The true story of the Giants of Peccioli

In the long fields of the Pisan province, among hills, crags and blue sky, we come across some installations that blend with the environment in a very striking and innovative way. And they certainly do not go unnoticed. We are talking about the Giants of Peccioli: human-shaped sculptures that ’emerge’ from the ground to reach up to 9 meters in height. The name the creator would give them would be Presenze, but they are now known just as the “Peccioli Giants.” We are in a small town (population 5,000) that on sustainable environment is playing its challenge: a waste dump with disposal plant and energy generator is based here. The Presences were born to be right here, to symbolize rebirth and regeneration, and it is well explained to us by those who designed and made them: Gianluca Salvadori of Naturaliter srl. A craftsman who is sought after worldwide for his manual dexterity and skills: he creates outdoor projects of all kinds, pathways for museum facilities around the world, a renowned taxidermist whom Finestre Sull’Arte has already interviewed.

But what was he doing at a waste disposal site? “The project,” he explains, “began in 2009 when the president of the company that manages the site asked our firm for a project to enhance the Waste Disposal and Treatment Plant. Among the various projects, there was one, which had been submitted last, that proposed a pseudo-Dantesque vision and was certainly more complex to implement.” And of course that one was chosen. The project imagined the huge crater of the landfill as a Dantean circle with giants with human features displaced on the escarpments. “The president of the company, Belvedere spa, chose this one, the most complicated and scenic project, and so began this adventure that involved Catia Morucci, Alessio Salvadori and all the collaborators of Naturaliter in addition to me,” Salvadori recalls. The installations are handcrafted sculptures made with “basic” tools, as he defines them: “knives, saws, rasps, polyurethane foam, paste resins, cement resins and a lot of sweat.”

The effect achieved was to make the surroundings a place where the mind could rethink the view in front of it; anyone who comes here the last thing they would think of is that of a landfill. The success achieved by the first installation made the work continue with the creation of three more sculptures that were then also moved to nearby Lajatico in order to serve as a setting for performances and concerts by Andrea Bocelli.

In this countryside, it feels as if we are in a multipurpose center of modern art, with facilities and places to express creativity, music and dance, to hold conferences and work. Where there was, and is, a waste disposal site, at Legoli. This will be what tourists who come here this summer will feel after the echo that Peccioli gained from being “elected” Village of Villages by the RAI program of the same name.

"The first sculpture created and placed was The Giant with the Outstretched Arm in 2011, which is located in the Waste Disposal and Treatment Plant: it was the first one because its size was easier to handle" and so it also served as a pilot-model to figure out what materials to use, the type of workmanship, the structural skeleton and last but not least the handling. Next was the turn of The Giant, which sticks halfway out of the ground with a height of 5 meters and 40 cm and a weight of about 1,200 kg. It consists of 3 pieces assembled together and is now at the Fonte Mazzola Theater. Then the woman was sculpted and placed, sticking out from the hips up, with a height of 5 meters and a weight of about 1100 kg.

The fourth and last one made is the whole giant, which comes completely out of the ground, is squatting as if it had just emerged from the crater, weighs 2,600 kg, and respecting the proportions if we had made it standing it would have reached 16 meters in height. “Once it was finished and positioned, however, we had to remake the head because when seen from far away-as distances are in Legoli-it looked small: it was just an optical effect because the proportions were right, but as happened with Michelangelo’s David we decided to remake the head larger precisely to mitigate this effect from afar.”

“The general idea,” Salvadori explains, “is that they symbolize the energy that persists, that changes and transforms over time, coming out of the ground. The whole giant was created divided into several parts, because as we were making it the idea arose to use the giants as a stage set for the Andrea Bocelli Concert on July 13, 2013, and the only way we could transport the sculpture was to make it divided. The first transport done for the Theater of Silence was by helicopter.”

They had to split the work into several pieces since the helicopter could only carry maximum loads of one ton and two hundred at a time. So now two are in the ’Green Triangle’ of Legoli, the waste facility, one at the Fonte Mazzola Amphitheater and one on the roof of the business incubator at ’La Fila.’

They are white, naked, sinewy, and with the folds of muscle showing on a par with a Greek statue, one is impressed by the precision of detail even in the presence of mammoth works. The initial design was intended to have all four of them close to the large crater of the landfill to give “the idea of movement of a body coming out of the hole: the position of each one as if it were the sequence of the positions of those coming out of the ground, until they were completely out,” Salvadori explains.

Naturaliter had already made large-scale installations such as museum displays whales, dragons, dinosaurs. Making them took many days of work, “we were destroyed at the end, it was very tiring also because it was the hot season.” For the giant with the outstretched arm it took 30, for the one that comes out of the ground to the middle of the body about 4 months, as well as for the woman. For the whole giant, on the other hand, it took 7 people working for 8 months. A job repaid by the appreciation, which now characterizes Peccioli by being part of the landscape.

The true story of the Giants of Peccioli

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.