Calabria, suspended the invasive restoration of Corazzo Abbey! The project must be changed

A little less than a year ago, from the columns of Finestre sull’Arte, Anna De Fazio Siciliano raised the case of the abbey of Corazzo near Carlopoli (Calabria), for which a decidedly invasive restoration intervention was planned, which could “compromise its identity” and “distort not only its historical value, memory, but also its beauty and charm as a ’ruin,’ as well as cause damage to its structural hold,” as the Calabrian journalist wrote. The idea of restoring Corazzo Abbey to turn it into an exhibition venue had been born in 2017, when the Calabria Region allocated 1.2 million euros for the intervention: however, the intervention had been much criticized (De Fazio Siciliano’s article also included a short interview with Salvatore Settis with his opinion on the restoration), and the case had been brought to Parliament by Senator Margherita Corrado, who had asked Minister Dario Franceschini whether it was not the case to urge the central offices of the ministry to verify the project, in relation to its compatibility with the landscape and architectural values of the site.

And now, finally, the answer has arrived, directly from the undersecretary for culture, Lucia Borgonzoni, who responded to Corrado’s question by letting it be known that “the project for the restoration of the Abbey of Santa Maria di Corazzo, in the province of Catanzaro, a jewel of Calabrian monastic architecture, has been suspended.” The project, Borgonzoni disclosed, was transmitted for the expression of the opinion of competence by the City of Carlopoli to the Superintendence of Archaeology Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Catanzaro and Crotone on October 26, 2020.

Subsequently, after the preliminary examination of the drafts, the same project, together with a preliminary note, was forwarded on December 16, 2020 to the General Directorate of Archaeology fine arts and landscape, with a request for the opinion of the competent technical-scientific committees. The Directorate General responded to this request with a note dated February 8, 2021, in which it shared the concerns put forward by the Superintendence, and expressed the need to reach different solutions to take advantage of the funding and to achieve an integrated enhancement to the needs of protection and conservation “Consequently,” concluded the undersecretary, “the Superintendence sent a note to the municipality of Carlopoli on February 22, 2021, asking to reformulate the proposed design and specifying that, pending the request, the proceedings are to be considered suspended. No new design has been received at this time.”

Nellimage, one of the renderings of the suspended project

Calabria, suspended the invasive restoration of Corazzo Abbey! The project must be changed

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