On August 7, 2024 at 8:30 pm, in Corsano in the suggestive Piazza San Giuseppe, in the extreme edge of Puglia Salento, the presentation of the book “Corsanesi a Scuola” a photographic collection edited by Vito Chiarello with texts by Concettina Chiarello. Hundreds of images and shots that tell the story of the school in Corsano from 1900 to 1970, that is, from the beginning of the twentieth century, the period between the two wars, then the Sixties and Seventies of the economic boom and emigration, from those lands of Puglia a heavy emigration to Germany and Switzerland. Many left their children with their grandparents and they sent them to school. The images tell the story of the first literacy in elementary school, to reach some in third grade and some in fifth grade, the luckiest ones in middle school. I had already been interested in Corsano in Il Giornale when a road was inaugurated for Pietro Licchetta, a lively Apulian politician of the DC who was also the headmaster of a middle school and President of the Province of Lecce, who also had the merit of having created public works of a certain importance. Now, browsing through these one hundred and eighty-five pages with hundreds of photos that tell the story of the local history, literacy and traditions, it is certainly a worthy hobbyist undertaking by Vito Chiarello who certainly contributes not only to local history, but above all to cultural sociology with an unparalleled review of school classes of elementary and middle school students, first only male or only female classes, then with mixed classes, of teachers who have taught entire generations of rural places and towns to read and write. Fprecious class notes, historical documents of Southern Italy, even on page fifty-three in a class photo of the Middle School of Alessano (born in the 50s) among the students sitting Prof. Luigi Monaco, professor and then principal, married to Lina Del Sole cousin of my mother Ada Damiani. From the photographic collection and the volume you can also read the history of the town of Corsano, of entire generations, many – indeed many – now elderly, some already deceased. I find the volume interesting because it aims to make the South triumph first, the Capo di Leuca, the Salento, then the Italy of a thousand villages, the Italy of roots, the Italy of beauties, the Italy of thousands of countries scattered from top to bottom. Without perhaps I believe that the volume that tells of young people then and men and women today, some even settled in Northern Europe if not in other continents, is included like a thread in the PNRR Project “Tourism of the roots”. In fact, the general director of the Mission Unit for the implementation of the PNRR of the Ministry of Culture, Angelantonio Orlando, and the general director for Italians Abroad of the Farnesina, Luigi Maria Vignali, have signed the agreement that officially launches the PNRR Project “Tourism of the roots – an integrated strategy for the recovery of the tourism sector in post-Covid-19 Italy”, thanks to the technical and guidance support provided by the Central Service for the PNRR. The project is part of the investment for the “Attractiveness of Villages” of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

It is therefore not a book among many and to be set aside, but a precious book, a document of the highest historical and local value capable of weaving the history of Corsano and its inhabitants. A meritorious book, and Vito Chiarello did well to intercept a visual and cultural interest, which is worth a treasure.

Carlo Franza