Arzachena, ancient documents on display: there is also honorary citizenship for the Duce
“The Time Box”, an exhibition of vintage papers taken from the archives in the church of San Pietro
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Not everyone knows that before the Aga Khan in 1965, the musician Peter Gabriel in 2003 and the Russian Alisher Usmanov in 2018, the honorary citizenship of Arzachena was conferred in 1922 to Benito Mussolini.
The resolution of the Arzachena municipality is part of the documents exhibited in the exhibition organized by the cultural association “La Scatola del Tempo”, in the small church of San Pietro, a snapshot of the first years of autonomy of the town, through the documents preserved in the municipal archive.
"Le Parole custodite is a journey through the historical archives of the Municipality of Arzachena, but it is also a life story through the first documents that, from 1922 to 1930, photograph a young and suffering community that, in many, still called Santa Maria d'Arsaghena", explains Mario Sotgiu, president of the association and curator of the exhibition. "Suffering" because, for example, it had not yet equipped itself with an aqueduct, nor had it yet organized itself for urban waste collection, or because at the time malaria was still raging and it was for this reason that a resolution was adopted for the purchase of quinine.
«A series of documents that however – observes Mario Sotgiu – make us understand that that young municipal administration wanted to look ahead and organize itself better and better».
Among the documents on display is the one for the election of the first mayor (29 May 1922), or the contribution for the construction of the new church or the request for the establishment of a station of mounted Carabinieri. But there are also some curious ones, such as the decision to increase the amount of fodder for the donkey that pulled the cart of waste, or the assignment, to a citizen, to take care of giving the rope to the clock of the bell tower of the church in an era in which the community referred to that clock.
The exhibition is part of the cultural project “Le Braci del Tempo” that began before the summer, aimed at “making the people of Arzachena, and young people in particular, aware of their history as a community”. Opened last October 18, the exhibition will be open until December 31.
