Nomen loci: la ricostruzione della toponomastica del Grande Cretto come progetto di memoria collettiva

Abstract

In 1981 Alberto Burri, declined the invitation of Ludovico Corrao, mayor of New Gibellina, to produce a work of art for the new city under construction, visiting the site of the old city he was struck by the panorama offered by the ruins and decided to create a monumental work dedicated to the memory of the center destroyed by the earthquake. The Grande Cretto is, at the same time, the cenotaph of old Gibellina and old Gibellina itself, built with the rubble of the city destroyed by the earthquake. The great artistic value of the Grande Cretto lies in its evocative power that becomes a support for collective memory. The identification of what could be defined as a toponymy of the Grande Cretto enriches the fruition of the work with a new suggestion: the memory of the names becomes a device to renew the memory of the places and reactivate the feeling of local identity.