FROM MURAT TO MUSSOLINI EBOOK

A 150 year long story, a Bari told between King Joachim Murat and the death of the Istrian prof. Francesco Babudri. A city that opens up to modernity, that becomes bigger, that discovers that it can become a point of reference for the entire region, a magnet for development. This is the Bari that Nicola Mascellaro tells in his Once upon a time Bari. The story unfolds through a century and a half and explains the reasons, the circumstances, the occasions, the accidents of history, which led to a village closed by high walls, which went from the Norman-Swabian castle to the Via delle Mura, the current Via Venezia, with just 18 thousand inhabitants, to begin the journey towards modernity. Starting from the expansion "outside the walls" requested since 1790 and obtained thanks to Murat on 25 April 1813, with the symbolic laying of the first stone of the neighborhood which would later take its name from that king: the current Murattiano. Mascellaro's story makes us see, touch, feel, a poor but pulsating Bari, degraded but eager to grow, which goes through the Risorgimento, brigandage, the season of theater construction, the painful season of emigration. A city struggling with the events of history and which in 1890 had 66,909 inhabitants, but lacked sewerage, running water, electricity and road paving. Observations of a reporter, rather than a historian, reported to the reader through the citation of newspapers and chroniclers of the time, which allow us to touch reality first-hand, despite the bombastic prose typical of the late 19th century. How many people from Bari can imagine that the castle was used as a prison? That from Piazza Massari looking towards the sea we would find ourselves facing the most popular beach in the city? That the heart of today's nightlife, Piazza Mercantile and Piazza del Ferrarese, were the heart of commercial and artisan activities with markets and shops? That at the end of Corso Cavour there was a toll barrier blocking access to the city? How many people from Bari, who use and consume the territory and who barely know the story of the Petruzzelli fire, know that on the night between 20 and 21 July 1911 another fire destroyed the Margherita, built on what was a simple lookout overlooking sea? How many people from Bari know the history and reasons for the construction of the Russian Church, which was also engulfed in flames on 7 April 1973? But it is not only historical events that punctuate the story that spans the 150 years in which Bari was reborn. There are also, and they are unmissable pages, human events, such as the arrival in the city of Giacomo Puccini in 1895, welcomed by cheering crowds, his meeting with the master concertmaster Enrico Annoscia, Pupe de zzucchere, who plays with the band on the cassarmonica podium in Piazza Prefettura. Without forgetting the exciting murder mystery of Cenzina Di Cagno, 18 pages to read without taking a breath, or Bari's approach to true modernity with the arrival of Guglielmo Marconi and the inauguration of the San Cataldo radio station. Finally, the characters, three who brand Mascellaro's enormous passion for journalism, and one historically inevitable: Armando Perotti, poet and man of letters; Frate Menotti, satirical illustrator and ferocious cartoonist - punisher of the vices and weaknesses of Bari society; Wanda Gorjux, journalist, polemicist, woman of letters and great culture. The inevitable is Mussolini and his visit, perfectly organized in every detail, even the smallest one, dated 6 September 1934. About ten pages that perfectly give the idea of the regime's propaganda machine, but also of how the regime radically changed in those years. Face of the city. The last chapter of this agile, pleasant and flowing story-story is a great gesture of love towards old Bari and of an Istrian, Francesco Babudri, who happened upon it by chance but then deeply fell in love with this city. Babudri lived here for 32 years, during which he produced an infinite quantity of studies, articles, pages, research, documents, with which he contributed to the reconstruction of history, but also of the folklore and traditions of Bari. It is an ideal journey that every good native of Bari should read and take, because we need to know the past, and not just consume it, to build the future.

E-book available here: https://www.dimarsicolibri.it/prodotto/da-murat-a-mussolini-cera-una-volta-bari-e-book/

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