MONUMENTS AND PUBLIC MEMORY OF THE CATASTROPHE

The earthquake of 1908 provided many themes that might seem to lend themselves to being commemorated in monumental form: the victims, estimated at around one third of the city’s population; the national and municipal resolve to reconstruct the city, rather than abandon it in the way that some had suggested in the terrible days after the calamity; the heroes of the rescue and relief effort, ranging from local figures, both lay and religious, to the King and Queen.

All told, however, there many fewer earthquake monuments in the city than one might expect. And those few that there are do not betoken a serious collective or official effort to build a memory narrative—of the city’s death and rebirth, for example—into its contemporary fabric.

Many messinesi today, especially the young, are unaware of the monuments that do exist. Others take the lack of monuments as a sign of the city’s ‘memory deficit’.

Follow the links below to examine some of Messina's earthquake monuments: