section 3:
Navigating the archive of the centre
During tours, guides are pivotal in organising, interpreting and navigating memories in the archive of the centro storico. Turkel (2007) highlights the interpretive possibilities of places as archives, and that their histories continue to be interpreted by people, including guides or participants, with different aims. Rather than simply inheriting heritage, guides are involved in what Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998) describes as heritage’s constant renewal and constitution. By organising, navigating and presenting memories and meaning within the centro storico, guides play a crucial role in constituting and retelling historical events, shaping tour participant’s perceptions of the centro storico (Stokowski, Ahmad & Hertzog 2016).
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During interviews, both guides echoed Francesca’s statement that Modenese residents “conoscono i posti ma non le storie o non tutte le storie”[1]. In curating her tour, Tra Guerra e Resistenza, Francesca chose stories she could “raccontare attraverso i luoghi, in modo che le persone potessero vedere proprio alcuni segni sugli edifici delle storie che avrei raccontato”[2]. Thus, in addition to using engaging methods and materials like those discussed in Section 2, guides aim to direct and mediate spatial interactions and understandings by directing and organising sensory experiences to the visual and material remains that are evocative of remembered pasts (Aoki & Yoshimizu 2015, p. 278). Accordingly, guides act as mediators by organising and sharing stories around material and no-longer material elements of the centro storico, enabling residents to discover new information and create new memories of places. This, in turn, affects residents’ relationships and sense of place, adding to their own conceptualisations of the centre.
The pictures below show how guides highlight these material elements, giving further insight into the stories behind physical aspects of the centro storico. They include: memorials and plaques commemorating forced deportations, deaths, and missing persons of war; and ‘targhe’[3] denoting residences including the former home of influential Modenese family ‘Rangoni’ of the Este period.
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During the Tra Guerra e Resistenza tour, Francesca shows images to show how the Comune made permanent the mural of photos that the Modenese originally had strung up using strips of bandages, in the hope of finding missing loved ones who had not returned.
'Perché sono legati soprattutto delle storie, e dietro le storie ci sono le persone, e quindi… mi piacciono le storie delle persone legate degli avvenimenti che sono venuti in un determinato luogo e quindi ha un edificio, una strada, un luogo particolare. Diciamo che mi piace partire dalle storie, le storie delle persone.'
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'Because stories are linked above all, and behind the stories there are people, and so ... I like the stories of the people linked to the events that came to a particular place and therefore have a building, a street, a particular place. Let's say that I like to start with stories, people's stories.'
– Francesca
Notably, most material details of the centro storico highlighted during tours are not remnants left by accident. Rather, they are evidence of the Comune di Modena’s conscious efforts to emphasise certain historical events and traditions. Both the Comune and tour guides can be viewed as ‘agents of memory’, through preserving and highlighting traditional materials and memories that are visually embedded within the physical fabric of the centre (Vinitzky-Seroussi 2002). The preservation of certain historical markers influences which elements of collective memory are retained (Bajc 2006). Guides act as intermediaries between lesser-known aspects of the centre left by the Comune, sharing stories behind these remaining traces. For example, during the water-ways tour, E highlighted the geological drills in a cross formation behind Modena’s crest above the entrance to the Palazzo Comunale. The presence of symbolic tools from the canal period on the city’s crest demonstrates the perceived significance of this history to local government. However, without identification by guides, these features would likely go unnoticed. This obscurity is conveyed in the photo below.
The Comune plays a role in constructing historical memories through intentionally preserving elements of the centro storico deemed historical significant. For example, this is evident in decisions not to rebuild certain fissures in the centre caused by war, instead preserving and highlighting these fractures as part of the fabric of the centre. This was evident throughout this Guerra e Resistenza tour:
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We arrived on a side street, standing in a piazzetta when Francesca pointed out an inconspicuous stencil on a brick wall that I had not noticed previously despite occasionally passing through this street. ‘RIFUGIO’ marked a bomb shelter. Francesca shared vivid stories and statistics on the refuge numbers in comparison to population: “Many hid in basements when the sirens sounded as there wasn’t the possibility to run, most of the time. The piazza behind you is the result of a ‘bombardamento’[4]. There used to be houses there. After 1945 the comune decided to not construct more but leave this piazza as a ‘ferita aperta’[5] and to also have as a place more ‘salubre’[6] thanks to this space that was created”.
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(Comune di Modena 2019)
One key physical element of the centro storico highlighted on all three of the tours was the Comune’s use of ‘ciottoli’[7], for example in Piazza Grande to establish continuity between piazzas and other streets. The power of these ciottoli in evoking traditions and signifying past events is outlined in Palmieri’s (2013) centro storico redevelopment plan. The ciottoli are used as a powerful symbol at the site ‘Il campanile senza chiesa’[8] during the Tra Guerra e Resistenza tour in memorialising the complete destruction of a church in the “bombardamento del 13 febbraio 1944”[9]:
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“Con la risistemazione di questa piazza nel 1990, il Comune di Modena fa un omaggio a questa chiesa che non c'è più, e segna il perimetro di dov'era questa chiesa con una fila di ciottoli di fiume che sono particolari della regione. Non sono le linee del parcheggio ma questa era la sede di dove si svolgeva la chiesa.”[10]
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Showing the ruins of the church post-bombardment
The bell tower now left standing without the church
The outline of the former church left in ciottoli can be seen in three of these images.
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The image below depicts
the ciottoli in Piazza Grande where the tour guide stopped to explain their origins.
The Comune’s use of the physicality of place as a tangible reminder in memorialising certain past events is a key technique across the tours. However, in many cases guides play a fundamental role in communicating many of the stories behind these physical aspects that would remain otherwise unknown. This is evident in statements such as this made during tours: “Questa è una cosa che ancora non ha visto nessuno a parte”[11] (Francesca refering to the campanile senza Chiesa site). The quote emphasises that leaving physical traces is not enough for memories to endure. Instead, through constructing tours as a process of discovery for participants, guides are essential in perpetuating the memories behind these past traces. Through this discovery, participants may learn previously unknown information about places and consequently associate new meanings and memories with these highlighted elements. Additionally, through the embodied nature of walking, these tour experiences allow participants to physically connect with past occurrences and thus foster a more personal connection to both the meaning and physicality of the place. This, in turn, strengthens a sense of attachment to these historical events within their sense of place.
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Foot notes:
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[1] The Modenese don’t know a lot about their city… they are familiar with the places but not the stories, or … not all of the stories
[2] Narrate through places, in a way that people could see some signs on the buildings of the stories I would tell.
[3] Plates/Plaques
[4] Bombing
[5] Open wound
[6] Healthy/salubrious/wholesome
[7] River pebbles, typical of the 18th Century, placed within public spaces
[8] The bell tower without a church
[9] Bombing on February 13th 1944
[10] “With the re-arrangement of this piazza in 1990, the Comune di Modena made homage to this church and signifies the presence of this church with a line of pebbles that are typical of the area. They don’t limit the parking spaces, but signify the perimeter of the church”
[11] This is something that nobody has seen yet