Barga prison opens its doors
The Barga prison opened its doors this afternoon and the authorities were less worried about people escaping and instead more concerned about the huge amount of visitors trying to get inside. It was open day at the Civic Museum with a guided tour of the recently restored prison cells.The Civic Museum is housed in the Palazzo Pretorio, which was built along with the underground prison during the first half of the 14th century. Palazzo Pretorio was the residence of the Podestà, the representative of Florentine power in Barga. The Podestà took part in council decisions, but his main role was to administer Law and Order.
The Podestà lived and worked on the upper floor and what is now the entrance to the museum was then the main hall where trials were carried out and sentences passed.Those found guilty of crimes were either hung or taken below and imprisoned.
Each cell has a double barred window and double wooden doors reinforced in iron with large bolts. At least two prisoners could be kept in each cell. The prison was also used in the early 1920's and it is from that period that most of the prisoners scribbles and drawings inside the cells date. Two of the cells were reserved for female prisoners who had to be kept separate from the men.
Recent restoration work inside the prison has revealed another layer of graffiti from a much earlier period. The flaking plaster has been carefully removed in places to finally bring back to the light images with a religious content … images of The Madonna and St. Christopher, the Patron Saint of Barga . Experts are still working on trying to pinpoint a precise date for when the prisoners used the walls as their canvas and diary.
The guided tour is here (in Italiano):
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Prisoners Graffitti inside the Barga Prison at barganews
May 10 2008 / 5pm
[...] More images from the last time to cells were open to the public in March 2007 can be seen here [...]
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- everyone : you will be sorely missed.
- W. Shakespeare : Lear? Not at all! Those words are lifted from Macbeth's soliloquy:"....L ife's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."
- Quentin Compson : Yes, Ma'am. It would be King Lear I believe, an allusion to the fool (and to Lear himself). But there is a more recent connection between Yokapatawpha and the Coldfields with a Biblical reference -- Absalom -- rather than the Shakespearean one to which you allude.
- poetry : Miss Coldfield, considered poetess laureate of Yoknapatawpha County, may simply be quoting Shakespeare, I do believe.
- Quentin Compson : Rosa: Stay in your own novel, please. You have no business in The Sound and the Fury, although I appear in both.
- Quentin Compson : Doggy, May I refer you to three sources on the Action-Theory dialectic? Albert Camus: "To do is to be." Jean-Paul Sartre: "To be is to do." Francis Albert Sinatra; "Do be do be doo." That should answer your question.
- Rosa Coldfield : ... it is a tale Told by and idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
- doggybag : Quentin - your constant focus on ideas over deeds makes you a highly unreliable commentator- quite often it is difficult to tell which of the actions you are suggesting are mere figments of your imagination and which you really do think should be acted upon.
- Quentin Compson : Hey, you two ought to get together sometime.
- Rosa Coldfield : Why of course : )
- Thomas Sutpen : Miss Rosa knows very well who will merely endure, and who will ultimately prevail
- Rosa Coldfield : It is not entirely clear, however, who has been sorest lately or with whom ; )
- Lord Beaconsfield : Welcom back, Barganews, you were sorely missed
- doggybag : fingers and legs crossed
- Santi : Thank you for answering my question.
- Cartier-Bresson : What a wonderful image of the equally wonderful Maestra Paola -- that could be no one else's elegantly gloved hand...
- Guest_4784 : the girl behind the bar is in the ALTANA rest. just inside the old city
- message for Santi : Altana
- Santi : O.K. Which bar is it?
- doggybag : Hello Santi - no - not the Alpino
- Santi : Is the daily image of the girl behind the bar is of Alpino?
- Casey Jones : Summer bus schedule to real station: see Forum Aug 5.
- aquilotta : Hi Doggybag! sorry haven't been in touch for so long. Love your daily images as always.
- Guest_3522 : And here I thought there were roadents eating my main board.
- doggybag : you are welcome Guest_689 ... now if I could just fix the sound streaming system with is doing a serious chipmonk impression on some computers
- Guest_689 : Dear Mr Braganews Thank you for fixing the webcam
- Guest_3522 : Scottish emigration to Malaysia ? - see «link»
- Guest_878 : the most scottish town with the most scottish idiots
- Guest_3522 : Re: Daily Images 26 July: Let us fervently hope that being "Italy's most Scottish town" doesn't bring more of this UK-style tagging and yobbish hooliganism to Barga. The vandals in question were two young men from Scotland. «link»
- doggybag : sorry Guest_4772 - the hordes of barganews technicians are working on it day and night -- expect some results shortly
- Guest_4772 : Please can the web cam with view of sommocolonia be fixed as it makes my day
- Guest_878 : è più bella alla volta dei Menchi, c'è un barista molto attraente.
Wow! We’ve got to see that. The grafitti will make an interesting counterpoint to the grafitti and street art we just saw in Manhattan. The museum was closed during our previous trips to Barga. Maybe we’ll have better luck this time.