then in comparison with more developed economies.

A period marked by successes, but also by sacrifices, and sadly marred by the tragic loss caused by the 1976 earthquake, which became a symbol not only of the suffering endured by a generation of inhabitants of Friuli, but also of their capacity for resilience, characteristic of a community bound by solidarity.

This is why the Messaggero Veneto has dedicated a special exhibition to the dramatic events of the earthquake fifty years ago, held in the prestigious Raimondo D’Aronco Rooms at Palazzo Elti in Gemona. But that is not all. The story of the Friuli earthquake is also explored in depth within the Messaggero’s second exhibition, held at Palazzo Morpurgo in the heart of Udine and dedicated to the newspaper’s eightieth anniversary.

Udine and Gemona: two events that the Messaggero Veneto is offering the public to reflect together on two stories of pain and recovery, the first beginning after the devastating world war, the second following the immense tragedy of the earthquake. Two reflections also driven by the newspaper’s pride in having never failed to support and help the Friuli community recover during the most painful and heart-wrenching moments of its history.

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IL MESSAGGERO VENETO: THE VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY

6 May 1976, 9.06 pm: “Catastrophic earthquake in Friuli”. This is how the Messaggero Veneto, led by editor Vittorino Meloni, summarised in huge headlines an unprecedented tragedy. Two photographs, deliberately in black and white, dominated the front page: there was no need for colour to convey the drama of the firefighters and volunteers rushing through the rubble in Majano, or the gutted cathedral.

The newspaper on Viale Palmanova was immediately among those affected by the earthquake. Hundreds of people gathered in the square in front of the offices – recalled editor Paolo Medeossi – anxious for news.

“That night”, Medeossi recalled “the alarm went off instantly at the newspaper”. It was evening, a “crucial phase of the daily work, when the printing press becomes a sort of Dantean inferno and a bustling workshop”. These were years in which the newspaper was undergoing a profound technological and editorial overhaul: editor-in-chief Meloni paired young recruits with the old guard of editors-in-chief such as Gian Paolo Nobili, Mario Blasoni and Silvano di Varmo.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, the pages of the newspaper became a place to gather at: it was a home open to all. Reports from disaster-stricken towns, earthquake charts, aerial and colour photographs: Il Messaggero was close to its readers, consolidating and intensifying a dialogue that began back in 1946.

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AUTHORITIES AND INSTITUTIONS STARTED TAKING ACTION

The President of the Republic, Giovanni Leone, arrived in Friuli the following day, 7 May. He was accompanied by the Minister of the Interior, Francesco Cossiga, and the Minister of Labour and Social Security, Mario Toros, a native of Friuli. He flew over the worst-hit towns by helicopter, seeing houses razed to the ground and factories in ruins. “We’ll be in big trouble if we don’t do everything possible to help these people”: the President repeated this several times. A promise duly noted in the newspaper by the reporter Ciro Migliore.

The following day, it was the turn of Prime Minister Aldo Moro, accompanied by Giuseppe Zamberletti, who was soon appointed special commissioner for the earthquake-stricken areas. On 13 May, US Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller also arrived in Friuli. He hastened to “set foot on the rubble of Osoppo. Not only, remarked editor Meloni, out of a surge of solidarity, for what might be called a political gesture, but also out of a sense of gratitude and a friendship that was both personal and symbolic towards the many Friuli migrants in America.

Rockefeller was “impressed by the dignity and resilience” of the affected communities. This visit was recounted moment by moment by the journalist Migliore, who remained at Rockefeller’s side throughout, “speaking English fluently”, as the newspaper proudly noted.

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THE MORAL RESILIENCE OF THE PEOPLE OF FRIULI

A “great zest for life” and a strong “moral cohesion (despite differences of opinion)” were immediately apparent. “We, the people of Friuli”, reflected the Friuli writer Carlo Sgorlon in those years, “have for centuries grumbled against the powers that be, whom we do not trust, but our anarchism is individual, private, orderly, hard-working and constructive. The instinct to build is a remedy not only against social rhetoric, but also against melancholy. Building is a way of overcoming pessimism. A way of saying yes to life, of accepting that strange thing that is the human adventure.”

This was a view shared by journalists from many national and international newspapers who had already flocked to Udine as early as 9 May. “The people of Friuli”, as Bo Draebel of Berlingske Tidende put it, possess a “formidable dignity”. “They are”, noted Francesco Durante, a reporter for Il Messaggero, capable of “amazing the world”. “I know Italy and its bureaucracy”, wrote Fon Lie of Oslo’s Aftenposten, “and that is why I am impressed: this time things are working perfectly; everyone is giving their all, with incredible calm and awareness”. “No one is seen crying anymore, on the second day after the earthquake”, remarked Gianni Rodari in Paese Sera. Indro Montanelli and Giorgio Bocca were the leading journalists of the time writing about Friuli. The reports by Bruno Vespa and Paolo Frajese for Rai are remembered. Editor Meloni appeared as a guest on the Tg 1 newscast on 16 May: Friuli was the “point of rebirth for the Italian spirit”, he proudly declared. “Even after Caporetto, the entire nation rallied together. Caporetto devastated Friuli, but Italy was reborn there, in a determination to recover and to reclaim its honour”.

ROOM NO. 2

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THE AGONY OF THE EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS

Two months had passed since those 55 endless seconds of the unforgettable earthquake measuring 8 on the Mercalli scale, and the Messaggero Veneto immortalised the 967 Friuli inhabitants swept away by Orcolat, the monstrous popular personification of earthquakes.

From 6 May, the newspaper became a mirror of the tragedy of biblical proportions that had struck Friuli. It reported about a population living through the “consequences of the disaster, gathering every detail, recording every initiative, thus seeking to maintain among all the region’s inhabitants a bond that, existing naturally in the spirit, must survive even amidst the unjust divisions wrought by the earthquake. We could not do more, as we would have liked”, read an editorial from those tragic days, “because we could only write and document with images: we wanted people to know and to understand. If in some way we have been, and wish to be, of use to the living, this does not mean we forget the departed”.

Amid “endless difficulties”, the journalists of Il Messaggero went to great lengths to collect photographs of the victims and publish them in early July 1976 across four densely packed pages. “We did not find photographs of everyone”, they stated with bitterness and sorrow, “partly because not everyone’s name is known, but we tried everything within our power.” These pages were not intended to be an “obituary”. The newspaper’s aim was different: to leave a lasting legacy, “an act of affection that endures, that wishes to remain, as it remains in the hearts of those who mourn them, as the people of Friuli do, without showing it to anyone, within themselves”.

ROOM NO. 3

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THE STATE’S HAND REACHING OUT TO THE FRIULI THAT REMAINS

The role of the State was decisive. There were three reasons for this. Firstly, the allocation from May 1976 until 31 December 1995 of the equivalent of approximately 12 billion euros in today’s money (compared to the allocation in current currency of 41 billion euros spent – according to the Court of Auditors – on reconstruction in Irpinia and Campania following the 1980 earthquake).

Secondly, the generous and tireless relief efforts provided to the earthquake victims by the 57,000 soldiers then stationed on our eastern border – the area hit by the earthquake, one of the most sensitive points of the “Iron Curtain”. The military operations centre was set up at the Mantova Barracks headquarters in Via Savorgnana, Udine.

The third reason was the choice of commissioner for the areas devastated by the earthquake: an indomitable young man from Varese, Giuseppe Zamberletti, a member of the Christian Democrats. It was a far-sighted choice that avoided duplication of efforts, fragmentation and delays. As journalist Gian Antonio Stella recalled, “unlike some of his successors, he slept in a room at the prefecture” with his socks in his pocket and dark pyjamas which, should he have had to rush out, “resembled a military tracksuit”. Zamberletti immediately involved the mayors of the hardest-hit towns, appointing them as deputy commissioners.

ROOM NO. 4

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THE EARTHQUAKE DESTROYED HOMES, NOT THE IDENTITY OF FRIULI

From all over Europe – Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, France – the Friuli emigrants – as journalist Ido Cibischino promptly captured this outpouring of solidarity – returned, “driving thousands of kilometres non-stop, flooring the accelerator to get there first, to hurry, to find out if any of their loved ones are no longer with us. They wander the streets and dig, bent over, in silence, through the rubble of the houses that had held their sweat, the savings set aside by working hard in a foreign land, far away, with the hope of one day returning to their hills to spend their final years”.

They wanted to rebuild the houses where they had always stood, as well as the places of worship. “First the factories, then the houses and then the churches,” decreed Archbishop Alfredo Battisti. Institutions and volunteers raced against time to safeguard also the artistic heritage. They saved 95% of the movable art objects. The destruction wrought by the earthquake – as journalist Giacomina Pellizzari reported, quoting the then director of the Civic Museums, Aldo Rizzi – attested that “our past lies in our consciences”. “This demonstrated”, Pellizzari continued, that the earthquake “destroyed the houses, not the spirit of Friuli”: a key belief that underpinned the reconstruction.

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A STRUGGLING ECONOMY BOUNCED BACK

The earthquake – as recounted by journalist Eugenio Segalla – tore apart the “industrial and productive fabric of Friuli, a structure that in 1976 had not been affected by the crisis sweeping the rest of the country. […] Friuli’s industry had not become bogged down in the shallows of recession; the credit crunch had not substantially affected its vitality; the upheavals of two difficult years for the country had not eroded its ability to penetrate markets. Especially foreign markets, where many companies were present with 60 per cent of their production. A record percentage”.

A vital, efficient industry, brought to its knees by the earthquake in May 1976. Around 4,000 workers were left without jobs in the days immediately following the quake. Many industrial complexes were devastated: “in a matter of seconds, sacrifices both great and small, the tenacity of entrepreneurs and the hard work of the workers were all in vain”. “Swift and unequivocal decisions” were the objective of the Udine Industrialists’ Association to resume business operations as soon as possible and “not have to pay, in addition to the enormous damage caused by the earthquake, the cost of a prolonged halt in production”.

“Today is important, however tomorrow is more so”: the words of Roberto Snaidero, son of Rino, Knight of Labour. All the entrepreneurs afflicted by the devastating earthquake shared this view. From Minifer to Pittini, from Sideros to De Simon, from Plaxil to Fantoni. From Ledraplastic to Filarc. From the factory in Gemona to the spinning mill in Artegna. “It’s a chasm,” observed Segalla. “The ground has literally swallowed up thousands of metres of factory buildings; the pressurised concrete vaults have disintegrated, crumbled by the fury unleashed from the earth. Only the trusses remain. It looks like a scene from a film depicting a carpet bombing”.

On 12 May, the President of Confindustria, Giovanni Agnelli, arrived in Maiano, in one of the rooms of the Snaidero office block. “Rebuilding a country starting with businesses; the Germans taught us that after the last war”: this was the formula through which the Avvocato framed the challenges of a “reconstruction that hinges on the will to breathe new life into the productive system”. Agnelli expressed his certainty that – as the reporter Segalla noted with relief – “despite the consternation and profound grief that has struck Friuli”, there existed “broad confidence in the future”.

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BEYOND THE RUBBLE: THE SYMBOL OF RECONSTRUCTION

Exactly one year after the earthquake that on 6 May 1976 tore through the heart of Friuli, the «Messaggero Veneto» newspaper chose not to commemorate the pain through mere reporting, but to entrust it to the eternity of the artistic symbol. The 1977 special edition became a shrine of paper, where the poetic words of Jorge Luis Borges were inextricably intertwined with the visions of Friuli’s greatest artists.

In those pages, the disaster of the earthquake shed the coldness of numerical data to become a sacred, collective image. Artists from the region captured on canvas the silence of the stones, the dust of the wiped-out villages and the dignity of a people “shaken but not defeated”. Borges’s poetry, with the metaphysical reflection on time and ruin, acted as a universal binding force, elevating the local tragedy into a symbol of human fragility.

This synergy between literature and visual art brought to life by the «Messaggero» newspaper was not merely an aesthetic exercise, but an act of cultural resistance: transforming rubble into a monument, mourning into visual testimony. Looking back at those works today allows us to retrace that “construction site of the soul” which preceded the physical reconstruction, confirming how art served, for Friuli, as a first true shelter under which to protect its wounded memory.

THE EARTH SHOOK ONCE MORE

12 September, “Aftershock: collapses, injuries, fear”. It was a new emergency. Two violent tremors exceeding eight on the Mercalli scale shook Friuli. Much of what had withstood the initial quake crumbled. It became objectively difficult to hold out where the earth shook so violently.

The response from the operational and decision-making chain – as reported by the journalist Ido Cibischino – was immediate. “The exodus to the coast, which until then had been merely a sort of Plan B”, became a priority. Tents and caravans provided shelter for some 18,000 people, “mostly farmers and livestock breeders, so as not to interrupt their work”. Within two weeks, 32,000 Friuli inhabitants were dispersed across Lignano, Grado, Bibione, Jesolo, Caorle and Ravascletto, “with the wise advice to maintain the village-like, indeed neighbourhood-like, cohesion of their communities in their new destination”. Editor Meloni, supported by editor-in-chief Giampaolo Niboli, chose not to report on the daily lives of the displaced in the pages of Il Messaggero. The newspaper remained among the people in the devastated villages: “It is here that the salvation of Friuli is at stake, not by the sea. Those who are away must hold fast to the idea that they can return, that they must return.”