Places in the heart of FAI: the most beautiful Italy of 2021

A railway and two castles; they are on the podium of the places most voted by the Italians in the now classic census of FAI, the Italian Environment Fund, now in its tenth edition. The new ones places of the heart, those who – from May to December 2020 – have taken more votes than all the others reported for this edition (almost forty thousand in over six thousand Italian municipalities) are specifically the Cuneo-Ventimiglia-Nice railway, the Sammezzano castle and park in Reggello and the Brescia castle: these are very different places, but united by the same need for care and enhancement.

The Cuneo-Ventimiglia-Nice railway, for example, commissioned by count of Cavour in the mid-nineteenth century and semi-destroyed during the Second World War, it was then restored in the 1960s, but is currently interrupted due to the landslide of Colle del Tenda a few months ago. The castle of Sammezzano in Reggello, with the rooms that evoke Moorish and Indian architecture, on the other hand, has been in a state of neglect for decades, while that of Brescia bears witness to theentire history of the Lombard city, from the Roman era to the Risorgimento.

An unprecedented edition, it was said, for the period in which it took place (the start of the census was given in the middle of the first lockdown) and for the great participation, which translated into more than two million votes collected in seven months: numbers that once again demonstrate how fundamental is the participation of all in the protection of the extraordinary cultural heritage of our country. A widespread and extremely varied heritage: in fact, by scrolling through the ranking, you meet entire towns, small villages, archaeological areas and churches, castles and gardens, hospitals, railways, bridges, paths and natural areas: some examples? In addition to the top three there is the via delle Collegiate of Modica, a path through history that connects the cathedral to the churches of Santa Maria and San Giorgio, or thehospital and the church of Ignazio Gardella in Alessandria: here, while the first has been restored and is currently functioning, the church (the first work of the great rationalist architect) is in urgent need of restoration. And then again thehermitage of sant’Onofrio al Morrone in the province of L’Aquila, closely linked to the memory of Pope Celestine V, e the Cervelletta park smell, the villa of Michelangelo Antonioni in Gallura and the Andromeda theater of Santo Stefano in Quisquina, in the province of Agrigento, made by a shepherd who used a hundred white stones to recreate the constellation that borrows its name from Greek mythology.

What happens now? Thanks to the collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo – which has supported the FAI in this initiative since 2014 – the first three winners will be awarded (upon presentation of an enhancement project) prizes of between thirty thousand and fifty thousand euros, while the FAI will take care of the realization of a video storyelling for the place that received the most votes from the web (it is the Gravina aqueduct bridge, also the protagonist of the last one films in James Bond No time to die, which collects the prize in place of the castle of Sammezzano, which cannot accumulate more prizes). The places that have obtained at least two thousand votes will then be able to participate in an enhancement call, while for all the other assets reported the FAI (some you can find in our gallery, the complete list is on the website of the Environmental Fund) will work to ensure that the institutions territorially closer to pay due attention to all those places that are part of our collective memory.