- Art & Culture
Nose up in the streets of Milan
We wander around the city observing plaques and inscriptions
You know when they say, "Don't see beyond your nose?" Here is exactly what we are going to do today, try to walk around the city looking beyond, with our noses up.
Yes, because at the corners of streets or on buildings you will not only find the names chosen for the avenue, square or street you are walking along, with their house numbers... but often there are plaques, signs that remind us of people who lived right there or events that happened in the area.
Who has never seen in some town or even in remote villages the plaque reminding us "here Giuseppe Garibaldi dwelled"?... so much so that as a child I used to wonder if the mythical hero of the 1000 really made history or just enjoyed the comfort of countless beds... I'll be forgiven for the hero in a red jacket.
But back to my city, Milan .
If strolling along the pedestrian shopping artery of Corso Vittorio Emanuele we will pay attention more to the shop windows than to the license plates, we cannot fail to notice the statue of an ancient Roman, the Sciur Carera, a character who reminds us in Latin that "he who is about to criticize another must be devoid of all vice": the statue (Omm de preja, man of stone) was used to post political mottos, satires or anonymous signs. I wonder what he thinks today about the indifferent comings and goings that pass in front of it every day?
In Via Armorari, an area in medieval times characterized by gunsmiths' stores, we find a plaque that reminds us of Ernest Hemingway in Milan: enlisted in the American Red Cross, wounded in the leg, he fell in love here with a nurse who would inspire him as the female protagonist of "Farewell to Arms."
On Via Bigli, a plaque commemorates the cultural salon of Signora Clara Maffei, but we will also discover the dwelling where Albert Einstein's family lived as well as one of the houses used by the organizing committee of what was to be "The Five Days."
In Piazza Pio XI, very close to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, a plaque bears the name of a certain Sciesa Amatore (mistakenly called Antonio here) famous for the phrase "Tiremm innanz" (let's pull ahead), uttered while resisting the Austrian invader with dignity!
But the most Milanese plaque is on Via S.Maria Podone and reminds us in Milanese how much the poet Gaetano Crespi was "ambrosiano de coeur (heart) e de carater."
These are just a few examples; one could really make a tour of the plaques in Milan!
Text by ELENA MEVIO, ConfGuide-GITEC licensed guide
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