UPDATE: April 7, 2009: The full extent of the destruction of historic buildings, churches, archives, and such in the area of the regional capital of L’Aquila is impossible to gauge at this time. It’s said that getting around in the city of 80,000 is nearly impossible, due to rubble. The death toll is now over 180, with 1500 wounded, and 17,000 homeless. Many have taken shelter with friends, otherwise this number would be much higher. A tent-city is set up on the outskirts of the community.
Officials in Rome reported that the quake damaged the Baths of Caracalla, one of the most imposing ancient Roman ruins in the Italian capital, some 60 miles west of the epicenter.
News agency, ANSA, reported that the Porta Napoli, built in 1548 in honor of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, was destroyed.
See additional links at the end of this blog.
April 6, 2009: Today’s earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy, reported to have killed 150 people, if not more, also caused tremendous damage to the medieval city’s historic structures. In just a quick Internet search, I found the following damage being reported:
- The apse of the Abruzzo city’s largest Romanesque church, the 13th-century Basilica di Santa Maria di Collemaggio, had collapsed ”from the
transept to the back of the church.” - The Porta Napoli, the oldest and most beautiful gate to the city built in 1548 in honour of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, was destroyed in the quake.
- The National Museum of Abruzzo, housed in the 16th-century castle, the Museum unified the collections of the civic and diocesan museums as well as a private collection of paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries and includes a beautifully preserved fossilised skeleton of a prehistoric elephant found near the town in the 1950s. The castle suffered a collapse on its third floor and is too dangerous to enter.
- The cupola of the 17th-century Anime Sante church and the bell tower of L’Aquila’s largest Renaissance church, San Bernardino da Siena, fell in the quake.
- The cupola of the 18th-century Baroque church of St Augustine collapsed, flattening the prefecture that held L’Aquila’s state archives.
- The bell tower of the Basilica of San Bernardino has collapsed and its apse was seriously damaged.
- The church of Anime Sante in Piazza Duomo no longer has a dome.
Click on the photo above for more pictures on the New York Times website.
See: http://www.italoeuropeo.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1612&Itemid=106
See: http://www.agi.it/italy/news/200904060922-cro-ren0002-art.html
See video: http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=Italy+State+Archive
Thanks to Tom Kemp, who earlier this afternoon, Twittered about the collapse of the Archivo di Stato (State Archive) in L’Aquila, Italy. He quickly posted a blog about it on the GenealogyBank blog.
UPDATE – April 7: See: Damage to Historical Monuments ‘Significant” – in the New York Times
See: Italians Comb Through Rubble – in the New York Times.
This is very very sad, I hope they have the resources to carefully displace the damaged areas and attempt to salvage what is internal at least a portion there of. I did not realize it was that bad til this evening. SusiCP
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The picture referencing the flattened building is the Prefettura and NOT the Archivio di Stato in L’aquila.
Anthony Alioto
San Francisco
Pingback: Photographed Damaged Building in L’Aquila is the Prefettura - and Not Archives as Reported
Does anyone know how to get in touch with the consul who officed at the Palazzo di Governo? We were trying to research the archives, and were sent there. He helped us communicate with the clerks who said that the records we sought, because they predated 1875, were in Naples.
So, if anyone knows the name or how to get in touch with the consul, I’d like to contact him, thank him, and see how we can help.
Two, does anyone know how to research the records of Abruzzese in Naples online?
Thanks
My partner Mario is there now in the midst of this earthquake tragedy.
Mario and I recently wrote a book on his childhood in the Abruzzo region and L’Aquila, called CHEWING GUM IN HOLY WATER. It details this magical place and the amazing adventures he had as a boy traveling the hilltop villages of the region with his uncle a traveling priest. Strange to think that some of it is now a record as several of the historical structures mentioned are gone.
Mario sent me a text three hours after the tragedy saying “lots of dead people everywhere”. He was woken at 3.30 am with his bed sliding across the room, tipping and jamming him between the bed and the wall for a terrifying 30 seconds. All this in the dark. People then ran screaming outside. His mother’s house, where he was born, is in ruins, friends are dead and there is also a great loss of heritage with many of the art treasures and historical structures damaged in L’Aquila. He told me about a major aftershock: he was in a friend’s house and said a tree he was looking at outside went out of view and then came back into view again…the whole house had moved sideways by about 12 inches! People spent the first few nights sleeping outside in the cold, too terrified to sleep inside buildings due to the hundreds of aftershocks.
Let us hope these brave people recover their lives, their homes, their businesses, and much of their artistic and architectural heritage. The Abrzzese are a strong, proud people and they will recover, although after such a tragedy it will take time. My thoughts, like those of many others, are with them.
Cheryl Hardacre
I am looking for death records between 1910 and 1920 in L’Aquila, Italy. Specifically looking for Angela Trozzi Amaranto, if anyone knows where I could find such, please e-mail me personally.
Thank you very much.
Are birth records from the various commune of the province of L’Aquila stored in the State Archives which was destroyed in the earthquake?
Thanks for any information you may provide.
Is there a need for books to be sent to the library in Aquila and
what is the address to which they should be sent?
Cathleen McLoughlin