Certain data are engraved in our minds. For me it is the date 27.05.1993 when the attack on the Via dei Georgofili in Florence was committed.
I lived in Florence for 14 months – because of love – and found myself that day with my future husband and parents on the sea in Tonfano. There, in the age of no mobile phone, Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp on the radio, we have received the message that the heart, the civilian center of Florence, has been injured by an assassination attempt.
“La strage di via dei Georgofili”, as the assassination is officially called, has become deeply engraved in the Italian and above all in the Florentine soul. In Florence, this Sunday – 25 years later – many will remember this massacre and lay down flowers in quiet devotion. Five lives were wiped out 25 years ago by this Mafia attack, wiping out a family of four: a 39-year-old father, his 36-year-old wife, 9-year-old and 50-day-old daughters, and a 22-year-old student. People who would be in the middle of their lives today.
Almost exactly a year before the attack in Florence, mafia hunter Giovanni Falcone was murdered in Palermo. Under the highway 500 kilos of explosives were deposited, which were ignited in the passage of Falcone and his wife. Two months after Falcone’s death, his friend and mafia hunter Paolo Borsellino was also the victim of an explosive attack.
I pass via dei Georgofili almost every day. I always stop with my guests for a brief moment, in memory of this assassination, to those innocent people who have given their life and look up to the sculpture of Roberto Barni, “Passi d’oro” – the golden steps – this is the emblematic figure of a man who begins his journey, standing on the edge of a knife, protruding from the wall next to a closed window twenty meters high, does not rise alone, but brings along five other smaller figures – memories of the victims The golden sculpture represents art in its constant attempt to overcome tragedy.
25 years ago on 27.05.1993 I was by the sea but Fabrizio, Angela, Nadia, Caterina and Dario were unfortunately in Via dei Georgofili …