Massa e individuo: il ‘progetto’ Sacrari

The single and the mass: the Sacrari project Chronologically the ossuary of Redipuglia was the conclusion of a smart ideological operation played on signification. It pointed out a link between something absent and something materially present: the paradox according to which the physical absence is balanced by an immortal heroical presence. Indeed, Redipuglia is the expression of the ransom of the anonymity of war mass deaths, which is embodied by the individual identification, both official and symbolic, of every single dead who answers to the call Present! To sterilize the pain for the death of those born in 1899 - and other fallen soldiers - the term ‘ossuary’ was substituted with ‘sacrarium’, which would have identified the site where worthy individuals were buried. It meant sacred spaces where the mass moved religiously along a processional oriented path. Old myths were corresponding to the new rites calling back to those of Christianity and linking death and resurrection to the vitalistic cult of the Italian race. Memorials have analogies with the metaphors of the catholic cult, in particular, those assuming the basilicas built on the mortal rests of the martyrs, who were during life the stones for the spiritual building of the Church. The symbols, the formulas and the rites of Catholicism are transliterated to be functional to the secular liturgy of a heroic Italy, devoted to war and to fascism.