Caption
"This carpet, immovable in its flight, should bring to mind the heaps of salt and the cane-breakes with their birds which once filled these places with poetry. ... The world of the salt civilasation with its pain and poetry is flying from us."
Tonino Guerra
The fountain called "The Suspended Carpet" is situated in the square dedicated to the saltworkers, beyond Ponte delle Paratoie in Cervia.
It dates back to 9th Nov. 1997, thus it is the most recent monument in the town.
Its unveiling coincided with the anniversary of the pubblication of Pope Innocent's XII chirograph, which 300 years before allowed Cervia's people to move from the Old to the New Town, in the present location.
This fountain was designed by Tonino Guerra and realized by the mosaicist Marco Bravura, it looks like a large mosaic carpet, made of marble and glass paste, on which stand two salt heaps made of crystal and marble.
A special water-game under the carpet creates a cloud-effect on which it seems to lay, while the water pool below is surrounded by cobblestones which recall the landscape of a past time, together with an aromatic herb garden and a reed-thicket, partly real, partly made of copper and ceramic, which represent the watershed between the past and the present, memories and reality.
Perhaps Tonino Guerra can be considered the greatest living cinematographic scriptwriter, with more than ninety film, but more than the amount of its work it hits the quality of that it has written; "La notte", "L'avventura", "L'eclisse", "Deserto rosso", "Blowup", "Zabriskie Point" for Michelangelo Antonioni; "Amarcord", "E la nave va", "Ginger e Fred" for Federico Fellini.
Tonino Guerra has collaborated also with Vittorio De Sica, Mario Monicelli, the Taviani brothers, Rosi, Tarkovskij, Wenders, Angelopoulos.
Tonino was born in Santarcangelo di Romagna, 16 March 1920 from a father greengrocer and an illiterate mother, wrote the first verses (in romagnolo dialect) in 1945 in order to alleviate the suffering of its companions of imprisonment in the lager of Troisdorf. Once exited it collected its poetries in volumes that thanks to the friendship of Vittorini, Bo and Contini had publication and appreciation. In the ' 60 the encounter with Michelangelo Antonioni for "L' avventura": the rest is history. History of the cinema.