Earthquake Debris Down to Areas of Historic Heritage in Italy

San Felice sul Panaro, Italy (Reuters) – The earthquake that struck on Sunday at various locations in northern Italy converted many of its art treasures and architectural debris.

San Felice Sul Panaro was one of the villages in the quake caused serious injuries to centuries of heritage, memory and tradition.

“A thousand years of art to dust” was the headline on Monday, the newspaper La Repubblica.

The damage caused to the Italian heritage was the worst since a 1997 earthquake struck the central Umbria and collapsed parts of the roof of the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi.

The three major churches of San Felice were destroyed and the main attraction of the town, the castle La Rocca, stood but wounded, perhaps fatally, by the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that caused seven deaths in other towns in the Sunday morning.

Responses were recorded 24 hours after the main shock, which further weakened the ancient cultural sites.

“It’s indescribable. A lot of pain. La Rocca was our jewel,” said resident Manuela Monelli watching what was left of the castle.

“To think that we were told that this was not a seismic area,” he added.

The castle, which housed a museum, was started in 1322 by the Este family and extended it in the next century.

Only one of its four towers left standing but a large crack in its structure did think that maybe it can fall as well.

“If one falls, they have to throw it,” lamented Monelli.

CAEN SYMBOLS

“It was the symbol of our people,” said Mayor Alberto Silvestri. “We lost virtually all of our artistic heritage. Churches and towers fell. The theater is still standing but has cracks,” he said.

The Church of the Archpriest almost imploded and now is only half. “We are grateful that there were no casualties,” said Simone Silvestri, a member of the local council, looking at the church surrounded by rubble.

Among the artworks in the church, and presumably destroyed or severely damaged, was a wooden triptych painted in sixteenth-century artist Bernardino Loschi that represented the Virgin and San Felice San Geminiano.

Paintings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries adorned the sacristy.

Another historic building affected was the clock tower of the nearby town of Finale Emilia, dating from the fourteenth century. The first quake of 04.04 am (0204 GMT) left the tower in the middle vertically.

Only the left of the clock, containing Roman numerals from 7 to 11, remained intact in the first place. But 12 hours later, a magnitude 5.1 aftershock caused the collapse of the remaining part of the tower.

“Our historical memory was wiped out,” said Elena Sergio, a resident of the village.

Also in Finale Emilia, a part of the church of San Carlo collapsed. It contained a painting by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino, the seventeenth century.

Despite the damage to churches, residents said it was a relief that the earthquake has happened as early as hours later the building had been filled.

“Our kids were going to take his first communion here (Sunday morning),” a priest in the nearby town of Mirandola, which collapsed the roof of a cathedral.

“If it had happened in that time would have been a disaster,” he said.