FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS - P1

Once something has been done everything seems natural, almost obvious. But before, quite simply, no one had thought of it. This section aims to relate how ideas become reality. The creativity it takes, the commitment you must put in, the effort to convince everyone, the difficulties you encounter, the mistakes you make and the satisfaction of hearing the Bell of the Fallen ring for the first time. But it doesn’t end there, because from that moment begins the story that leads to us, to the Maria Dolens that we know, to the relationships with the United Nations and the Council of Europe, to the Foundation Presidents who have presided, to the passion of those who work every day, to the amazement of visitors when they hear the emotional power of the first toll, and to the Foundation’s Avenue of Flags which is continually enriched by another country that believes in it, that adheres to the Peace Protocol because there is no alternative to dialogue.

The first toll of Maria Dolens (the largest swinging bell in the world that rings in full peal) was heard on October 4, 1925. It could all stop there, on that day and it would already be a good story, but we need to understand what that event meant for the decades that followed, whether the seeds sown bore good fruit. Above all however, we must understand whether the idea of a provincial priest who decided to create a symbol of world peace immediately after the Great War by fusing together cannons used by armies that fought against each other is still relevant. Does it help us today? Is it still useful for understanding the world around us? Until its centenary, which will be celebrated in 2025, we will try to answer these questions, we will retrace the path of an ideal sustained by people who are often very determined, sometimes stubborn, never willing to compromise on the founding values of peace. We will do so thanks to the writings of historians and intellectuals who have explored the topic in depth, and we will start from the beginning, from the sunset of 5 May 1921, when Father Don Antonio Rossaro had the idea that led him a few years later to witness the first chime by Maria Dolens. He himself tells how it happened, under the pseudonym of Timo del Leno, a fictional character who was under the Arco della Pace in Milan that day. The tone is emphatic, fairytale-like, perhaps a little naive. But we must at least grant this to a visionary.

«It was sunset on May 5, 1921, and he [Timo del Leno] had lingered to read in a newspaper, how at that time, throughout France, thousands of cannons would celebrate the centenary of Napoleon’s death. Under the vault of the historic Arch, he was absorbed in thought in the splendour of that epic, when suddenly, looking up at a burning sunset, so beautiful towards the Resegone, he was surprised by the sound of the Ave Maria of a nearby Convent. His heart was torn in a tumult of weapons and claustral singing, between two worlds clashing with each other, that of war and that of peace. In the distance, the roars of the cannon disappeared into the immensity of the horizon; nearby, the ringing of the bell was lost in the mysterious regions of his heart. And the idea of peace triumphed and exulted in a festive chirping of swallows, singing under a gentle bloom of stars.»

Beyond the imaginative style, wrote the historian Armando Vadagnini commenting on the reconstruction, «one can grasp in the author the intuition of what was the spirit of the era following the end of the conflict: on the one hand the memory of those who had remained, still not appeased after such a ferocious war; on the other, the profound desire to find the pacification of hearts before a diplomatic conciliation through treaties and political compromises. Hence the dream that the priest from Rovereto cherished for days and days: to create a “monument that was not the usual cold allegory translated into bronze or marble, but which, loudly, resonated and shook hearts in the vindication of so many missing heroes, of many victims without the comfort of tears and flowers”.

This was the premise that led Father Rossaro to create the Bell of the Fallen of Rovereto, for which he had already chosen Queen Mother Margherita of Savoy as godmother.»

The Campana, therefore, was born on solid territorial foundations, it creatively interpreted Trentino’s long history and it found lifeblood in the atmosphere comprised of strong gestures of solidarity of which Rovereto was and is at the heart. «But his project - continues Vadagnini - was also part of a much broader vision that embraced all of humanity, in the contrast between war and peace by which every historical era is marked. The moral premise on which that project was based was first and foremost that of remembering the victims of the war and those who were killed for noble ideals, and secondly that of inducing humanity to seek the ways of peace as a basis for a recovery of civil life and human progress. The memory of the past should not be erased, but neither can it serve to rekindle enmities that have been handed down through history. The Bell was inspired by the Franciscan spirit, which did not mean a generic irenicism, but a clear vision of Man plagued by the suffering of war, which called for the pacification of hearts and a return to collaboration to make more human “the flowerbed that makes us so ferocious.”

Unfortunately, a few decades later the world repeated the same mistake again. World War II brought everything back in time. The tragedy reoccurred and anyone who spoke of peace simply seemed naive. But ideas, when they are strong, advance underground like karst rivers. And that of Father Rossaro continued to channel into people’s souls, to force its way through the misgivings. It was only a matter of time before it resurfaced.

(to be continued)

Casting of the first Bell on 30 October 1924 at the ‘Luigi Colbacchini e Figli’ foundry in Trento (Archive of the Rovereto Peace Bell Foundation)