Milano, the project to enhance the crypt of the Five Days monument is underway

Milano, the project to enhance the crypt of the Five Days monument is underway.

Enhance one of the places that preserve the historical memory of Milano and restore dignity to those who fell for the independence of this city.

These are the objectives underlying the ambitious project to enhance the crypt of the Five Days Monument, presented today at Palazzo Marino by the Municipality of Milano, University and IRCCS Ca' Granda Foundation Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico.

A path that is part of a broader program of artistic and cultural promotion of the cemeteries, the Shrine of the Fallen and the historic crypts of the city.

«The commemorative monument in Piazza Cinque Giornate – declares the councilor for civic services Gaia Romani - it was strongly supported by the citizens at the time, and what revolves around the obelisk and the crypt below is a story that still touches the hearts of the Milanese today. This is demonstrated by the great participation that every year, from 18 to 22 March, the extraordinary opening registers, thanks to the passion and commitment of the volunteers working for the Monumentale, who welcome dozens and dozens of visitors. As an Administration, for this reason, we are very proud of the restoration works that will be carried out and of the collaboration with the State University and the Polyclinic of Milano. I also want to personally thank Professor Cattaneo, founder of Labanof, the Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology, who has been working for decades to give a name to bodies that don't have one. Names of valiant women and men who have brought prestige to our city and who deserve, with their stories, to be consigned to the historical memory of Milano».

«It is a multidisciplinary project born from the convergence of distinct professionalisms and skills, animated and guided by the responsibility of sharing, with all the people who live in the city, of the richness and beauty of the collective historical, cultural and artistic heritage", says the person in charge of the crypt in Piazza Cinque Giornate Giovanna Colace.

At the end of the 18th century the Milanese authorities and the then mayor decided to honor the memory of the patriots who fell during the uprisings that occurred between 22 and 1848 March XNUMX - considered the first real attempt of the Lombard capital to rise up and free itself from the Austrian ruler - through the creation of a commemorative monument.

The result of the works, entrusted to the sculptor Giuseppe Grandi, was a bronze obelisk more or less 23 meters high surrounded by five female figures, an allegory of the Five Days, which stands today in the square of the same name and on which the names of the fallen of the 1848.

Fallen who were buried, initially, in the burial ground of the ancient Ca' Granda - today the Polyclinic hospital of Milano – as well as in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine and which, in 1895, were moved to the crypt located under the monument in Piazza Cinque Giornate.

Going down a staircase closed by a bronze trapdoor, also a work by Grandi, you access an ambulatory and a central corridor that joins the entrance hall with an opening on the external side, closed by a grate. The project presented today envisages a complete restoration work of the Monument and the Crypt, which will have the preliminary aim of eliminating water infiltrations, the cause of the strong deterioration of the structure.

Once the external interventions have been completed, which will be carried out by the Technical and Urban Furnishings Directorate, the Funeral and Cemetery area of ​​the Municipality of Milano will start with a diagnostic campaign including a mapping of the degradation, a georadar exploration of both the floors and the walls and a chemical-physical analysis performed on a sampling basis. All preparatory actions for the subsequent installation of electronic equipment capable of removing the cause of the rising damp.

Alongside the restoration of the Crypt, we will proceed with the recovery and study of the skeletal remains preserved there. This phase of the project will be led by Professor Cristina Cattaneo, professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Milano and founder of Labanof (Laboratory of Anthropology and Forensic Odontology of the State University of Milano), who will take care of the coordination and analysis of the material: "With the study of the human remains lying in the Five Days monument, science will be able to restore dignity, identity and history to these victims who remained in the shadows for so long."

«The University of Milano is honored and pleased to participate in this anthropological and scientific project so useful in reconstructing one of the most important events in the history of the city – declares the teacher Maria Pia Abbracchio, Deputy Vice-Rector with responsibility for Research and Innovation -. The primary objective of the analyzes of Professor Cattaneo and her team is to determine the biological profile (sex, age, height, ethnicity, diseases) of the population (or populations, in case there were not only patriots) buried inside the monument of Five days. We will thus be able to complete the desire, present since the time of the facts, to give a name to all the dead, who in fact had to remain exposed until advanced putrefaction before burial, noting connotations and signs useful to be able to identify them in the future. This mission will also contribute to reconstructing the demographic and paleopathological structure of the population of Milano who fought against the Austrungarian army, providing information of great general interest".

Due to the loss of archival documents, it is not known which and how many bodies were exhumed from the crypt of Ca' Granda and from the church of Santa Maria del Carmine and then transferred to that of Five Days. It is not known, therefore, whether in the transfer of the fallen, which took place almost fifty years after the victorious outcome of the revolt, only the bodies of the patriots or also the remains of other corpses, including the bodies of the soldiers, were recovered from the hospital burial ground. opponents and hospital patients. Furthermore, the state of conservation of the buried remains is not known, i.e. whether they are remains in coffins, single skeletons or just bones mixed together. The objective, pursued by applying the method already used during the study of the burial ground located under the crypt of Ca' Granda, will therefore be to reconstruct the life and death story of each person, thus restoring their dignity.

«We are very proud to be part of this important project - Explains Marco Giachetti, President of the Polyclinic of Milano –. Ca' Granda was the first custodian of the fallen of the Five Days, it welcomed their remains, giving a worthy burial to those who had fought for the good of our city. Thanks to the documents in our historical archive we are able to give a name and a profession to the fallen, and through this project we will also be able to give them a face and restore their memory. This project was born from the great synergy between three historical Milanese institutions, which believed in the possibility of connecting the past, each valorising their own historical places and thus allowing the Milanese to learn more about the history of their city".

The subsequent anthropological analysis on the skeletal samples will then allow us to obtain useful data for the reconstruction of the demographic and paleontological structure of the population of Milano who fought against the Austro-Hungarian army.

The final actions, however, will be characterized by documentary research activities at the Citadel of the Municipality Archives, as well as in the Historical Archive of the Polyclinic and in any other institute that preserves potential traces of the historical and administrative events linked to the fallen, in order to investigate cultural and social aspects of the time, and organize a schedule of events and educational initiatives.