The Salerno Landing, a thematic candidate to European Heritage Label 2023

The application to the European Heritage Label 2023 has promoted by the the City Public Administration of Battipaglia on behalf of partners of the Salerno area.

It follows the trace of a common project among six towns of the Sele Plain on 2022: Acerno, Battipaglia, Bellizzi, Eboli, Montecorvino Pugliano and Olevano sul Tusciano.

The site embraces the entire province of Salerno. Indeed, regardless of the symbolic place identified, countless are the spaces that bear historical evidence. 

Our purpose is to enhance an area whose towns have stories to tell and places to preserve and promote: Altavilla and Battipaglia, were awarded the silver medal for civil valour, Salerno, where the democratic rebirth of Italy started, Paestum, whose attractiveness charmed writers such as Norman Lewis, the English cemetery of Commonwealth soldiers, the Olevano shelter caves with their rupestrian churches, the Maiori beach, the sea where the Velella sailors lie. The driving force is the digital aspect which will virtualise the diffuse spatiality of the chosen sites. These represent the sacrifice of the population (the shelter of Battipaglia), the rebirth (the hall of the Salerno City Council where the first unitary government took office) and the MOA, a place deputed to the custody of memory.

On the eightieth anniversary of the 1943 Salerno landing, we propose the remembrance of the operation Avalanche, a WII battle in a territory with a coastal front of about 40 km from Maiori to Sapri, affected by the largest amphibious operation in the Mediterranean.

The Operation Avalanche, in the aftermath of the armistice, upset, with its consequences, the entire area, including towns and cities in the hinterland. However, it marked a turning point in the history of Europe.

It became part of the cultural DNA of the surrounding area and a broad representation responds to the need to preserve the value of collective memory. It was the first real Anglo-American battle on the continent since Dunkirk, yet its importance has long been downplayed. Only the collective narrative, strongly supported by innovative digital technologies for virtualising, preserving and sharing heritage, has the power to restore to the international community the correct perception of its importance and its consequences.