LIBRARY OF LEGALITY
“Beauty will save the world” -Fëdor Dostoevskij-
Opened in December 2015, the Biblioteca della Legalità, the “Library of legality” resulted from my last collaborative project with the Municipality of Cisterna di Latina and soon became a cultural point of reference for the entire province of Latina. The project was inspired by the idea of beauty as instrumental to salvation and as closely linked to the concept of truth, which is also a synonym for justice.
Together with Il Ponte association and Comune di Cisterna di Latina, the Library acted as a bridge between the private and the public spheres, between the past and the present. It was made possible by a private book fund comprising texts of great historic and juridical value. Placed in one of the most charming rooms of the medieval palace in the city centre – Sala della Loggia in Palazzo Caetani –, the books donated by the Scalfati became part of a laboratory for the exploration of the values of democracy that was also used as an exhibition site, an example of how collective culture could fight individualism and class egoism.
An amazing synergy between political institutions, the world of volunteerism, and citizens was created and developed to meet the idea of “the common good” and make it real.
The Library resulted from the fusion of the energies, the worlds and the people that I encountered along my path and that shared a common feature: a culture that testified to and acted for those values of justice and freedom which should touch everybody. Especially the “underprivileged”.
Among our events:
Three meetings with Il Ponte and Tempi Moderni to explore the themes of geopolitics, immigration and democracy at the Biblioteca della Legalità.
 IL GRANDE IRANGiuseppe Acconcia introduced his Il Grande Iran. Chair: Pina Sodano, Professor of Sociology and Islamic migration at Roma Tre University. |  MIGRANTS AND RIGHTS“Tra mutamento sociale e buone pratiche” / “Between social change and best practice”, by Marco Omizzolo. Roundtable with Marco Omizzolo, Emilio Drudi – who gave an outline of his essay on the Eritrean diaspora –, and Diego Maria Santoro. The event aimed at explaining the role of free legal assistance in defence of those people who cannot afford expensive advocacy. |  FUGA PER LA VITA di Emilio DrudiAccording to the figures from the United Nations High Commission of Refugees published in late June 2017, the number of refugees all over the world has reached 65.6 million. Prior to this, the only example of an “escape to life” attaining the proportions of an exodus can be traced in the years immediately following WWII. |
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Our collaboration with La Scugnizzeria in fund-raising: the Christmas boxes branded Made in Scampia.
Fuga dai luoghi comuni / Escape from the common place and Spacciatori di libri / Book-dealers are among the events organized to promote products branded Made in Scampia and to raise funds for the activities of La Scugnizzeria and Marotta&Cafiero publishing house.
In fact, the money collected through selling the Christmas boxes branded Made in Scampia allowed to buy the multipurpose space of La Scugnizzeria, in the area between the towns of Melito and Scampia, a place which would include a theatre laboratory, a library and a radio station. The funds were also used to purchase a peculiar tool to create a “Book Hospital” in Scampia, in fact the first of its kind in Italy. The place where drug dealing was the main activity is now a place where book and culture are “passed off”.
In the Library, ample space is given to investigative journalism, both at a local and a national level, in order to always draw attention on the issue of the Mafia in its several forms.
Antonio Bolzoni’s Il Padrinodell’Antimafia (Zolfo Editore, 2019) is an outstanding reportage on the legal proceedings ofCalogero Antonio Montante, born and based in Serradifalco (Sicily), a powerful, esteemed man, former bulwark of the rule of law when he operated in Confindunstria, and later head of an illegal espionage network. The network’s various affiliates and various economic and financial entanglements offer a thought-provoking cross-section of both Sicily and Italy as a whole.
Attilio Bolzoni
That the Mafia doesn’t exist in the province of Latina is a reassuring view… especially for the Mafia.
Indeed, criminal organizations have operated in the area of agro pontino for several decaded and have been able to consolidate their structure in a directorate named "Quinta Mafia", the fifth Mafia.
Marco Omizzolo
Marco Omizzolo, sociologist, scientific director of cooperative association In Migrazione, president of the Centre Tempi Moderni, researcher for Eurispes and Amnesty International Italia. He has obtained a Master at University of Venice “Ca’ Foscari” and teaches in an advanced training course at the University of Pisa. He is working as a journalist for several Italian news media (Il Manifesto, L'Eurispes, Articolo 21, Il Venerdì, Espresso, Repubblica.it). In early 2019 he was conferred honours by the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella for “his courageous activity in defence of the rule of law through an incessant fight to caporalato (the activity of hiring day labourers through an intermediary)”.
Nadia has always known how to use the professionalism she acquired during her educational path and experimented in everyday life in order to fuse it with her commitment to people experiencing difficult psychological and social conditions, verging on the danger of social marginalisation.
I have had the possibility to observe her skill in detecting social distress both in her job and education.She is able to uncover its most severe forms, which are often manifest in young people from different social backgrounds in the area of the province of Latina and, in particular, in Cisterna di Latina. Uncovering juvenile distress is only part of the whole thing: Nadia has also a peculiar inclination to communicating with it, especially once she has established a connection with young people, so she creates the fertile ground where to build a lasting relation of counselling and aid.
In addition, she has never spared energies for social commitment and has experienced it as an integral, vital part of both her education and job. In particular, she has always thought of her engagement in the fight against the Mafia and active support to educational and cultural promotion activities as form of “new pedagogic approach” which has attracted and involved a number of children and teenagers of both sexes. Young people have thus been given the possibility to explore, socialize, collectively confront ideas, and an occasion to grow their social awareness: the psychological and social foundations for the creation of a renewed social identity and an increased sense of citizenship in young people are thus laid.
Marco Omizzolo