CANNON THUNDERS CONTINUOUSLY …

PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release

CANNON THUNDERS CONTINUOUSLY …

Students and Academics of the University of Parma alla Castrense:
military and health life in the Great War

By Andrea Di Betta and Valentina Bocchi

Opening of historical-documentary exhibition

State Archive of Parma
Thursday, May 5 at 16:30

Parma State Archives, in the framework of the XV Week of teaching in archives, exhibits a historical-documentary exhibition that aims to investigate, through Alberto Bavagnoli’s correspondence, aspects of military health during the First World War. The exhibition, curated by Valentina Bocchi and Andrea Di Betta, exposes unpublished documents and photographs as well as sanitary materials from the institutions involved and from family collections.

The exhibition that Parma State Archives are organizing, by Valentina Bocchi and Andrea Di Betta, begins with correspondence that becomes reality in a research plan that revolves around a protagonist, Alberto Bavagnoli. Student of Medicine called to the front in 1915, the Cadet Officer continues his health training at the Medical School of the field of San Giorgio di Nogaro, in the province of Udine – and which is celebrating its centenary – established specifically to deal with the health emergency of the Eastern Front. Through letters and historical-scientific research, is proposed a section on an unpublished subject, that of health during the conflict.
The extensive correspondence, consisting of about a hundred letters and cards, all displayed, sent in 14 months and addressed only to parents, retraces in particular the events of the first year of the Great War, from the outbreak of hostilities to the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo (August 1916). It testifies to the various moments of the Castrense University of San Giorgio di Nogaro constitution, to which is dedicated a discussion.
The research, conducted in the local printed sources, in the archives of the University of Parma and the Order of Doctors in Parma, allowed to identify medical students and academics of the Castrense University coming from the University of Parma.
Photographs and health evidences complete the picture of the historical reconstruction, explaining medical and logistic aspects related to military hospitals located in Parma.
The exhibition is part of the centenary celebrations of the Great War and in the framework of the fifteenth week of teaching in archives, in order to know more about valuing also unpublished family sources.

Alberto Bavagnoli
Alberto Bavagnoli was born August 26, 1890 in a middle class family of Fiorenzuola d’Arda (PC). He attended the Royal High School-Gymnasium Romagnosi in Parma, title that will provide him access to academic studies in 1911. Already called up for training the year before, he is finally enlisted in May 24, 1915 in the 4th Company of Health as student enrolled in the fourth year of Medical School; in the following June he is assigned to the 114th field hospital. With the establishment of the Castrense University in San Giorgio di Nogaro (UD), he attended the first cycle of medical training and the completion of the first year of service during the Great War, he will be Aspiring Doctor in the fourth Alpine Regiment, “Monte Cervino” Battalion.

Castrense University
The field medical school – known as University Castrense – San Giorgio di Nogaro is established, with the Duke of Genoa’s Lieutenant Decree, to deal with health needs of the 3rd Army engaged on the eastern land front. Led by Lieutenant Colonel of Italy Red Cross, Professor Giuseppe Tusini, Professor of Clinical Surgery and operative General Medicine, first in Modena and then at Parma, he sees in his classrooms a thousand university students from all regions of Italy developing.
Coming by the University of Parma, in addition to the Director of Castrensian Courses are to be remembered Lt. Col. Attilio Cevidalli, Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in the service of the citizen Central Military Hospital, Lieutenant Colonel CRI Professor Giunio Salvi, Professor of Normal Human Anatomy and his assistant, in service to the Castrense, Lieutenant Doctor Emanuele Celli, who fell a few days before the end of the Great War.

DATA SHEET

CANNON THUNDERS CONTINUOUSLY …
Students and Academics of the University of Parma to Castrense: military and health life in the Great War
Historical documentary exhibition
By Andrea Di Betta and Valentina Bocchi

Opening Thursday, May 5 at 16:30
5 May to 30 September 2016
State Archive of Parma
Strada Massimo d’Azeglio, 45
43125 Parma
0521 233185
as-pr@beniculturali.it

Hours: Monday, Thursday, Friday at 9:00 to 13:30 | Tuesday, Wednesday from 9:00 to 17:00
free entrance

Scientific coordination and archival research
Andrea Di Betta, Valentina Bocchi, Maria Grazia Perazzo

In collaboration with
Municipal historical archive of Parma
Historical Archives of the University of Parma
Italian Red Cross Parma Committee
Fermoeditore
Order of Doctors in Parma

Providers
Pietro Viola
Paul Moruzzi
Fausto Corsini
Italian Red Cross – Parma Committee