Trent, inaugurated the Simonino Classroom to tell and remember the case of Simonino da Trento

The Simonino Chapel in Trento, located inside Palazzo Bortolazzi Larcher Fogazzaro on Via del Simonino, becomes Aula del Simonino: it had been bequeathed to FAI - Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano by Marina Larcher Fogazzaro in 2018 so that it could be restored and enhanced. The Aula was inaugurated yesterday and it is now possible to have regular access, Wednesday through Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., to this site, which joins the 55 other properties that can already be visited out of the 72 owned and managed by FAI throughout Italy, including the Avio Castle in Trentino.

The inauguration was held in the presence of FAI President Marco Magnifico; Francesca Gerosa, vice president and councillor for education, culture and sports, family, youth and equal opportunity policies of the Autonomous Province of Trento; Franco Ianeselli, mayor of Trento; Chiara Ghetta, head of school Istituto Comprensivo Trento 6; and Daniela Bruno, FAI deputy director general for Cultural Affairs.

“Thanks to Marina Larcher Fogazzaro’s generous bequest and FAI’s commitment, this place opens with a new educational function,” Gerosa commented. “In fact, the designation of ’classroom’ is no coincidence: here history comes to life outside the classroom and our students will be able not only to confront a dark page of our history, but to learn the fundamental values of tolerance, understanding, and truth, and to become aware and respectful citizens.”

The restoration first involved the facade of the Palace, revealing the 15th-century windows and restoring color and legibility to the figures and inscriptions painted in the 18th century. Theinterior was also restored, where extensive coeval frescoes are preserved, and in the apse space, between two small rooms used as a sacristy, is the original altar, with architectural and sculptural decorations in polychrome marble in the Baroque style. The interior has also been rearranged to implement an innovative and original cultural enhancement project: a “sound narrative” dedicated to the story of little Simon of Trent, which is permanently accessible. The public, seated on wooden benches similar to those of a choir, will listen in the dark, through wireless headphones with high audio quality, to a narration of about 20 minutes. This informative and educational, but also evocative and immersive, narrative was conceived and curated by FAI, entrusted to the voice of Trentino actress Daria Deflorian and produced by Chora Media.

Here, in fact, where his birthplace was located - as evidenced by the inscription on the facade -, in the 18th century and probably even earlier, was the Chapel of Simonino, or Simone Lomferdorm, a child just over two years old found dead on March 24, 1475 in the moat of a house along the Adige River owned by a Jew. This event triggered a story of anti-Semitism, religious intolerance and injustice that deserves to be remembered and told.

At the time, city authorities fed an ancient anti-Jewish prejudice by spreading the false belief of ritual murder. Jews were accused of killing the child to use his blood in the Passover ritual. As a result, little Simon immediately became a Christian martyr and was later beatified, becoming the object of a popular cult with annual processions and numerous sacred images spread throughout Italy. The small Jewish community of Trent, on the other hand, was unjustly accused, tried, subjected to atrocious torture, summarily executed and finally expelled from the city, where it did not return for five hundred years. In 1965, a scientific review of the trial overturned the Jews’ guilty verdict, and a papal decree suppressed the cult of Simonino. The removal of the child’s remains from the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, the cessation of all celebrations and the closure of the chapels, including this one now donated to the FAI, were ordered. Only in 1992 did the Jews officially return to Trent, as commemorated by a plaque affixed by the municipality.

Since 1965, therefore, this place has no longer been used for religious worship, but has acquired great cultural value. Its importance lies not only in its architecture and decorations, but above all in the fact that it represents an indispensable testimony to a dark page of our past.

The FAI has decided to reopen this place with a new educational function, aimed primarily at today’s citizens and, above all, at young people in schools. That is why it has been renamed Aula del Simonino: like a classroom, but outside the school walls. This space is open and available to school teachers from all over Trentino and beyond, so that they can use the account of this tragic story of historical anti-Semitism as a cue for children to reflect, compare and discuss issues of absolute topicality, such as religious intolerance, which still causes wars near and far, and the destructive power of prejudice and falsehoods that sow hatred, both on the battlefield and on the web and in violence against the other, just because they are unknown or different.

“In a year heavily marked by the tragedies produced by the dramatic and rampant resurgence of anti-Semitism,” said FAI President Marco Magnifico, “FAI intervenes by narrating forever and for all an exemplary story that reaffirms how only culture and knowledge can counteract hatred and ignorance, which are the nourishment of those tragedies. A classroom - and no longer a chapel - concretely dedicated to the education of the younger generations in the hope of less bleak times.”

“Thanks to the FAI of Trento and its national organization for giving back to the City an important piece of its history. The Simonino Hall,” said Trento Mayor Franco Ianeselli, “is not only a work of rare artistic merit, but an important testimony to how in every historical era ideological prejudice can manipulate the truth. The beauty of art meets the rigor of scientific research in this restoration, and the dramatic episode of the Simonino is thus transformed into a symbol of the fight against intolerance, an invitation to mutual knowledge and understanding.”

Image: Simonino Hall. Photo by Tommaso Prugnola

Trent, inaugurated the Simonino Classroom to tell and remember the case of Simonino da Trento

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