by Michele Bertollo
There are books that are born to tell the past, and books that, although speaking of yesterday, seem to be written to illuminate today. “And you, little Barbiana”edited by Renzo Salvi and published by Citadel publishingundoubtedly belongs to the second category. This is not just a collection of testimonies on Don Lorenzo Milani and his educational experience in the remote canonical of Mugello: it is a work that wonders about the roots of that teaching and why, over one hundred years after the birth of the prior, we continue to return to Barbiana to seek answers to the most urgent questions about school, justice and the sense of civil commitment.
This book stands out for its ability to give voice to the direct protagonists of that experience: Agostino Burberiformer pupil of Don Milani and today president of the Foundation dedicated to him, e Marco Campedellinarrator and theologian, author of a touching theatrical monologue included in the appendix. With them, the reflections of Mariano Borgognonidirector of the magazine Fortress and historian of Christian spirituality. The result is a choral fresco that does not have the tone of the celebration but that of a lived story, made up of words full of meaning and questions that remain open.
Memory and topicality: the Barbiana school and its inheritance
On the centenary of Don Milani’s birth, this collection does not limit himself to retracing his biography, but focuses on the concrete legacy of his teaching. Barbiana It was not only an extraordinary educational experiment: it was a revolution that taught the children of the farmers who made the floor, who became aware citizens, not to lower their heads in front of the injustices. Don Milani did not only have a school to give culture, but to give dignity.
The heart of the book consists of the conversation between Renzo Salvi and Agostino Burberi, who with an impressive lucidity traces the first meeting with Don Milani, the school’s path, the difficulties and the misunderstandings with the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The picture that comes out is complex and fascinating: Milani was a rigorous, hard, often angular, but also capable of an absolute dedication to his boys, to the point of saying in his spiritual testament: “I loved you than you than to God”. An affirmation that is not a heresy, but the testimony of a radical love, of a faith embodied in the concrete commitment for the last.
In the book, Burberi tells with emotion the day when Milani arrived in Barbiana, on December 7, 1954, in the rain, with a dark cloak and attentive gaze. He did not know what was waiting for him, nor what he would build in that remote place. But from that moment everything changed. His idea of school was revolutionary: no votes, no rejection, incessant study, reading of newspapers, political discussions, opening to the social and cultural reality of the world. There was no paternism or charity in his teaching, but the belief that education was the only tool to change the fate of those who were born from the wrong part of society.
Theater as a story tool
One of the most original elements of the book is the presence of the theatrical script Obedience is no longer a virtuewritten by Mina shabby and staged by the Compagnia della Loggetta in 1969, only two years after the death of Don Milani. The insertion of a theatrical text is not a simple tribute, but a precise choice: the theater, like the Barbiana school, is a place of speech and comparison, where reality takes shape through the story. The drama of the persecution of Don Milani by the official Church, his suffering for the misunderstanding, but also the strength of his message emerge with extraordinary power. The theater thus becomes another tool to keep his voice alive.
Next to the historical text of Mezzadri, the book also includes a recent monologue of Marco Campedelli, Good to die forstaged at the Pro Civitate Christiana in Assisi in 2023. Here the figure of Don Milani is explored in his inner tensions, in his sense of solitude, in his battle continues with the Church that accused him of excessive zeal and an absolute moral rigidity. A more intimate, almost tormented portrait that helps to understand how much the prior of Barbiana was driven by an unwavering faith and, at the same time, marked by the suffering for the misunderstandings that surrounded him.
A book to reflect
“And you, little Barbiana” It is a book that does not just tell, but forces you to reflect. What remains of Barbiana today? How much of his lesson was assimilated by the Italian school, the Church, the company? The questions remain open, but the merit of this book is not to offer easy or pre -packaged answers. On the contrary, it invites to ask new questions, to rethink the sense of education and civil commitment.
In the last pages, Mariano Borgognoni underlines how Barbiana has remained an intact place, without becoming a sanctuary or a museum. There is no merchandising, there are no ticket offices or audio guides. There is only the school, the rectory, the tomb of Don Milani. A living place, because it continues to stumble, to question, to interrogate. And this is perhaps the greatest lesson that this book leaves us: the true legacy of Barbiana is not a embalmed memory, but a seed that continues to sprout.
