Gardone’s Environmental Revival: From D’Annunzio to Sustainable Development

From an example of urban devastation, accused of concrete apathy and reckless speculation, to a national reference point for reflection on sustainable development and the relationship between land and progress.

Gardone, with its rare environmental beauty and cultural heritage linked to the Vate, fights on one side against oblivion and on the other against devastation. It revitalizes and presents itself, following the example of Cernobbio in terms of the economy, as a center for debate and proposals for landscape protection combined with tourist growth.

There is D’Annunzio lending a hand, with his Vittoriale visited so frequently that it is one of Italy’s few museums to sustain itself through ticket sales.

Environmental battles and testimonies of D’Annunzio

There is an unpublished version of D’Annunzio serving as a testimonial for the environmental campaign led by Alessandro Bazzani, councilor for tourism Giovanna Ciccarelli. The poet held several roles related to this matter, in 1893 in Sardinia cataloging historic sites, and in 1896 in Venice overseeing the restoration of San Marco basilica.

He spoke of artistic beauty in numerous sonnets or in the ode «Per la morte di un capolavoro» on the degradation of Leonardo’s Last Supper. But now, letters and interviews have surfaced, testimony of personal struggles, as an aesthete opposed to the ugliness inflicted through public and private interventions.

Protests and initiatives against development and degradation

There are about fifty protest writings against speculation in Rome and the controversial construction of the Altare della Patria. There is an open letter to Resto del Carlino advocating the demolition of towers in Bologna.

There is an interview with Corriere condemning «the tingeing» of Lake Garda. After the mayor’s greeting at 10 a.m., the president of the Fondazione Vittoriale, Annamaria Andreoli, will speak at the opening of the I annual conference on Saturday morning in the auditorium of the Vittoriale monument house, initiating the promotion of Gardone Riviera as a champion of the cultural-environmental intersection.

Interventions and future perspectives

Following are the contributions of the superintendent of Tuscany, Antonio Paolucci; landscape architect Ippolito Pizzetti; architect Augusto Cagnardi of Gregotti associati, author of the old PRG based on which the urbanizations under scrutiny were approved (in a film projected in Rome in ’99, Ciampi appeared with the Vittoriale attacked by constructions, listed among the monsters at Fuenti).

Architect Carlo Cresti, a professor in Florence, and journalist Guido Vergani will intervene. Finally, architect Pierluigi Polimeni, commissioned by Bazzani — elected in June ’99 — to draft a new redevelopment master plan based on rehabilitating existing structures, halting subdivisions, and limiting second homes.

Moderation has been entrusted to Antonio Calabrò, vice director of Sole 24ore.