Communities held hostage

San Luca, a strip of Calabria in suspended democracy, between infiltrations and commissariats

Protest sit-in to mark the 130th anniversary of the birth of the writer Corrado Alvaro. The Prefecture of Reggio Calabria dissolved the foundation dedicated to him on 22 March: loss-making budgets and inconvenient relations

by Donata Marrazzo

17 April 2025

6' min read

Key points

Losing budgets and awkward relationships
Never before the dissolution of a cultural foundation
Zavettieri, what is the message, that Calabria is all infiltrated?
Bruno Bartolo and the dissolution of the city council
Community hostage
Ammendolia, commissariats don't work
President Aldo Maria Morace's bitterness
An administrative measure that alludes to something else
Towards a committee to support the foundation

6' min read

SAN LUCA. If, as has been the case for so many years now, the door to Corrado Alvaro's house had been left open, if the windows and balconies overlooking Piazza Umberto had been thrown open for the occasion, the people gathered on the steps, 'a nzilicata, the writer called it in dialect, would have only been celebrating the 130th anniversary of Alvaro's birth: San Luca, 15 April 1895. Instead, the headquarters of the foundation, named after the author of Gente in Aspromonte, Un treno nel Sud, L'età breve, Mastrangelina, to name but a few of his works, remained closed. The first time since it was founded, on 24 January 1997. And so, that hundred or so people gathered under Alvaro's windows, in front of the church of Santa Maria della Pietà, turned a commemoration into a sit-in of protest.

Losing budgets and uncomfortable kinship

The Prefecture of Reggio Calabria dissolved the Corrado Alvaro Foundation on 22 March, appointing the former president of the Court of Appeal of the Court of Reggio Calabria, Luciano Gerardis, who will retire in 2022, as extraordinary commissioner: the foundation's financial statements were running at a loss of around EUR 10,000 and its members were close to the 'ndrine, as Prefect Clara Vaccaro wrote in her pen ("some directors on the board of directors do not offer guarantees of honourableness and independence").

Never before the dissolution of a cultural foundation

A clamorous gesture that has no precedent: the scandal that 16 years ago, in the Langhe, involved, for example, the association of the Grinzane Cavour prize and, for illicit behaviour, its president Giuliano Soria, is of an entirely different nature. Here, in San Luca, in Aspromonte, the last strip of Calabria, at the end of democracy, everything is dissolved: municipal councils and cultural institutions. In the past, men of the church also jumped: Monsignor Giancarlo Maria Bregantini, of the diocese of Locri Gerace, the anti'ndrangheta bishop, known for his militancy in the area, was transferred to Campobasso, amid protests and disbelief from the people. Bregantini had San Luca and the fate of Polsi at heart, where, in and around the Sanctuary of the mountain, affiliations, coordinations, openings and closures of the so-called 'local' 'ndrangheta have always been decided. An area, practically inaccessible, that for years has been undergoing redevelopment.

Vicoli di San Luca

Zavettieri, what is the message, that Calabria is all infiltrated?

"This act does not only affect San Luca. It is a devastating message, clear and strong. If even a cultural institution is cancelled in Calabria, then Calabria is all infiltrated, this is the theorem,' thunders former socialist senator Saverio Zavettieri at the foot of the steps. 'And what is the reaction of the mayors, local politicians, intellectuals, the association members themselves, just the appeal to the Tar? It's not enough,' says Zavettieri, shaking the audience. Among the many, one glimpses MEP and Riace mayor Mimmo Lucano and former Locri court president Mario Filocamo.

Bruno Bartolo and the dissolution of the municipal council

The mayor of San Luca Bruno Bartolo, who failed to avert yet another dissolution, the third, of the municipal council, despite his distinguished reputation, remained under house arrest for seven days. He did not attend the Foundation meeting because he is nursing a bad flu. But perhaps, more than anything else, he is tested by the judicial events. His election represented a turning point, but he was swept away by an investigation by the Carabinieri into the entrusting of the market area of the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Polsi and the management of the municipal stadium, built during one of the many commissarial phases. It was not entirely up to standard. He says that he resists, that he endures, that he does not want to move elsewhere, not even to Bovalino, because 'I love my territory and my community, in which there are rotten apples but also good fruits'.

Community hostage

In Bovalino, a municipality bordering San Luca, lives Cosimo Sframeli, a retired Arma officer, who led the commands of the entire Jonian strip until 2019, also overseeing the investigation into the murder of San Luca brigadier Carmine Tripodi. "That was a message from the 'ndrangheta to the State," says Sframeli, who knows a thing or two about the 'ndrangheta and crime and has put it all, in black and white, in his book 'Ndrangheta addosso' (Falzea Editore). He believes that 'here the locals are practically hostage and cannot even express their own feelings. In San Luca, for example, men cannot even wear shorts. It's not for men. It's an example, just to show the level of conditioning. Similarly, San Luca can hardly express a mayor. It has happened that there have been no lists and the ballot box has blown up. But there are many decent people, at least 70% of the population, and they no longer want to be identified with the 'ndrangheta. They chose Alvaro, whose value they understood perhaps a little late. Now they are fighting like lions and the institutions should be closer'.

Ilario Ammendolia sulle scale della chiesa Santa Maria della PietàDonata Marrazzo

Ammendolia, commissariats do not work

"Ilario Ammendolia, a fine intellectual, writer, political militant, and former mayor of Caulonia, says: "But not in the sense of putting everything under commission - the 'ndrangheta is now everywhere, drugs have spread it and commissioning solves nothing, on the contrary, it stigmatises territories and communities, reducing the history of Calabria to a criminal affair. Ilario Ammendolia explains this well in one of his best known essays: 'La 'ndrangheta come alibi'. According to Ammendolia, 'the dissolution of the Corrado Alvaro foundation is an unjust and liberticidal measure. The problems of San Luca are not an invention,' he admits, 'but they cannot be tackled by criminalising the entire community. The prefectural officials fail to protect and guarantee the community's right to the democratic conduct of administrative life and to prevent the reproduction of the criminal phenomenon. This only makes the 'ndrangheta stronger. If anything, it would be appropriate to reform a law that does not resolve the issue'. In the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, even before the pandemic, Pd, Forza Italia and Movimento 5 Stelle were already working on proposals to reform Article 143 of the Testo Unico degli Enti Locali: the discipline of the dissolution of municipal and provincial councils dates back 34 years.

President Aldo Maria Morace's bitterness

Also in the square in San Luca is the president of the Corrado Alvaro Foundation, Aldo Maria Morace, Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Sassari. He is holding the book 'Almanacco Alvariano' (Città del Sole edizioni), written by Fortunato Nucera, one of the founders of the San Luca cultural institution. With bitterness he declares: 'Everything we have achieved is in another orbit, much higher, brighter, than the bureaucratic harassment of human greyness'. And he hands over a file of documents with the initiatives and projects completed by the foundation, in response to the objections of the prefecture of Reggio Calabria, which considers them 'episodic and circumscribed'.

Monsignor Bregantini

An administrative measure that alludes to something else

Tonino Perna, professor emeritus of economic sociology at Messina, a member of the foundation's board of directors, and former president of the Aspromonte Park, says he is genuinely surprised by what has happened in view of the projects implemented and the significance they have taken on at San Luca. But 'Above all, I am surprised that an administrative order of the Prefecture dissolving a cultural institution for its lack of activity should put in the appendix the fact that three elements of the board of directors have relatives who have had or have something to do with the 'ndrangheta, fuelling a suspicion, without elements or data, however, about people with inconvenient relations. But what sense does that make?'.

Towards a committee to support the foundation

Finally, the young people: Corrado Alvaro's great-grandson Walter De Fiores looks bitterly at the writer's house that has remained closed: 'I bring students here from all over Italy and work with them on creative writing projects'. And Giusy Staropoli Calafati, Alvaro's pasionaria, author of the book 'Alvaro, più di una vita' (Castelvecchi): she is caught between the joy of the publication of her novel and the anger at what happened in San Luca. She launches the idea of a committee to support the foundation: 'Here, culture keeps a light on. And in Calabria it cannot always be dark, always night'.