«Far be it from me to have any controversy regarding the story of the Giants who returned from Piazza Unione Europea where they were expected to stay until 30 September for the benefit of cruise passengers. But I would like to reply to the Councilor for Culture and Tourism Enzo Caruso, since he mentioned my name in the article published in the “Gazzetta del Sud”». The architect Nino Principato intervenes, intending to clarify one aspect in particular: «The problem is not the exhibition of the Giants for 30 days for the benefit of cruise passengers, the real problem, and a serious one, it is that of the unseemly, dilapidated and degraded warehouse in via Catania where both the Giants and the “cippo” of Vara are abandoned, removed from the use of visitors and tourists for a year. A warehouse with a precarious and unstable roof which certainly cannot guarantee total protection from atmospheric agents, humidity, wind, smog. And then I would ask the professor. Enzo Caruso, what has he done (since he has the powers for Culture and Tourism) in four years as councilor of the branch with mayor De Luca and a year with the current mayor Basille to put an end to this disgrace? What sense does it make to keep them exposed in Piazza Unione Europea for 30 days and then hide them, forgotten and abandoned in the warehouse in Via Catania? This is the real, only problem, other than the display of the Giants for the benefit of cruise passengers.”
Principato also asks why «it is not possible to create a “Museum of festive cars”? Starting from 2007, as a municipal employee, I drew up the related project, almost executive, on behalf of the Administration of the time, a project that remained on paper until the Accorinti union, when the ethnoanthropologist Sergio Todesco was councilor. On his behalf, I revisited the project because an agreement had been reached with the Noble Archconfraternity of San Basilio degli Azzurri to build it in the area behind the Monte di Pietà, with a loan agreement between the Municipality and the Archconfraternity. Unfortunately the agreement was not followed up and nothing was done about it. After the De Luca administration which took over from that of Accorinti and the current one of Basile, my project wasn’t talked about and isn’t talked about anymore. A museum project that can very well be realized today in the vast municipal storage area in via Catania. Messina, among other things, has the highest and oldest number of “Machine Festives” in Italy, also considering as such the processional “Varette” of Good Friday, the silver “Vascelluzzo” of “Corpus Domini”, the Ferculum” from Casale di Camaro (which would have been part of the museum circuit of the planned Museum with models, photos, prints and other iconographic and documentary documentation). A Museum of this type which, representing a unicum of its kind in Europe, would have allowed the achievement of results of great cultural importance which would have translated into a notable improvement in the image of Messina, in a significant increase in cultural tourism. A Museum that would also allow for the right valorisation of these original and ancient testimonies of the history of Messina, “Genius Loci” of the city and rightly considered precious and irreplaceable cultural heritage”.
