Virtual Museum of the Sapling Vine of Pantelleria

A first large "intangible" collection that testifies to the historicity of UNESCO recognition. This is the summary of the virtual museum of the sapling vine of Pantelleria, whose website www.pantelleriaunesco.eu was presented, in preview, in Naples on Tuesday 28 March, at the Pagliara Library of the Suor Orsola Benincasa University.  

 

The online container, inextinguishable and accessible to everyone anywhere in the world, houses the immense heritage of the ancient agricultural practice of Pantelleria, which makes the sapling vine not only a symbol of the island but an example of heroic work of man who marries the force of nature in its most luxuriant expression. 

 

The creation of the Virtual Museum of the sapling vine of Pantelleria, envisaged in the project for the protection of "The traditional agricultural practice of the cultivation of the "sapling vine" of the community of Pantelleria", was carried out with the contribution of the MIPAAF, pursuant to the D.D.G. Prot.  Internal N.0447796 of 20/09/2022. The result of a joint work between the Pantelleria Island National Park Authority, the Suor Orsola Benincasa University, MedEat Research, Svimez aims to identify and document the characteristic elements of the practice inscribed in the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage and, in particular, of the bearer and holder community.

 

 

The virtual museum is a container of testimonies and voices linked to the land that also includes the paths traced by the National Park, making a unicum between the human experience and the territory. Since intangible cultural heritage is a living heritage, impossible to circumscribe in space and time, the creation of a dedicated virtual place allows a constant implementation capable of understanding the cultural dimension of the sapling vine, whose inscription on the UNESCO List  it has given the deserved value to a distinctive element of the island, to be safeguarded, handed down and studied by virtue of the characteristics for which it has rightfully entered the category of heroic viticulture, in which patient human work marries  the continuous extreme challenges of environmental conditions.

 

"The virtual museum, created in Italian and English, must become a tool to make Pantelleria and its heritage practice known throughout the world, allowing the visitor to discover it well before and, once on the island, to be able to meet the community directly with greater awareness". This is the comment of the president of the Park, Salvatore Gabriele. "For the Pantelleria community it will be, on the other hand, an amplifier of the value of traditional agricultural products; in order to also increase its real economic value, adequate to the historical manual techniques, to the precautions, to the time taken by farmers to obtain a wine like Passito di Pantelleria, extraordinary and unique in its being".