Internal Italy surprises. Especially in the province, in the South, an area that would otherwise stay far from the great cultural dimensions, in short, that remote South so dear to a certain now antiquated imagination and instead, no. Great culture and great art come where you would not think. Also with a surplus of innovation and experimentalism.
And here we are in Castronuovo di Sant’Andrea, deep in the Lucania, we are close to both the Val d’Agri area of ​​Gallicchio, San Martino and then Spinoso and all the other centers, and already to the Pollino lucano of villages such as Calvera, Fardella and Teana . Castronuovo is famous on a religious level because it is a native city of the sixteenth century Saint Andrea Avellino. But for several years now it has also been home to an interesting container: the International Museum of Graphics, home to works of European-style names of the nineteenth and twentieth century but also of great living artists. This happens because a great fellow native of Castronuovo has believed in his land, investing and making his contacts here, guaranteeing his country a real pride, for this area and beyond. Let’s talk about Giuseppe Appella, born in 1939, from 1953 in Rome, historian and art critic, son proud of Lucania, donor of many works of his property, historical base of a museum conceived also thanks to the mayor of the time and the managers of Pro Loco. And here in 2011 the prestigious space, with works by masters like, among others, Renoir, Carrà, Chagall, Fontana, Picasso, Klee. But it’s really a bearish list. The artists present are all excellent. Many organized exhibitions. It is important to understand in what sense we are talking about “graphics”. The museum presents engravings, lithographs but also photographs of the greatest interpreters of the 20th century. Graphics in the pictorial-artistic meaning, works engraved or printed in more techniques.
A small museum but almost lost because of references to the great avant-gardes of the last century. Thanks to Appella and his ties, great contemporaries have arrived here (think of Guido Strazza, author of the museum logo), often linked to experimentation, who have elected Castronuovo as their home of the soul. The same applies to writers or publishers, like Vanni Scheiwiller, whose widow also donated many objects to the city. Not only. The many cribs of all kinds were also delivered, which the publisher of the first Alda Merini books kept. In this way, the crib has become another pride for the village. And the International Crib Museum was born. Even the private have made available many locations and so at Christmas the village lights up with rooms and crevices, even small, intended to accommodate the artifacts of the collection and the new cribs from time to time created. Beautiful walking through the center accompanied by a knowledgeable guide like Maria, a museum worker and very helpful. Castronuovo deserves a much longer article than this. And maybe, even before a piece on our part, the village already deserves the taste of a visit. You will not regret it. The landscape and artistic heritage is not negligible. Also fascinating, in the spaces of the cribs, those places that tell so much, at the anthropological level, the Castronuovo and Lucania that were. The churches were also lovely. Of Sant’Andrea has been said. A mystic place to know better. See you soon, beautiful village.
