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Brolio Castle

A tree as old as the abbey

It was in the second half of the 19th century, after the unification of Italy, that the potential of fossil Lignite began to be exploited for industrial purposes. The mining activity begins first in the open, followed by that underground. The valley definitively loses its rural appearance. Men from farmers become workers. The "culture" of miners is born. The mines constitute the largest mining basin of this kind in Italy (52% of the annual national production). The economy of the area and of the entire Valdarno is heading towards the highest indices of industrialization. In fact, lignite favors the birth and development of multiple industries and infrastructures. The miners are also the promoters of that worker awareness and that civilization of work that will be at the center of Valdarno's history. After the Second World War, after a momentary recovery, the lignitiferous market underwent a sharp contraction due to the introduction in Italy of foreign fuels, solid and liquid. The Mining Company does not know or does not want to think about restructuring and diversification plans. It faces the crisis with an innovative project: the S. Barbara Project, which provides for the closure of underground mines and the full exploitation of the lignitiferous deposit through “open pit” cultivation with technologically advanced mechanical means. The extracted product, no longer marketed, is used for the operation of a thermoelectric plant built on site. Thus ends the era of the miners. Unemployment is enormous due to the automatism that characterizes the new work plan. There are moments of great disarray and workers' struggles to which, in the short span of forty years, the total upheaval of the territory, the demolition of all the inhabited centers of the lignitiferous basin: mining villages, scattered nuclei and Castelnuovo dei Sabbioni are added. Almost a burnt offering for lignite. For the population it meant evacuation, expropriation, exodus. THE MINERS Marked in the face by the black powder of lignite. Big eyes of those who seek the light in the dark of the tunnels. A little bony physique, sinewy arms, solid legs. Skin parched by the sun of the squares or by the heat of the tunnels. A little slow, cautious pace, of someone used to moving with caution on always difficult terrain. Shoulders slightly curved due to the habit of being in confined spaces, under an earthen roof that is always too close. Trapped in a black web of galleries, galleriozzi, racks, niches; feet splashing in the mud; the brief flashes of acetylene lamps. Nude to the waist; runny sweat; smell and taste of lignite that smears your body, distorts your physiognomy, penetrates you, into your lungs and soul. The blows of the pickaxe are the only real moments. Then a sudden agility in the movements, almost a feline jerk, which arose from those rapid runs over time, immediately after the mine was turned on to take shelter in the ravines of the tunnels. He ran with danger, against the ambush of death. Men who every day experienced the anxiety, fear, anguish of death, because down there she wandered restlessly. But they didn't fear her. Most of them ignored it. And it was the greatest spite they could do to her. Did death follow them? He might even come behind. They could not take it into consideration: outside there was life waiting for them. Life that was called wife, children, parents, friends ... for that life it was necessary to dig lignite. Dig. Dig. Dig. Brown coal was life. Fatigue was life. Sweat was life. The cold breath of death that followed them was also life: to be fought, to be tamed. In the gallery you felt alive and strong. It was their land, the one they penetrated with all their energy. Almost a big woman's womb to possess. You went in boys, you came out men. Complicity, collaboration, solidarity: there it was not just words. As the body became more and more exhausted, the spirit grew stronger. Men. Everyone. True. Strong. Stronger than the earth they dug, because they were not one, but many, and the many formed only one man: the man of the mine. (M. BONACCIANI, The valley of the mines, Aska Editions 2015)