The most beautiful game in the world was not born in England, but in the eighteenth century Messina. A fascinating suggestion from which the volume “1702 – Once upon a time football” takes its cue (EMOVUS), conceived by the biologist and passionate of contemporary art Luigi Mondello and edited by “The Gialla Art Gallery window”, presented at the Flag Salone of Palazzo Zanca, by prof. Marco Centorrino (associate professor of sociology of cultural and communicative processes at the University of Messina), journalists Alessandro Notarstefano (former director of the South Gazzetta) and Mauro Cucè (RTP editorial coordinator). The journalist Salvatore De Maria moderate the works, with two interventions of the councilors for sports policies Massimo Finocchiaro and cultural policies Enzo Caruso.
The book starts from a historically documented episode, told in the volume by Nino Principato and brought to light for the first time of the abbot Giuseppe Cuneo in “events of the noble city of Messina (1695-1702)”: it is said that on 29 August 1702 Luigi Alessandro di Borbone Conte di Tolosa played with knights, friends and nobles from Messina the first football match at the history of the history of Messina. “This fact intrigued me considerably – said Mondello, author of the introductory text -. Football has always been declined by talking about games and champions, but something more had to be done. Why not entrust the subject to the artists, who with their ability to see things beyond what they appear could have brought down another aspect of this game? ».
Hence the idea of the Excursus that involves journalists, researchers, intellectuals, historians and Messina painters of the “art team”, whose paintings, present in the volume, will be on display until April 30 in the premises of “The Yellow Window” in via Centonze.
Just the combination of art and sport, a fil rouge of the book, was at the center of Alessandro Notarstefano’s intervention on the beauty of football and the affinity of intent and talent in exciting artists and footballers unite. Visiting multiple art forms-from Kandinsky to Beckett to Carmelo Bene-and quoting Galvano della Volpe about the “exaltation of the specificity of his technical vehicle”, he said that “Maradona’s training for the UEFA Bayern Munich Cup semifinal (1989) was something truly impressive: the certification of the absolute mastery of the specificity of the technical means: I want, I do what you humans have never seen. A specificity then inscribed in a game aimed at and functionalized to the “result”, to the goal “.
The economic impact of sport in the area in support of the identity of the place itself and its development at the center of the intervention of Mauro Cucé. “Of the great events remains a concrete legacy – he said -. The Olympics have transformed cities such as Turin and Seoul, but also entire neighborhoods have been completely revised and revisited on the occasion of the event, letting the community identified around the sports project “. Football as an identity and collective glue the theme in depth by prof. Marco Centorrino, who started from the concept of “imagined community” formulated by the sociologist Benedict Anderson to explain the common feeling of the fans, defined as groups that incorporate both the traits of the imagined community and the real one, since they tend to recognize themselves even in the absence of personal contacts as belonging to a community of “related”.
There were authors and artists included in the volume and the former manager of Messina Calcio and organizer of great events Lello Manfredi. The “team of art” of the volume is made up of some of the major Painters from Messina: Antonello Bonanno Conti, Gregorio Cesareo, Michele D’Avenia, Ilenia Delfino, Giovanni Fiamingo, Pippo Galipò, Antonino Gambadoro, Mantilla. And, moreover, Riccardo Orlando, Giuseppe Raffaele, Nino Rigano, Piero Serboli, Andrea Sposari, Togo. The texts are by Mondello and Principality, by Giuseppe Martino, for an unusual look at the Seicento Messina, flanked by testimonies on the Messina by the “team of journalists” with Rosaria Brancato, Piero Orteca, Salvatore De Maria, Ciccio Manzo, Marco Capuano, Paolo Crisafi, Pietro di Paola, Piero Mazzù, Orazio Raffa, Pietro Mazzù and Ernesto France. “Notes and memories of football history” by Piero Orteca, and a themed story more a look at the combination of football and literature in the contributions of Roberto Cavallaro. The relationship of football with fashion and music in the interventions of the teacher Deborah Currenti and the critic Moses Previti.