A handshake at Palazzo Tursi has opened the way to new scenarios of cultural collaboration between Messina and Genoa. The Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Messina, Enzo Caruso, in transit in the Ligurian capital for personal reasons, was received by the Genoese councilor Giacomo Montanari.
Caruso brought greetings from the mayor of Messina, Federico Basile, and during the meeting the common features of the two cities were compared, starting from fortifications and from Historical ties that, already in the 16th and 17th centuries, united the two ports through commercial exchanges. A relationship that also finds echo in August 1571, when the Genoese galleys led by Giannandrea Doria gathered in the port of Messina before the battle of Lepanto: an episode immortalized in a precious tapestry today kept at Palazzo Doria.
The interview also touched central figures in the history of art such as Antonello da Messina, Caravaggio e Matthias Stomer, in addition to the role that both cities have played in Risorgimento. These themes, Caruso underlines in a widespread post after the meeting, “have pleasantly animated the dialogue, opening prospects of cooperation and protocols that will be signed soon by their respective mayors”.
In fact, in the coming months, formal agreements between Silvia Salis, mayor of Genoa, e Federico Basile to strengthen the cultural and institutional relationship. In addition, a comparison will be started with the commissioner for the assets of the Municipality of Genoa, Davide Patrone, regarding the Faro Convention of the Council of Europe for the Forts, already signed by Messina, and to the establishment of the Asset community of the Strait Forts.
A meeting, therefore, that does not end in the institutional courtesy but which, in the intentions, wants to lay the foundations for a common path of enhancement and protection of the historical-artistic heritage, once again linking the two cities through culture and shared memory.