On 25 March 1957, the radio transmitted the news of the signing of the Treaties of Rome, which united Europe was born, consisting of six states: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. I had read the ad in the Corriere della Sera, the Holy Bible of political conservatism, summed up with the famous reply that his legendary director at the time, Mario Missiroli, those who told him to treat a certain subject: "To do this, you should have available a newspaper."
Europe that was born that day in Rome was a dream come true policy to open new horizons in a continent that, during the twentieth century, had been repeatedly injured and destroyed by the rivalry between the countries as a sign of political and economic primates . My generation (I was almost fifteen years), came into the world of their own during the Second World War, had reason to entertain a sincere hope that the dramas of the previous ones will not happen again. So far, fortunately it was.
Rimini in 1957 already had long been a cosmopolitan city with a strong connotation. Its tourist tradition had also open to cultural exchange with the peoples of the continent. The day after the conclusion of the conflict that lasted from 1939 to 1945, Rimini occasions for guests of the European countries with a momentum similar to that of the ephemeral "economic miracle" of the rest of Italy, but with more certainty to respond to a its strong business vocation well even after the darkest moments. Vocation that was meeting with people from different countries not only the instrument of his own wealth, but also an opportunity for hope in the construction of political unity of the continent.
In 1980, the late prof. Giancarlo Susini, Professor of History at the University of Bologna, Rimini, a city called "open" because over the centuries has held the line with the East and the world through the streets of the sea. Without ever being Levantine, he added, in her "some of its bell tower rises up like a minaret.
Europe today looks to the East to make the Mediterranean sea "our" not in the old sense of the term used by the Romans, but in the modern one of a commonality of interests and intentions of all people that face. In this context and according to these perspectives, the historical experience makes it a city of Rimini forerunner of Europeanism by virtue of an experience that actually began in mid-fifteenth century. The then Lord City, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, left us a symbol not only of its action but also its political projects that we feel like our contemporaries. I am referring to the Temple which tells the sense of historical continuity in the Mediterranean basin, with the unifying synthesis that favors the agreement, identification, recognition of what is common, while the strictly geographical analysis of the individual territorial units tends to divide and oppose. If you look back
well as cultural events of the centuries following that of Sigismund, we see a breath not provincial in our lands, even with an open outlook to the exchange with the best minds of Europe. I will cite only two examples. In 1680 Marcello Malpighi sent from Bologna to the Academy of the Royal Society of London (which is a member), a copy of a scientific book published two years earlier by a scientist born in 1647 in the Diocese of Rimini, Giuseppe Antonio Barbarians. That book is still in London at the British Library. In the next century the name of the doctor and scientist Rimini Giovanni Bianchi (1693-1775) turns to Europe, especially through his book of 1739 dedicated to the shells 'little known' found near our sea.
To sum up the ideal placement of Rimini in the history of the last centuries, have recourse to the title of a book ('the Mill', 1984) dedicated to Renato Serra: "Between Europe and the province." Not only that Europe must remain a common currency, a shared history but also to leave those who come after us more than our hopes.
Antonio Montanari
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