Ariodante Fabretti Foundation Via E. De Sonnaz 13 - 10121 Torino (Italia) Tel. 011-547005 Fax 011-547019 | ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
E-mail: fabretti@arpnet.it | ||||||||||||
About us Chairman:
Tullio Regge Scientific Director:
Marina Sozzi
La
morte laica,
volume I, Storia della Cremazione in
Italia (1880-1920), by Fulvio Conti, Anna Maria Isastia, Fiorenza Tarozzi La
morte laica,
volume II, Storia della Cremazione in
Italia (1880-1920), by Augusto Comba, Serenella Nonnis Vigilante, Emma
Mana La
morte contesa.
Cremazione e riti funebri nell’Italia fascista, by Marcella
Filippa – Paravia Scriptorium, Turin 2001 Besides the hystoriographic studies - that went
as far back as to the idea of cremation during the French Revolution (see
Marina Sozzi and Charles Porset’s Il
sonno e la memoria, Idee della morte e politiche funerarie durante la
Rivoluzione Francese) – between 1995 and 1999 another course of research
has been taken up with the purpose of examining the common behaviour of the
urban society in relation to death. In 1995 a meeting on this specific topic
was held at the Ariodante Fabretti Centre and the resulting records were
edited by M.Tartari under the title La
terra e il fuoco. I riti funebri tra conservazione e distruzione, Meltemi,
Rome 1996. From the very beginning, the Foundation’s
objective has been that of becoming a scientific point of reference for all
those who, in various fields, are interested in death and related topics (rituals,
ceremonies, traditions and behaviour) and in the way the concept of death has
developed in industrial societies in modern and contemporary history, under a
comparative aspect, too. The Foundation, through its
interdisciplinary Committee – formed by historians, philosophers,
sociologists, psychologists and physicians – promotes new studies on death
by publishing every two years a competition for three 2-year scholarships for
graduates and doctorship holders interested in carrying out research in this
field. Access to the considerable
History Archives and Library of the Foundation - specialised in topics related
to death and cremation in western countries- is not restricted to researchers
and scholarship holders but it’s open to the public. Both the archive and
the library are also consultable on the SBN (national library system). Following the same objective
of studying and spreading knowledge about events related to death and dying, a
meeting is held each year involving the most eminent scholars in thanatology
from Italy as well as from abroad. The first international meeting on funerary
rituals, La scena degli addii. Morte e
riti funebri nella società occidentale contemporanea, was held in Turin
the 24th and 25th of September 1999. The records of this meeting, edited by
Marina Sozzi, were published by Paravia-Scriptorium in the autumn of 2001, and
are included in the Fabretti series. With the same purpose of
widening our knowledge of funerary rituals Giuliana Fubini translated into
Italian a book by Douglas J.Davies, an English anthropologist and theologian: Death,
Ritual, Belief, (Cassel 1997), also published by Paravia-Scriptorium in
Autumn 2000 and included in the Fabretti series. At the end of 2000 two days
of studies were held. The first meeting, focused on the historical importance
of the eminent and versatile figure of Ariodante Fabretti, was organized by
the Fabretti Foundation together with the “Museo del Risorgimento” and the
Turin Cremation Society (Socrem). The second one-day meeting
dealt with the subject of mourning -Il
filo interrotto. Elaborazione
e gestione del lutto nella società contemporanea – and was organized in collaboration with the
“Istituto di Tanatologia e Medicina Psicologica” directed
by Professor Francesco Campione. Afternoon work was organized in the form of a
round table with the aim of discussing the results of a questionnaire. About a
thousand copies of this questionnaire had been distributed all over the
country and sent to the cemetery service managers of a list of towns - chosen
as representative sample - and to some private funerary operators as well. The
purpose of this operation was that of pointing out the more frequent problems
that funerary operators, both in the public and in the private sector,
have to face in their daily contact with death and mourning The Fabretti Foundation, in
collaboration with Esaco, with the “Istituto di Tanatologia e Medicina
Psicologica” of Bologna, and with Federco.f.it (the Italian Funerary Sector
Federation) has participated in the important research project named Caronte
– which was successfully submitted to the European Social Fund - with the
purpose of elaborating, through a thorough study, an effective training model
covering the whole cemeterial and funerary sector- so as to convey new reasons
of involvement to operators already working in this sector as well as to
create new professional figures, especially that of a ceremony official for
lay and personalized ceremonies. Research is in progress and the training
trial-program should end by September 2003. Perfezione e Finitudine. La concezione della morte nell'utopia in età
moderna e contemporanea is the title of an
international conference concerned with the historical philosophical and
literary aspects of the different concepts of death in modern utopias. This
two-day meeting was held in September the 28th and 29th
2001 and was organized in collaboration with the Turin University Department
of History and the Bologna University Interdepartmental Research Centre on
Utopia, directed by Professor Vita Fortunati. The records of the conference,
edited by V.Fortunati, M.Sozzi and P.Spinozzi, are at present under
publication by Lindau and will probably be available to the public by spring
2003. The conference being held at
present, La letteratura guarda la morte:
lo scrittore, la vecchiaia, la fine della vita, is also part of the same
line of literary studies. Among its objectives, the
Fabretti Foundation is concerned with education as well as with scientific
research, in order to eventually overcome the taboo that has always been
related to the thought of death
in our society. Furthermore, the Foundation is deeply concerned with the
outlining of specific training patterns with reference to such aspects as the
care of dying people, the funerary ceremonies, and the assistance to people in
mourning. The first training initiative
in a health sector has been organized in collaboration with the Oncologic
Department of the San Giovanni A.S. Hospital of Turin (under the sponsorship
of the Lega Italiana per la lotta contro i Tumori, the A.S.L.1, the Medical
Association of the Province of Turin, the Rete Oncologica of the Region of
Piedmont, and the Polo Oncologico Torino Est). The program consisted in a
cycle of ‘discussions’ on the “perception of death in contemporary
medicine” that were held in autumn-winter 2001 and addressed to medical and
paramedical operators. A second and larger
initiative in this field - with 17 meetings in four different hospitals of
Turin and a final one at the Turin University – titled
“Uno sguardo sul ciclo della
vita. Conversazioni, riflessioni, emozioni, sul tema del
corpo e della morte” is in progress (autumn 2002 – spring 2003) and is
being carried out in collaboration with the Rete Oncologica Piemontese. For this initiative ECM credits have been requested.
Various local bodies are interested in the training aspects of
the Foundation’s activities. In fact, the achievement of a higher cultural
qualification and a greater operative efficiency in the public service is felt
as an important and pressing need. The process of transformation that has
being characterizing our society during the last thirty years has resulted in
a sense of rootlessness with respect to the original cultures and traditions.
The experience of death is often faced without the necessary points of
reference or effective means. Today, in a society which is becoming more and
more pluralistic under a cultural, religious and ethnic point of view, it is
important to succeed in understanding all the different needs of the community
and to meet its demands related to what is a crucial passage in human life.
Therefore the Foundation has started collaboration with the Culture Department
of the Turin Municipality, and in particular with its Intercultural Centre,
and with the Civic Libraries, to organize a interreligious round table on
funerary rituals, with the participation of the various ethnic and religious
communities present in the urban area. The objective is that of pointing out the
fundamental needs of each community, in order to ask the Municipality a
multifunctional room suitable for funerary ceremonies of other religions as
well as of lay ones. Another cycle of meetings on the same subject
has also been very successful: “Gli altri addii. Riti funebri nelle culture
del mondo”, organized with the Municipality and the University of Turin (October
– November 2002). |