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matera, 2019 european capital of culture
matera 2019 european capital of culture together with plovdiv.
this time, the best candidate won.
Among the cities in the short list, matera definitely had the most exceptional and original resource, all it takes is one look. it’s not just apretty city filled with monuments.
the world (and marvelous italy in particular) is full of city-chests, which contain the jewels of the heritage, though they are often treated like jewels; as objects isolated from the tissue (the cities-containers; the momuments at the end of an endless pilgrimage); but this place is, instead, city and territory and landscape at the same time: in that, it is unique, integrated, intact.
The city dug in the territory’s landscape which, in light of this historic and urban organicity, wasn’t forced to divide itself, to put on a plate, one after the other, rhythmically its duomos, palaces, and towers, as if all the same, to cout the commercial gain. And if, as we often recite (like a mantra), “the human is the territory”, then this is the landscape-city to show off. Moreover, there are the peaks, going up and down: the plainness is elsewhere.
On this exceptional resource, the working team has done everthing well. Good job, Paolo Verri, and congratulations to all those present in the Comitato Matera 2019. matera in europe, is going to do a lot of good for italy.
(a thought for venice, where tears and laughter flow, still, for the ridiculous handling of the candidacy, where in other beautiful cities the encyclical power of some particular people did not win over.)