Basaglia ‘Asylum Farewell’ Anniversary Events

A festival honoring Franco Basaglia (1924-1980), the man who was responsible for the shutdown of all inhumane insane asylums in Italy, will run from March until July. The event “INSANE ASYLUM, FAREWELL! Franco Basaglia 100,” is organized by the theater group Chille de la Balanza, who lives in the former mental hospital in San Salvi, Florence. 

Monday, March 11 marks the 100th anniversary of Franco Basaglia’s birth. A remake of the symbolic blue papier mâché horse, Marco Cavallo 2024, will be inaugurated at San Salvi on the lawn at 5 pm. Artist Edoardo Malagigi created the sculpture of the horse out of recycled plastic. Franco Basalgia was the director at the San Giovanni mental asylum in Trieste, during the time when Marco the horse (1960/1970s) would carry a laundry cart back and forth between pavilions at the asylum. The patients adored the horse and admired his freedom to go out, which they did not have. Once the horse reached old age he was going to be put down, but the patients urged for the animal’s death not to happen. Despite that fact that they had no voice locally, the inmates of the insane asylum sent a letter to government officials at province of Trieste and the horse was able to retire on the hospital grounds. 

Franco Basaglia’s cousin, Vittorio, visited the Trieste institution and listened to the stories the patients would share about the horse and how he was their friend. Vittorio made the proposal he recreate the horse as a symbol of freedom, with wood and papier mâché, and color it blue like the sky that has no boundaries. Everyone did it together. After a year of work the sculpture was finished in 1973 and named Marco Cavallo (Marco the horse). The horse was so big that when they tried to roll it out the door, they had to tear down the archway for the horse to fit through. This marked a new moment in life at the asylum. Dreams, desires, hopes, feelings, thoughts, were written by patients and filled in the belly of Marco Cavallo. The horse was paraded through the streets of Trieste, sparking the hope of being able to be together with others in an open social place. Franco Basaglia wrote, “For an entire day the city understood what a mental hospital meant and who the people who lived there were.”

This initiative, which received nationwide attention, helped to propel the approval of law 180, the Italian Mental Health Act of 1978, designed to reform of the psychiatric system is Italy. This law imposed the closure of insane asylums and established public mental health services. Psychiatric assistance was shifted towards Community Mental Health Centers, hospitalizations of new patients to the existing mental hospitals were not allowed, psychiatric wards were opened inside general hospitals with limited beds, compulsory treatments were to be exceptional interventions applied only when adequate community facilities could not be accessed.

Franco Basaglia treated his patients like human beings, which was virtually unknown inside the psychiatric facilities. Patients were locked in shackles, isolated, drugged into catatonic states, sitting, staring into blank space, and received electroshock. They were stripped of their civil rights and treated as objects. Franco Basaglia’s coworker, Peppe Dell’ Acqua, said he gave dignity to his patients and demonstrated that no person is incurable. Through the months of March, April, June, and July celebrate and learn about the man who put an end to the inhumane conditions of mentally ill patients.

Below are March and April events of the festival: 

Saturday, March 9 and Sunday, March 10 

San Salvi at 9 pm: A new production will be put on by the Chille, “MANICOMIO, ADDIO! Against All Walls.” Admission for the show is €12 full, €10 reduced with limited seats. Reservations are required with advance payment. Info and reservations can be found through phone/WhatsApp +39 (335) 627-0739, email info@chille.it

Monday, March 11

Garden of Villa Arrivabene, headquarters of District 2 at 3:30 pm: “Parade of Harlequin and Pulcinella” organized by the Potlach Theatre of Fara Sabina

San Salvi (via San Salvi 12, bus 6):  Unveiling of the sculpture Marco Cavallo 2024.

Friday, March 15

Caffè Letterario de Le Murate at 3 pm: “Franco Basaglia: past, present, and future of psychiatry,” proposed by the European University Institute of Fiesole. Conference (in English) by researcher Bojan Bilic, who will talk on “The Influence of Basaglia on the Feminism in the Balkans.” Free admission, reservation highly recommended through phone/WhatsApp +39 (335) 627-0739, email info@chille.it.

Caffè Letterario de Le Murate at 5 pm: Roundtable discussion on the relevance of the reforms proposed by Franco Basaglia. Participating in discussion are Vinzia Fiorino, historian, Marina Guglielmi, literary scholar, Patrizia Meringolo, community psychologist, and Mariella Orsi, sociologist. Free admission, reservation high recommended through phone/WhatsApp +39 (335) 627-0739, email info@chille.it.

San Salvi at 9 p.m.: Reproduction of the Walk “Once upon a time…the asylum.” Admission for the show is €12 full, €10 reduced with limited seats. Reservations are required with advance payment. Info and reservations: phone/WhatsApp +39 (335) 627-0739, email info@chille.it.

Friday, March 22 

San Salvi at 5 pm: Meeting of “memory and current issues in Italian former asylums.” Participating will be Pompeo Martelli, head of the Museum of the Mind in Rome and coordinator of Mente in rete, which brings together all the most important people born in the spaces that once housed asylums in Italy, and Thomas Emmenegger, Swiss psychiatrist and social entrepreneur in Italy for many years, president of Olinda, the group of organizations collaborating in the reuse process of the former psychiatric Paolo Pini in Milan.

Saturday, March 23

San Salvi at 9 pm: “They are just sounds” by and with Sara Chieppa will be staged. Narrative about asylums of yesterday and today and above all about the discomfort of young people in today’s society. Admission for the show is €12 full, €10 reduced with limited seats. Reservations are required with advance payment. Info and reservations: phone/WhatsApp +39 (335) 627-0739, email info@chille.it.

Sunday, March 24

San Salvi at 9 pm: “A Girl” by and with Sara Tombelli. Also, a narrative about asylums of yesterday and today and above all about the discomfort of young people in today’s society. Admission for the show is €12 full, €10 reduced with limited seats. Reservations are required with advance payment. Info and reservations: phone/WhatsApp +39 (335) 627-0739, email info@chille.it.

Wednesday, March 27 

San Salvi at 9 pm: Scientific Theater of Verona, production with the theme of Alzheimer’s, “Yesterday. The last game,” by and with Jana Bakan, and with Isabella Caserta and Francesco Laruffa. The show is inspired by a true story. Admission for the show is €12 full, €10 reduced with limited seats. Reservations are required with advance payment. Info and reservations: phone/WhatsApp +39 (335) 627-0739, email info@chille.it.

Wednesday, April 10 and Thursday, April 11

Teatro di Fiesole at 9 pm: “The True Story of an Unthinkable Liberation,” featuring journalist Massimo Cirri and psychiatrist (former student and collaborator of Franco Basaglia) Peppe Dell’Acqua. Production of the Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia, directed by Erika Rossi. The show is about the memorable years how the patients were treated and then how they were liberated. Full admission costs €15, reduced €12. Limited seats, mandatory reservation with advance payment. Info and reservations: phone/whatsapp +39 (335) 627-0739, email info@chille.it.

San Salvi’s closure began with the Law 180 (“Basaglia’s Law”) and ended with the release of the last patient in 1998. Dr. Carmelo Pellicanò, San Salvi’s last director, said that to be able to close the asylum the city had to be able to tour it to never let the story fade from memory. San Salvi was turned into a cultural center and the theatre company was asked to reside in the building and create cultural projects that includes history of the former asylum. Every year a tribute to Dino Campana, former poet, and other patients, is organized and guests are guided through the building to learn about its heritage. (Sophia Koch)