“C'era davvero la Regina di Saba in quei mosaici? - si chiedeva anni dopo lo scrittore – C'era Lindbergh? Chi lo sa, nella mia memoria c'era. Rivivevo su quei mosaici Salgari e Verne, Il Giornale Illustrato dei Viaggi e delle Avventure di Terra e di Mare, i sussidiari delle elementari, le povere enciclopedie che avevamo allora. lo sui mosaici di Severini sognavo il mondo il vasto mondo presente e ignoto e il futuro. Crescendo in età e sapienza ho visto altre storie che si dipanavano per strisce lunghe, interminabili, per esempio la Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde di Bayeux. Ma le ho viste quando ero ormai blasé. Invece sui mosaici di Severini ho sognato, senza preoccupazioni estetiche. Ho intuito degli spazi. Ho capito che il mondo andava oltre la mia città”
Perhaps not everyone knows that there are curious mosaics in the city of Alessandria that, despite not having the historical value of the Ravenna mosaics, tell the story of the modern city and the mechanical development of services and transportation.
The mosaics, made in 1940, were the work of Gino Severini, and today they are placed at the entrance to the Post Office Building, covering an area 38 meters long and 2 meters high.
The work is divided into three parts: side mosaics represent the continents (left Oceania and Asia, right Africa and America) and central mosaics the history of the post and telegraph.
When writer Umberto Eco was a child passing in front of the building he was spellbound looking at those drawings, which seemed to him "a thing from another world”.
“Was there really the Queen of Sheba in those mosaics? - wondered years later the writer - Was Lindbergh there? Who knows, in my memory there was. I was reliving on those mosaics Salgari and Verne, The Illustrated Journal of Travels and Adventures of Land and Sea, the elementary school aides, the poor encyclopedias we had then. On Severini's mosaics I dreamed the world, the vast present and unknown world and the future. As I grew in age and wisdom, I saw other stories that unfolded in long, endless strips, for example, the Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde of Bayeux. But I saw them when I was now blasé. Instead on Severini's mosaics I dreamed, without aesthetic concerns. I sensed spaces. I realized that the world went beyond my city”
Foto @alessandra.corra
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