Il fantasma della grande opera. Ponte sullo Stretto di Messina, poteri e società locale

Abstract

Since the XIX century, the project on the Bridge over the Strait of Messina is a long-lasting obsession that entails symbolic, political and economic reasons that intertwine with different phases of capitalism and the Italian national history. Thus, it is possible to distinguish between a modern and a contemporary phase of this project. The article focuses mainly on the latter phase, and it analyses the role that different actors played in reactivating this venture as well as opposing it. The main idea is that in spite of its original vertical nature, the project, though devastating, has been supported by large sectors of the local civil society. It is, therefore, the calamitous project that the city deserves – so that Messina is not another area of sacrifice, but an area of «deliberate immolation».