The story of a woman behind Giovanni Pascoli’s “La morte del Papa,” a poem of the Valle della Corsonna, was the centerpiece of Sara Moscardini’s visual storytelling conference held on Saturday, September 23rd at the Fondazione Ricci in Barga.
The event took place as part of the calendar of side events for the exhibition “Lungo la sponda del mio dolce fiume CORSONNA. Immagini e storie lungo la Corsonna,” for which she is a co-curator.
Sara Moscardini, graduated in History and Civilisation from the University of Pisa and holds a diploma from the Archivio di Stato di Firenze. In 2015, she was a research fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. She has worked for years as a freelance archivist in the Tuscany region and is a cultural collaborator with the Fondazione Giovanni Pascoli. As the Director of the Istituto Storico Lucchese section in Barga, she has numerous studies and publications on local history to her credit.
“La morte del Papa” is one of Pascoli’s most beautiful poetic works dedicated to the region of Barga, especially to that strip of land bathed by the Corsonna stream and dominated by the peaks of the Apennines.
It is a short poem written in 1903, on the occasion of the death of Pope Leo XIII, first published in the magazine La riviera ligure and later included in the collection of Nuovi Poemetti.
Despite the title evoking the figure of the pope, the protagonist of this poem is a real inhabitant of this valley, Teresa Agostini, who died at the beginning of the last century with the reputation of being over a hundred years old.
Sara Moscardini offers a journey through the verses of a poem that tells so much about this land, its ancient peasant traditions, and the depth of the feelings that animate its inhabitants.
The exhibition was organised by the Fondazione Ricci ETS, located at via Roma, 20, and the Istituto Storico Lucchese section in Barga. It featured photographs by Caterina Salvi and historical and cartographic information by Sara Moscardini and Cristiana Ricci, the president of the Fondazione Ricci.
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