Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Seven faces, from Sandro Pertini to Teresa Noce to Altiero Spinelli: it is one of the largest in the city 

Milan, October 29 2022 - The large mural dedicated to seven persecuted anti-fascists who made the history of free and democratic Italy was inaugurated today in via Plezzo. The work was symbolically presented today, one hundred years after the anniversary of the March on Rome which on 28 October 1922 marked the rise of fascism to power. The event was held as part of the Milano è Memoria schedule. 

The mural, one of the largest in Milan, was painted on the facade of a 60s building, the operational headquarters of the Italian Post Office. It was created by the artistic collective Orticanoodles in collaboration with the OrMe - Ortica Memoria di Milano association, ANPPIA (National Association of Italian Anti-Fascist Political Persecutees), Poste Italiane and the Municipality of Milan. 

Seven faces, from the former President of the Republic, Sandro Pertini, to the President of the Constituent Assembly, Umberto Terracini. And then: the communist and partisan Teresa Noce, the senator for life Camilla Ravera, the trade unionist and PCI deputy Giuseppe Di Vittorio, the youngest representative in the Constituent Assembly Teresa Mattei and one of the founding fathers of the European Union, Altiero Spinelli. 

ANPPIA (National Association of Italian Anti-Fascist Political Persecuted People), the association - founded by the former President of the Republic, Sandro Pertini, and the President of the Constituent Assembly, Umberto Terracini - chose the names of the faces portrayed and financed the work. which deals with preserving the historical memory of anti-fascism and promoting the defense of democratic values ​​and social justice. 

The work is part of the broader project of the "OrMe - Ortica Memoria" association, and is added to the dozens of murals that make up the first open-air museum in Milan where history is written on the walls. 

The inauguration ceremony was attended by the Deputy Mayor of Milan, Anna Scavuzzo, the Councilor for Culture, Tommaso Sacchi, the President of Municipality 3, OrMe. Nettle Memory ETS - Association for Social Promotion | CF 97793290152 Via San Faustino 5, 20134, Milan | orticamemoria@gmail.com Caterina Antola, the ANPPIA National President, Spartaco Geppetti, and the ANPPIA deputy secretary, Sergio Boniolo. The inauguration ceremony was animated by the students of the Vespucci professional institute in Milan with the reading of the biographies of the protagonists portrayed on the mural, the musical band of the local police of Milan. 

"Ortica is a historic neighborhood", said the Deputy Mayor of Milan Anna Scavuzzo, "where the memory of the people and the battles that made it free and democratic has certainly not been lost. Even the redevelopment of numerous iconic places, like the square in front of the Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie, it has looked to the past with a project that wants to restore them to citizens as places of sociality. However, Ortica has also taught other neighborhoods to live their memory. Today we are a little further north, at Casoretto on the anniversary of the March on Rome we inaugurate a mural which portrays seven Italians who opposed and won what was born from that event and which represents for Milan a new and strong testimony of its anti-fascist identity". 

"A museum district. This is how Ortica has been defined thanks to the murals created in recent years on the walls of the houses”, declared the Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Milan, Tommaso Sacchi. “Drawings that tell of lives and ideals , which send messages and establish testimonies of a city that preserves its memory and that relaunches, through an innovative and extraordinary urban narrative, its role as a creative laboratory. The murals created in Ortica represent a new artistic heritage. Today we inaugurate this works, one hundred years after the March on Rome, to underline how much Milan has said and done to date to counter fascism, with its best women and men”.

“The work represents an overview of fighters for freedom and democracy where the faces portrayed are interspersed with flowers and their symbolic meaning,” explained Walter Contipelli of the artistic collective Orticanoodles. “Bringing flowers to the grave of your loved one is an ancient custom that arises from a combination of influences, but which above all means this: reaching out to someone who is no longer here and saying 'I'm thinking of you, I love you'. The rose, in particular, was the first symbol of the Italian Socialists, but in this case it is green, and not red, because green is the color of the self, of hope, of vitality. Green is also the color of nature, of the plant world, of fertility and abundance." 

“For us it is essential to dialogue with the new generations,” said Serafino Sorace, President of the OrMe - Ortica Memoria association. “This is the most authentic meaning of our association: keeping Memory alive, which does not just mean remembering so that the horrors of the past are not repeated, but renewing the commitment to a free and democratic Italy, founded on a spirit of solidarity and against any form of violence, as our Constitution teaches us. It is from young people that the most beautiful flowers are born: the Republic was born thanks to them, to the sacrifice of many girls and boys who opposed the Nazi-fascist barbarism during the Resistance. They are the same young people who today, as an association, we want to address through art, that extraordinary experience that unites, and through the collective creation of murals that tell the story of the women and men who fought for democracy and for freedom, even sacrificing, in some cases, one's own life".

 “We are proud to have contributed to the creation of this work which will enrich the artistic heritage of the city of Milan,” said Spartaco Geppetti, President of ANPPIA. “Our intent is to exalt the values ​​of the Democratic Republic born from the anti-fascist struggle, embodied by the monumental figures who have been portrayed in this mural. This work is a trace that we leave for future memory, so that freedom and democracy can be definitively achieved, in the context of a united and peaceful Europe, just as Altiero Spinelli had imagined it". 

PHOTOS OF THE MURAL