Francesco Fossa
Quota Mille
Paolo Rumiz
[..The Matese, which Francesco Fossa recounts in his book “Quota Mille”
shows exactly this: another Italy, centuries away from the Rome of today,
far from the cellophane world that invades our television screens. It is
a solitary world, abandoned by the center of power, defenseless, invaded by
the pirates of the energy, water and wind businesses. It is a world of hard
people, perched on their mountains, who defend themselves as best they
can, even petrifying the outsider with their often horrid state.
During my trip, I saw “bottomless gorges, narrow streets; steep curves that
cascade into nothingness like Gustave Dore’s illustrations of Dante; signs
that point to the Saloon of the hanged or surly canyons like the Bocca
della Selva.” These images - like those that appear in Fossa’s book -
cannot but be indelibly inked in one’s memory. Italy does not love
mountain people; it deems them ignorant, rednecks, beasts. Italy lives at sea
level, not realizing that her history has played out at a far higher altitude
and is based on her pastoral richness.
There is no other place like this in the Mediterranean. There is no other
mountain so close to the sea - in fact two seas - and where migration from
highland to lowland happens in a few kilometers and without the nomadic
journeys of the Middle East or of North Africa. It is high time to make
these places ours; to regard them with pride. These men and women -
photographed by Fossa - represent our memory; our ancient ties to the land
and landscape...]
Francesco Fossa, was born in 1966 in Piedimonte Matese. He now lives in Rome, where he works as a journalist for broadcaster Mediaset. He has contributed to several Italian magazines, including L’Espresso, D - la Repubblica,, Diario della settimana.
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