South Tyrol. The Other Italy

At the beginning of The Ugly Duchess, Feuchtwanger writes: “It had been manifestly proved that in Tyrol only he could rule whom the Tyrolese themselves wanted to rule. With mountains and valleys and passes God had so disposed it that no foreign power could overrun it by violence.” At the end of his historical novel, describing Margaret’s decision to cede Tyrol to Habsburgs, the author leaves all the prompousness aside: “Schenna thought this proposal very advantageous. He had always preferred the gay, affable Austrians to the heavy, violent Bavarians.” That is how Tyrol lost its independence and became a part of the Austrian monarchy.

And what about Margaret? She, having left her lands, never came back to Tyrol either in the book or in real life.

Chapter Seven.

The “Bolzano Effect”

At first, they took away only the toilet. The explanation that it was only an innocent curtsey to the classic of modern art, the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, didn’t help a bit; the work was ruthlessly impounded by the city authorities following a complaint from National Alliance activists. The toilet was a work by the Roman artists Eleonora Chiari and Sara Goldschmied, working under the pseudonym Goldiechiari. When a person approached it, the plumbing fixture would play Italy’s national anthem along with the sounds of flushing. The case came to trial, and the court ruled that the toilet did not insult either the anthem or the state of Italy, and it was returned to its place.

Then, their “crucified frog” by the German artist Martin Kippenberger was glimpsed by a representative of the Roman Curia, who was pretty much bothered by the sight. As a result, Pope Benedict XVI personally spoke out against this scoffing green amphibian on the cross with an egg in one hand and a beer mug in the other. The Italian Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi called the frog “an unnecessary provocation”, while Franz Pahl, an official, went on a hunger strike as a sign of protest against the sculpture, and even ended up in hospital. Meanwhile, the artist Martin Kippenberger, who died in 1997, called his work Zuerst die Füsse (“Feet first”), and said it was a self-portrait of a person in a state of deep crisis.

Finally, the whole world heard the news about the installation Where Shall We Go Dancing Tonight? which the cleaners took for garbage. The work by the already mentioned Roman artists Eleonora Chiari and Sara Goldschmied was supposed to tell about the ideology of the consumer society, to ridicule the luxurious parties and scandals around the Italian politicians of the 1980s. Empty bottles scattered on the floor, cigarette butts, streamers, festive decorations, items of clothing and shoes – cleaners took all this for garbage from the celebration held the night before, sorted it into recycling bags and cleaned the room. Fortunately, the installation was recreated.

All of these stories took place at the Bolzano (Bozen) Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. It has been blacklisted, and it seems that all the international press has written about scandals associated with its exhibitions. However, even at the most difficult times, here, at the Museion, the staff have fought with word and action for the right of the art to be free, and all the unpleasant “incidents” were perceived philosophically, as a basis for discussing contemporary art.

Unfortunately, the construction of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano (Bozen) did not bring the so-called “Bilbao effect” to the region. Even now, artists from London or New York, who are invited from time to time to take part in the Museion exhibition programs, first have to figure out its exact geographical position. Nevertheless, the architectural design of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, created by the Berlin architects KSV Krüger Schuberth Vandreike, is very interesting in itself. The 25-metre-high parallelepiped is located on the border between the “old” and the “new” Bolzano, with one of its glass facades reflecting the life of the historical part of the city and another one – the rapid flow of the Talfer river and the modern city across the river. At sunset, these glass facades become an “exhibition tool” of multimedia art. Inside the multi-layered facades of the museum there are opaque glass panels, which during the daytime are used to control the lighting inside the Museion. Thus, in the afternoon, when the panels are “open”, you can see everything that happens in the building from the outside. Who knows, whether the representative of the Curia, going on his way past the museum, would have seen Kippenberger’s “crucified frog”, if the sculpture, hanging in the hall above the cashier’s desk, had not been visible from outside through the transparent walls?

The Museion was created not as a “container” with works of art, but as an international research laboratory in the field of contemporary art. In addition to the exhibition halls, the museum has venues for events and seminars, a library, a cafe, a shop and, moreover, a multipurpose indoor space on the ground floor, open to everybody. The latter was created by a guest designer from Merano (Meran), Martino Gamper, who has been living in London for many years. The Museion Passage was made free-to-enter for all kinds of events, both related and non-related to the work of the museum.

The wonderful initiative of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano (Bozen) – opening its covered passage with designer furniture for free public use – almost turned into another scandal. Migrants began to gather there. They charged their phones in the museum, used its restrooms and its high-speed free internet. Migrants filled the stone benches in front of the museum – the Wi-Fi signal was fine in the street. Soon the benches got decorated with inscriptions “Bolzano ai Bolzanini!!” (“Bolzano is for the residents of Bolzano”) and “Integrazione = Degrado!!” (“Integration equals degradation”).

Well, we forget that people never run from their countries, homes and families, if everything is all right. Tomorrow, you can find yourself in their place: run away from bombs, hunger, poverty, an unfair political regime; carry your children in the arms mile after mile, not knowing what awaits them ahead; try to cross a sea, realizing that the chances of drowning and of reaching the coast are about equal; risk your life and the lives of your families for the sake of hope for the future. Put yourself in the shoes of these people. What do you know about them?

The reaction of the Museion’s administration was not immediate, but nevertheless the only correct one: they gave the migrants the opportunity to speak about themselves. The project was called “Where do you imagine yourself?” Within its framework, meetings were held, at which the migrants were told about the place in front of which they would spend hours on benches, separated from it, however, by an invisible barrier. The experimental project of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano helped these people to take the first steps to adaptation and became an opportunity to learn about their stories and life situations. And that was only the beginning. A few months later, migrants, young people from South Tyrol and other European regions were already working together on an art project at Museion. The barriers had been finally brought down. The migrants got an opportunity to become a part of the community, while the community got a chance to feel closer to the migrants.

This art project, like many others, was created through common efforts in the studio – the building located next to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. The house-studio was designed, along with the Museion and two bridges – for pedestrians and cyclists, by the Berlin KSV architects, as part of a single museum complex. The interior space of the building was occupied by the South Tyrolean designer Harry Thaler, whom the press usually calls “a London designer of South Tyrolean origin”. Interestingly, during his studies in the capital of Great Britain, Thaler, before setting up his own firm, worked at the office of Martino Gamper, the designer of the Museion Passage. The house-studio was designed as a temporary housing and a workshop for guest artists and curators invited to the Museion in Bolzano (Bozen).

The museum complex continues with two bridges spanning the Talfer river. Though made from the same materials as the museum itself, they were designed curvilinear in contrast to its strict forms. The bridges connect the historical centre of the city with the “new” Bolzano (Bozen), and you will have to cross them in order to look at the last part of the museum complex, located in the modern Don Bosco district.

There used to be a huge garden where Don Bosco district is now, but in 1940, under the Fascist regime, workers who came from various places in Italy to work in the nearby industrial area of Bolzano (Bozen) began to settle here. This project was part of the plan for the Italianization of South Tyrol – the result of the agreement between Hitler and Mussolini concerning the region. The period from 1943 through 1945 was for Don Bosco the time of Nazi occupation. A transit camp was established here, in which the Jews and the partisans of South Tyrol and other occupied territories were usually held before deportation to concentration camps in Germany. Today, you can follow the history of Don Bosco by looking at the few monuments of the past still found on its territory: remnants of the camp wall, sculptures dedicated to the victims of the inhuman regime, and one of the houses for Italian workers, now turned into a museum (casa semirurale, “a semi-rural house”).

People generally go to museums for knowledge and new impressions, but the administraton of Museion reckoned that the opposite is also possible. That is how a small glass pavilion – the Garutti Cube, or the Little Museion, as people call it – appeared in Don Bosco district. The artist Alberto Garutti studied the population of the district and came to the conclusion that its residents have practically no interest for arts. Garutti wanted to change this state of affairs, to establish a dialogue with the city, to become as close to the potential audience as possible, to step down from the creator’s “pedestal”, and to produce a piece of art that would possibly become a link between his work and the audience. As part of this project, it was decided to decentralize the system responsible for contemporary art in Bolzano (Bozen) by moving one work of art from the Museion collection to the outskirts of the city every three months or by creating “autonomous” exhibitions. The simple glass-and-concrete pavilion installed next to a playground became a mini-representation of the Museum of Modern Art. You cannot enter the transparent cubic sculpture – you can only look at its contents from the outside, but when you approach the pavilion, the lighting is turned on at any time of the day (or night). People passing by the Garutti Cube inevitably find themselves in the role of spectators, and over time it becomes an everyday object for them. The pavilion naturally generates around itself numerous meetings of local residents, of people interested in the exhibited works and in art in general. The architectural solution of the Little Museion was made as simple as possible on purpose – so that the concept of introducing modern art into different parts of the city could be continued in the future.

One would think that the residents of Don Bosco remained only outside observers of the Garutti Cube project, but that is not true. Several exhibitions were set up in the pavilion with their active participation. For one of them, residents of the district were asked to bring some of their personal belongings to the cube; those were used to create an exhibition dedicated to the collective activities of the population of Don Bosco. As part of another project, people were invited to turn the walls of the pavilion into a shared diary, which was then exhibited in Museion.

Isn’t art an amazing thing! It can unite; evoke feelings and emotions in people of any age, any culture, and any nationality. The inhabitants of Don Bosco, before the appearance of the Garutti Cube in their district, probably could not have imagined that their thoughts or objects preserving the memory of their lives would one day become museum exhibits.

It is wonderful how one building can put a whole region on the map of the world. The architect Frank Gehry designed the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the life of the Basque Country changed dramatically for the better. The whole world started speaking about that part of Spain.

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano (Bozen) did not bring instant international fame to South Tyrol, so what? The most important thing is that Museion has managed to make a difference for its land and for its residents. You will probably say that not everyone will agree with this statement in South Tyrol itself, and that, according to opinion polls, not all the inhabitants of the region are proud of the museum. Well, there are very few things in life that people would be unanimously positive about, especially when it comes to art.

Chapter Eight.

Peace Already?

“Here at the border of the fatherland set down the banner. From this point on we educated the others with language, law and culture”, reads the inscription on the triumphal arch, the Victory Monument in Bolzano (Bozen). The inscription was supposed to look a little different, but at the last moment it was decided to replace the word “barbarians” in the original version with the less specific word “others”. It was officially reported that the phrase on the monument is an imaginary dialogue between a legionary of the Roman Legio X (15 BC) and an infantryman during the Battle of the Piave River, where the Italians blocked the Austrian army’s advance in 1918. The German-speaking residents of South Tyrol did not believe in the story of this imaginary dialogue; for them, the inscription on the Victory Monument was offensive, as it demonstrated the repressive policy of Italy towards their region. Given the historical context in which the ceremonial unveiling of the monument took place, South Tyroleans had every reason for such thoughts. The irony was that the people who were going to civilize them were representatives of a country in which the level of literacy was at that time lower than in their own very small region.

In South Tyrol, the campaign of oppression against its German-speaking residents was in full swing: the population of the region, in the absence of Italian education diplomas, were put out of their jobs in droves, their land was occupied by Italians, who most often came from the very south of the country, and the architectural image of South Tyrolean cities was forcibly changed. In 1923, Ettore Tolomei, the man who is still called the “grave-digger of South Tyrol”, put forward a draft law for South Tyrol which was called the Gentile Reform and affected all the formerly Austrian lands. It was prohibited to use the German language everywhere – at schools, administrations, associations. Local people were denied the right to their own culture. This process of linguistic fascism was referred to as “Italianization of the population”. It was even forbidden to pronounce the word “Tyrol”. The name of the region was changed to Alto Adige, and all the South Tyrolean cities, villages and settlements, as well as surnames of local people, were substituted by their Italian versions. The only place that managed to escape that fate was the village of Lana, whose name, apparently, sounded Italian enough as it was.

New teachers were sent from Italy to South Tyrol. The government saw them as enthusiasts and colonialists, who were supposed to bring the modernized Italian way of life to the Austrian province. Claus Gatterer, a patriarch of Austrian journalism of the 20th century, wrote that “Italian teachers were often in fact much better than the popular opinion about them. They suffered from the atmosphere of hostility that surrounded them, and had no social contacts. Farmers in the villages were suspicious of them, especially of teachers wearing town clothes, which were considered immoral.” In accordance with the Italian fashion of the 1920s and 1930s, the teachers wore miniskirts and men’s haircuts, which more than embarrassed South Tyrolean farmers, who were not used to this style. To deal with the stress from working in this region, where people were so unfriendly to them, teachers would sometimes go out drinking at night; in the morning they could not come to work, in which case their students had to be sent home.

In order for the language and the traditions of the region not to be lost by new generations, enthusiasts among German-speaking teachers secretly organized their own classes, called “catacomb schools”. One of their patrons was the Catholic priest Michael Gamper. He was outraged with King Victor Emmanuel III not keeping his promise to respect the national identity of the South Tyrolean people. The priest, under the protection of the Catholic Church, began creating German publishing houses in the region, wrote and published articles in German. The Fascist regime that had captured South Tyrol quickly ranked Gamper as the “public enemy number one”, and he was forced to hide from persecution in a Tuscan monastery. Nevertheless, the priest was lucky to survive, while many other enthusiasts of the “catacomb schools” were much less fortunate. They had to die for their cause. People remember with sadness the story of a very young teacher Angela Nikoletti, who died at the age of 25 from tuberculosis, which she had contracted in prison.

Even later, in the days of Nazism and Hitler’s meetings with Mussolini, German was forbidden in South Tyrol, as if the language of the “chosen people of Aryan race” was something illegal. The inhabitants of South Tyrol, as always, found themselves on the borderline – this time, between the two dictatorships. Formally, they had a choice: either to join the Nazi Germany and leave their homes, or to stay and experience all the “charms” of the Fascist regime.

It is against this background, and with an utmost ardour and desire to complete the work as soon as possible, that the triumphal arch was built in Bolzano (Bozen) – the monument in Neo-Romanesque style, with an ominous inscription in Latin that bode no good for the region.

The Victory Monument was Benito Mussolini’s ambitious idea. The dictator declared in the Italian parliament that “a memorial to Cesare Battisti and other martyrs” would be built in Bolzano, adding that it would be erected “on the same foundation as the monument to the German victory”. The “monument to the German victory” that Mussolini was referring to was the monument to the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger (Imperial Riflemen) in Bolzano (Bozen), which was actually dedicated to the memory of the dead, and not the “German victory” at all.

On July 12, 1926, on the tenth anniversary of the death of Cesare Battisti and Fabio Filzi, at a distance of approximately eight metres from the foundation of the monument to the Imperial Tyrolean Riflemen, the first stone was laid in the foundation of the Victory Monument. In a solemn setting, in the presence of King Victor Emmanuel III, Marshals Luigi Cadorna, Pietro Badoglio and several ministers, two more were added to the first stone. The first of them was brought from Monte Corno, where Cesare Battisti was captured, the second from Monte Grappa, conquered with enormous human losses only in 1918, and the third from Monte San Michele, a strategically important mountain located on the Italian-Slovenian border. The mortar was made using water from the river Piave. The first symbolic stone of the Victory Monument was blessed by the Bishop of Trento, Celestino Endrici, notwithstanding the written request from the clergy of South Tyrol to Pope Pius XI that the monument should not receive a church blessing.

After the construction of the Victory Monument was started, more precisely, on June 9, 1927, the monument to the Imperial Tyrolean Riflemen was blown up. The remaining blocks were given to the cities that had donated money for the construction of the Victory Monument. Only four sculptures by Franz Ehrenhofer were rescued, transported to North Tyrol, and then placed on Bergisel.

On the day when the Victory Monument was inaugurated, a protest demonstration was held on Mount Isel in Innsbruck, in which more than 10,000 people took part, including representatives of South Tyrol. Ernesta Bittanti, the widow of Cesare Battisti, opposed using the figure of her husband and other irredentists in the Fascist campaign, and did not come to the opening ceremony of the triumphal arch. Later, her daughter, Livia Battisti, would repeatedly suggest renaming the arch the Monument of Memory and Warning. Despite the discontent of the Battisti family, they did place into one of the niches of the 19-metre-high triumphal arch a bust of the 42-year-old journalist Cesare Battisti – a politician, a scientist, an irredentist, and a patriot of Trento, who had been executed by Austrians.

Cesare Battisti was a hero during his life and remained one after death. He did not need any monuments.

The Triple Alliance between Italy, Austria-Hungary and Germany was formed in May 1882. It was based on the Austro-German Alliance pact of October 1, 1879 and the union treaty between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy of May 20, 1882. The union was renewed on May 6, 1891. The core of the pact was formed by articles II and III, transferred from the previous treaties of 1882 and 1891 without changes. The articles stated that Italy, in the event of an unprovoked attack by France, would receive help from the Allies. The same obligation would be placed on Italy if France attacked Germany without direct provocation from the latter. Also, if one or two of the contracting parties, without a direct provocation on their part, were attacked and involved in a war with two or several great powers not participating in this treaty, then the circumstances requiring the fulfillment of the treaty would be present for all the contracting parties simultaneously. At the same time, the Triple Alliance agreed with the special statement of Italy that the participation of England in a war against the Triple Alliance would exclude the participation of Italy because of the vulnerability of its territory to the British fleet. The two treaties contradicted each other.

In August 1914, the tripartite alliance was broken; Italy declared itself neutral and refused to join the war on the side of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Italy explained its decision by the fact that articles II and III of the alliance treaty did not make sense in that situation: Austria-Hungary was waging an offensive war, not a defensive one.

Despite the neutrality officially declared by Italy, militaristic tendencies quickly gained popularity in the country and grew into movements which called for war, but on the side of the Entente. These movements were led by the Tyrolean socialist from Trento, Cesare Battisti, and the Italian playwright Gabriele d’Annunzio. A number of Italian deputies, as well as Alcide de Gasperi, doctor of philology and a native of Trento, considered that the country didn’t need to enter the war, and that it was better to continue to maintain neutrality.

Germany suggested that Austria-Hungary should hand over to Italy the territories inhabited by Italians. It was assumed that this would stop the Italian supporters of the war on the side of the Entente. The vote on that issue in the Italian parliament showed an unexpected and discouraging result: 320 deputies were for neutrality, and 508 were for joining the war. On May 23, 1915, the Italian ambassador in Vienna declared war. A week earlier, Italy had joined the Entente Powers (Russia, Britain and France) and took on the obligation to enter the war against Austria-Hungary in exchange for the territories of Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, Istria and part of Dalmatia. The position of Austria in relation to its former ally would be expressed by Kaiser Franz Joseph I, who, addressing his people, would say that this was “a breach of fidelity unknown in history”.

Cesare Giuseppe Battisti, born in Trento into the family of a wealthy Tyrolean merchant and an Italian countess of the ancient family of Fogolari, was happy that the war started. Since his childhood, he had been dreaming of liberating his land from slavery and the status of a Habsburg province.

As early as in 1847, the idea of the national unification of Italy and the liberation of its territories from the “Austrian yoke” began to gain momentum. The Austrian bureaucracy, of course, did not share this idea, and expressed strong confidence in its right to dominate over the Italian regions. The Austrian statesman, diplomat and prince von Metternich referred to the Italians who lived outside their own country, on the Austrian territory, not as a nation, but as a “geographical concept”. What Metternich said did not contradict the official position of Austria-Hungary with regard to the Italian population living in Austria, and the “Tyrolean Italians”, who lived in Trentino in large numbers, were offended by this attitude. As a result, in 1878, Menotti Garibaldi founded the Italian irredentist movement, which advocated the accession to the Italian Kingdom of the territories bordering Austria-Hungary and inhabited by Italians: Trentino, Trieste, and others. The term irredenta was used to denote a part of an ethnos constituting a minority within the state, but living compactly in close proximity to a state in which people of the same ethnos constituted the majority.

The fact that the irredentist movement arose among the Italians who were actually trapped on the territory of the neighboring state is not surprising. The patriotism of the “Tyrolean Italians” was dual: besides the sense of their “small homeland” and their own land (Trentino), they also had a very strong sense of their historical homeland, that is, Italy. On October 24, 1911, Cesare Battisti appealed with passion to the common sense of the parliament members: “This monarchy cannot control itself, to say nothing about its territories! Just take a look at what’s happening with its government, if this helpless gang of embezzlers can still be called a government! They are failing to approve their own budget for the second year! Why do we, Italians, have to hold this country that has been ruined long ago on our shoulders? They consider us to be their slaves and demand loyalty – is this not the greatest absurdity in the world?” The Italian mentality, not prone to assimilation, made the problem of “Tyrolean Italians” practically impossible to solve in any other way except war.

Cesare Battisti died on the scaffold, caught by the Austrian army and executed as a traitor. The last thing he saw before his death was the sky of his beloved Trento, which at that time was still remaining in the grip of Austria-Hungary.

The death of the national hero became a call to fight for other Italians. They fought for Trento with extraordinary fervour, fought to the last drop of their blood. They composed poems about Battisti, embroidered his portraits on banners, went to the battle to the sounds of the march “La leggenda dei Piave”, dedicated to Battisti.

The Entente kept its promises: Trentino, South Tyrol and other lands specified in the agreement became Italian. The biography of Alcide de Gasperi, like the biographies of many other “Tyrolean Italians”, would state: born in Austria-Hungary, died in Italy.

Cesare Battisti was not the only Italian national hero executed by the Austrians to be immortalized in the triumphal arch of the Victory Monument. The busts of two other people occupy another niche of the monument: the 35-year-old lawyer Fabio Filzi and the 22-year-old engineer-technician Damiano Chiesa (both sculptures were made by Adolfo Wildt). All the three of them were natives of Trentino and officers of the alpini detachments.

The project of the Victory Monument in Bolzano (Bozen) was implemented by one of the key architects of the Fascist era, Marcello Piacentini. The sculpture on the tympanum of the monument, above the ominous inscription about the borders from which the “others” were to be taught “language, laws and culture”, was made by Arturo Dazzi. It is called Vittoria Saggitaria, “Victory with an arrow”. On the back of the arch, there are three sculptural medallions: “New Italy”, “Air” and “Fire”. The inscription in Latin under the medallions says the following: “In honour and in memory of people of incredible courage, who, fighting in legal wars, resolutely won their homeland back with their own blood. All Italians donated money for this.” An irrefutable proof of the fact that the Victory Monument belonged to the Fascist era was a direct written reference to it on the south side of the monument. However, that inscription – “Benito Mussolini, Il Duce of Italy, the 6th year (of the Fascist era)” – was removed after 1945.

A surprising number of talented people worked on the implementation of the triumphal arch in Bolzano (Bozen) and on its details. For example, there is a sculpture of Christ the Redeemer by Libero Andreotti in the centre of the monument. The risen Christ ascends the granite altar calmly and solemnly. The statue produces an impression of calm and peace, not characteristic of other monumental works of the Italian master. Christ the Redeemer by Andreotti is one of the rare examples of truly sacred modern sculpture, and it seems paradoxical that it should be combined with the monument of the Fascist era.

The triumphal arch of the national martyrs was surrounded with a high fence almost immediately after its opening. Nevertheless, over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, many things happened around it: protests, demonstrations, referendums, hanging memorial plaques, clashes between Germans and Italians, between the right and the left. It was repeatedly suggested that the Victory Monument should be demolished because it incites ethnic strife. In 1977, a union of several South Tyrolean parties submitted a bill in which they asked to consider the possibility of demolishing not only the Victory Monument in Bolzano (Bozen), but also all the buildings in the city which praise fascism. The bill, however, didn’t receive much support.

In 2001, Bolzano (Bozen) city council decided to change the name of the square in front of the monument from Victory Square to Peace Square, but in October 2002 it was renamed back. The results of the referendum showed that the German-speaking population voted unanimously for renaming the square, while the Italian-speaking population voted against. Once again, the Italians missed the opportunity to show their openness to the German-speaking residents of South Tyrol by giving up the idea of “victory” over their region – at least in the name of the square. We must, however, give credit to the city council, which attempted to put the inscription Già della Pace (“Already of Peace”) under the new sign of Piazza della Vittoria (Victory Square).

In 2004, information panels were installed approximately 50 metres from the Victory Monument; they contained the following text about the significance of Bolzano (Bozen) triumphal arch, written in four languages (Italian, German, Ladin and English): “Italy’s Fascist regime erected this monument to celebrate victory in the First World War, an event which brought the division of Tyrol and the separation of the population of South Tyrol from Austria, their mother country. The City of Bolzano, a free, modern and democratic town, condemns the discrimination and divisions of the past, as well as any form of nationalism, and pledges its commitment to promoting a culture of fraternity and peace in the true European Spirit”.