150 years on from his birth, Chiavenna faithfully celebrates the poet who brought us La Piccola Patria, an appreciation in verse of the places that were to bring due recognition to the writer’s canon.
If today Giovanni Bertacchi is an author recognised and celebrated on a national scale, Chiavenna has certainly played a huge part.
For the author himself, Chiavenna always represented a safe haven to return to, teeming with memento mori, and especially in those difficult and isolated times that periodically characterised his life. His poetry, at times loaded with irony, at others pure nostalgia, portrays a Chiavenna within which Bertacchi sought genuine refuge.
Vivid images recall - in specific poems in dialect - the bell-towers of both San Lorenzo and San Bartolomeo, local crotti, the railway station environs, and the entire little town in the strikingly atmospheric Un momént de nostalgía, set at Christmas time and seen through innocent eyes. All combine to form
an enduring bond, which the community of Chiavenna and the entire valley has taken to heart and sustained over the years.
So much so that friends have bestowed a crotto in memory of the poet, at Crósét, in Pratogiano, now splendidly restored. Further dedications to his memory include the Refuge at lago d’Emet high up in Valle Spluga, a school, and of course the main square in central
Chiavenna.
A wide range of places which even 150 years on still encapsulate the original matrix that inspired the poet and which are well worth rediscovering for yourself, whilst perhaps at the same time reading the verses that Bertacchi dedicated to them. A highly original way to revisit our little town seen through a different perspective; more intimate and indeed profound.
