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Return To The Source

Gemona is a small town lying in the region of Friuli, in northeastern Italy. On 6 May 1976, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake devastated a vast area in the region, causing the death of nearly 1000 people. Gemona was hardest hit among the stricken towns and villages, with about 400 people killed. While the inhabitants struggled through the months after the disaster, several strong earthquakes between 11 and 15 September 1976 - including one of magnitude 6.0 - caused further destruction and left the population in despair. However, decided action by the extraordinary commissioner Giuseppe Zamberletti led to a well coordinated evacuation and subsequent reconstruction effort. This included rules that required that the damaged towns be reconstructed exactly as they had been before the earthquakes.

I visited Gemona in the summer of 1987 with my then girlfriend. 11 years after the disaster, reconstruction was rather advanced, especially when considering that reconstruction in other Italian areas hit by previous earthquakes had proceeded with extreme delays and large proportions of reconstruction funds vanished in obscure channels. In Gemona, very few buildings were still in ruins, whereas much of the rest of the town had been pretty much reset to its pre-earthquake shape. 

During that trip in 1987 I had brought my acoustic guitar with me, and while waiting at the train station for the train to bring us to our next destination, I played a little melody that I had in my head since some time. This tune brings that melody to new life, with some sections of music added in its intro and central portion. I decided to give it the name of the town where I played it on my guitar decades ago, a town which I visited once more in November 2021, to see that there was still one would left from the earthquake - the castle on a hill in the center of town. At the time, many businesses were closed, giving grim testimony to another disaster - Covid, which had claimed a heavy toll in northeastern Italy.

I took the photo during my 2021 visit to Gemona, looking toward the Cathedral (entirely rebuilt after the 1976 earthquakes) with Monte Glemine (or Glemina) looming above it.

Gemona

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