Ilaria, 28, moved away for a year to Via Tribunali and then chose to return home to the Fontanelle, “ngopp’ ‘a terra”, where she was born.
Her neighbourhood, a place of hope
Unlike Purgatory, which she likes to imagine as only “temporary”, she hopes her neighbourhood can become a place where people choose to “stay”. For young people like her, reopening the Fontanelle Cemetery means making room for the hope that abandonment can be transformed into care, presence and participation, and for the belief that death can become rebirth.
Is this not what has already happened to the Cemetery itself? The neglect of many turned it into a forgotten place; the embrace of the community restored its dignity.
