Rocco Papaleo
is the face and testimonial of Maratea which is among the ten finalists in the race for the title of Italian Capital of Culture 2026 and awaits the response from the Ministry of Culture in March.
The Lucanian town has organized a tour to present the candidacy which, after Milan on 5 February, today stops at the Ara Pacis in Rome and will end in Potenza on Thursday 29 February.
"I'm really happy to be here, my connection with my land is quite explicit and listening to all of you has allowed me to appropriate the energy of this project. I'm really happy to have done these 5 hours by train, it was worth it sorry, I'm not joking" says Papaleo.
"To be constructed - he says - reality needs words and for this reason I will tell you these thoughts that I wrote. I was born in Basilicata, mine is the story of someone who wanted to leave and left but not quickly enough to not to match its rhythm and its melancholy cheerfulness. Lucanity made me prisoner with the old trick of leaving me free to go wherever I wanted and when, for artistic reasons, I delved into its folds, I discovered it and I discovered myself . Lucania lives in its geography that is at times luxuriant and explicit, at times lunar and taciturn. On one side woods, vineyards, wheat, on the other opportunities to write poetry. Basilicata is shy, kind, discreet, internal and for many years practically unattainable. Poor but beautiful like the end of the 1950s, rich and controversial like oil, small and spacious, sparsely inhabited: it's difficult to meet a crowd, social distancing hasn't shocked us as expected."
Papaleo continues: "Many of us went to make our dreams come true elsewhere but that's where we dreamed them, that's where we imagined the world and that's where we unconsciously trained our ability to face the journey."
And he concludes: "Mine is the story of someone who wants to leave and if he has gone but now he wants to return".
"Being here in Rome, caput mundi cradle of world civilizations has a particular meaning for us" says the
mayor of Maratea Daniele Stoppelli
who says he is very happy to be at the Ara Pacis precisely in this moment of wars and serious international tensions.
"Maratea - he adds - expresses with its 30-century history an unparalleled experience of hospitality. It was the welcoming place for Mediterranean sailors who came to buy garum, we still have anchors in our seabed. And It was then the landing of the Basilian monks who brought evangelization to the internal areas and we have the sign of this with the cenobi. We continued to be a reference even in the period of iconoclasm. Maratea was also a polytheistic city, we had the temple of Minerva, of Venus, a road named after Castor and Pollux who protected sailors. This allowed us to propose a candidacy on the strength of our past, which indicates our ability to plan and realize our growth and development in beauty but respecting nature".
"Moliterno - explains
Antonio Rubino, mayor of the municipality of Moliterno
- has decided to take a step back to take a thousand steps forward. Basilicata needs to unite, the 131 municipalities must know how to work together and the land of culture is the one where the greatest fruits can be reaped The united Basilicata is successful in 4 essential values: the landscape (unique and unrepeatable between the blue of the sea and the green of the interior), the history, the future (we are no longer children of a lesser god, we must tell the story of Basilicata who can do it) and Lucanians in the world, in the year of roots in the world are an inextinguishable heritage".
"After Matera 2019, we return to the field with Maratea 2026. At the time it was a "scandal", a beautiful scandal. We who with our villages, our little churches, our natural wonders of a small city that challenged much larger cities great but we won. These mayors gathered show us that there is not a division but a vision, the winning example of Matera has shown that we can, we must work together, it is the first step that makes this candidacy take off" says
Antonio Nicoletti, director of the APT of the Basilicata Region
, who also underlined the strength of the large Lucanian community in the world.
In this regard, Nicoletti also mentioned Roots-In, Roots Tourism International Exchange, an international reference event for roots tourism.
"The application processes that our cities and our territories increasingly express represent an undisputed opportunity to improve the cultural offer and accessibility,
in a message sent to Mayor Stoppelli.
"In particular, the candidacy of Maratea as Italian Capital of Culture of 2026, among the 10 finalists awaiting the hearing at the ministry on March 5th, - he adds - marks an important moment for Basilicata. It fits fully into the finalized strategy to regenerate the villages and activate new economies in our smaller municipalities. In particular, this candidacy was born with another strategic objective in terms of territorial balance. It becomes a vast area project, which extends to the internal, Apennine areas, welcoming in particular the Moliterno project and therefore proposing an integrated candidacy which finds its strengths in the coast on the one hand and in the ecosystems of naturalistic value of the internal areas. I am certain - he concludes - that the ministry will appreciate the Lucanian proposal, which the Region will support with conviction."
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