…ONE DAY THERE WAS A PRESS.
	To see the bigger image, click the photo.
Someone probably doesn't know that Casapinta, not so many years ago, lost a very important historical find. We are speaking about the press of Scalabrino canton, dated 1738, which was used to macerate grapefruit and corn. But its life had been long and tormented: everything began in 1968, when it was victim of the flood which also afflicted our region.	open the bigger photo
On 27 March 1970, the mayor, Mr. Furno Marchese Tino, after asking a lot of times to the owner of the press to repair it, and after receiving always bad answers, asked to Mr. Baronio Alessandro, as he represented the department of public monuments in Biella, the permission to rebuild the press and a roof for it.	open the bigger photo
He got the permission but there was another problem: the whole work was too expensive. Actually, as we can read on the letter of 17 June 1970, written for Mr. Baronio, the Mayor asked for a funding to restore the press as the state expertise, carried out by Mr. Scalabrino Pier Giovanni, established that the charge would have been of 636.000 Lires.	open the bigger photo
But unfortunately the answer was not affirmative because this was against a law, which did not allow the State to finance extraordinary maintenance works on private things or real estate. As it was difficult to pay the charge, they decided not to continue with their project, even if this remainded an objective both for the municipality and its people.	open the bigger photo
In fact the next mayor, Mr. Cerruti Sola Ervino, recalled in 1976 the surveyor Scalabrino Pier Giovanni, editor of the old project of 1970.	open the bigger photo
But there still was the "money problem" because they wanted to safeguard the press, but they did not want to, or they could not, pay that expensive charge, even the owner, neither to give the press to the municipality, having, in this way, the possibility to receive the funding, as it would have become a public real estate.	open the bigger photo
And if normally a fairy tale has a happy ending, this one, as it is a real story, ends with the complete loss of this rally interesting find.	open the bigger photo
Apprenticeship June-July 2007 Manuela Bonardi and Veronica Serafia