L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2016 www.italoamericano.org L'Italo-Americano 2 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS again, stronger, better, with more faith. Yet, we're here today again, just like our forefathers all those centuries ago, sifting through the rubble. In the very same square, another church dedicated to Santa Maria Argentea collapsed, burying under meters of debris an 18th century organ and, very likely, a precious 13th century wooden crucifix. I taly is a wounded country. Never, in recent years, the Bel Paese has endured so much tragedy in such a short amount of time. Black-clad still, mourn- ing the almost 300 victims of last August's quake, Italians woke up a week ago shaking again: "norcini" felt it under their feet and over their heads, the rest of us within their hearts and in their blood. "Il mostro," the monster, as people of those unfortunate lands calls the earthquake, struck again, and again it left behind an apocalyptic landscape of desola- tion, destruction and hopeless- ness. No bodies to count, this time, yet the sorrow is raw and you won't find a person here who manages to speak about the Norcia earthquake without fighting a painful lump down their throat: as nonsensical as it may seem to some, no loss of lives doesn't mean Italy doesn't have anything to weep for. We're again a country in mourning, but not for people, this time. This time, we mourn stones: stones that stood other earthquakes, wars, floods. Stones that survived centuries and silently witnessed the history of Italy coming into being. Stones that for hundreds and hundreds of years have offered protection and hope, stones millions of hands touched in prayer, stones holding within the essence itself of a people, with all its idiosyn- crasies and defects, but also all its immense love of life. The symbol of it all is the Basilica di San Benedetto, in Norcia, whose body failed under the mortal waves of October's earthquake. Of its secular beauty, only the façade remains, its deli- cate rose window opening into the empty nothingness that's left behind. The Italian Fire Brigade, that many here began calling "angels" because of their continuous, relentless service in central Italy, managed to save a valuable painting from the ruins, but everything else is no more, fallen to the ground with a heavy, dreadful thud, flown to the sky like ashes. The basilica had been built, tradition tells us, upon the ruins of Saint Benedict's own home. It took the people of Norcia 200 years, from the 13th to the 15th century, to finish it. With its late Italian gothic façade and belfry, its statues of saint Benedict and Saint Scolastica and its poly- chrome marbles carvings, the basilica's exterior was an ode to medieval architecture. Its interior developed along a large single nave and had been delightfully decorated by several artists. For three times earthquakes brought it to the ground in the 18th century, for three times the people of Norcia built it up The Italy we have lost: the artistic and cultural patrimony the central Italy earthquake has destroyed FRANCESCA BEZZONE Continued to page 3 The Basilica of San Benedetto in Norcia was almost completely destroyed by the earthquake of 30 October

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