The city and the beauty of the ancient lost crafts

In the culture of Marche Region of the early Twentieth Century, physical work identified itself with a rough dignity, linked to the primordial meaning of life: the sanctity of hard work and sweat, the rigor of manual exercise that reawakens ethics and impregnates each and every daily action with spiritual meaning. The most humble work is cloaked with the stigmata of a sacrifice that vanishes in a heroic gesture, discovering a fraternity that unites men and places, countryside and city, aristocracy and working class, poverty and wealth in a cohesive pact. Work is the cornerstone of the urban and rural community, a symbol of a society that rose from the ruins of two world wars and was ready to seize the signs of sudden changes. The city appeared and took shape from those ancient crafts, modelling itself on the noble buildings of the bourgeoisie and hovels of the lowlife districts, in the workshops of artisans and the sumptuous places of gathering of noblemen, in the alleys of the centre and the dirt roads of the countryside. An unknown world came alive around blacksmiths, workers, labourers, carpenters, painters, knife sharpeners, water carriers, chimney sweeps, tinkers and coppersmiths, enveloped in a destiny of hardship that seemed to be happy, satiated simply by being alive. Perhaps the end of a life cycle happened like this, and the workers of ancient crafts gave way to the new course of the city, left alone with its immense body that passes through time. The future civilisation bade farewell to that which had given life to it, asking for a gesture of sacrifice. Perhaps that minute industriousness was changing into a strange architecture of the world, where countryside and city mingled their borders and banks, artisanship and industry fought each other for dreams and bewilderment. Perhaps from a distant place, light years from the earth, in a mysterious galaxy, around a luminous circle of friendship, chimney sweeps, coppersmiths and knife sharpeners look with a sly smile and perhaps a little sorrow at that city which stands out in the darkness and remember the invisible map of their workshops which disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving threads of an unknown wealth, of discretion and behaviour. Perhaps the plan of the city represents the chronicles of a lost kingdom, a mental archaeology where all our memories are oriented.