Attilio Albergoni was born in 1949 January 31st, in Palermo – Sicily -where he currently lives and works. He worked at the City of Palermo – Municipal Historical Archives – Services Archives and Anthropological Heritage Spaces. For nearly two decades conducting historical research, iconographic and documentary, in archives in Italy, USA, Germany, England, France, about Sicily and especially about the city of Palermo during the years’30 and’40, with insights on the period that saw heavily involved in the events of World War II. The daily life of the population in those years and all the world created by the atypical war that revolved around it, has remained largely forgotten, but it is still an integral part of the past, terrible and difficult years, are the key to understanding the in which we live.
Career
He is currently Chairman of the Associazione Culturale MEDITERRANIAE, a non-profit association whose primary aim is to spread the culture and history of Sicily in the world. In 2009 he was appointed as knight of the Merit Order of the Italian Republic. He has been president of the Sicilian section of the SIPBC (Italian Society for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in time of war) until 2002. He has been Director of the Photographic Section of the Museum of the Sea – Arsenal of the Bourbon Royal Navy of Palermo, from 1998 to 2001. He has been consultant for the Department of Culture and Tourism of the City of Palermo on bomb shelters in Palermo, and for the JPAC – Honolulu for a research on USAAF pilots killed in the territory of Palermo. He is consultant of the Sicilian Region Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and Identity for the WWII period.
Selection of the most important events
On April 2021 he published a biographical book on the American captain Mason Hammond, who was part of the AMGOT in Palermo. This Harvard professor ensured that the bombed monuments of Palermo and the rest of Sicily were secured with AMGOT funds. He was the first Monument Man to operate in the field in Sicily in 1943, at the head of the Fine Arts and Monuments.
In December 2020 he published a work entitled “1937 Public Works in Sicily”. Excursus on the public works wanted by the regime in Sicily, and in Palermo, inaugurated in August of that year by Mussolini, Many pictorial and non-pictorial works of art, produced by distinguished artists (Guttuso, Balla, Marinetti, Rizzo) in those years ; the architectures that we still see today, such as the Fire Brigade Barracks in via Scarlatti, are photographed in period images with the history of their inauguration.
On December 27th, 2017 a compendium of the exhibition was published by the Superintendent of the BB. CC. and AA. of Palermo, the volume “La Guerra dell’Arte” containing also the whole chronology of the bombing on the city of Palermo. On December 21, 2017 the “La Guerra dell’Arte” exhibition was inaugurated at the Convent of the Magione. The event was curated by Attilio Albergoni and organized by Mediterraniae in the cloister of the church of “the Magione” in partnership with the Superintendency of BB.CC. and AA. of Palermo, RAI Sicily, Navarra Editore, and the Regional Library “A. Bombace”. The subjects were the monuments of Palermo destroyed by the Second World War and their recovering started in the autumn 1943, by Superintendent Mario Guiotto and by the USAAF Cap. Mason Hammond, Adviser of the AMGOT.
On May 6th, 2014 as Chairman of the Association Mediterraniae, he was curator of the exhibition “Palermo, images of memory 1937 – 1947″, in collaboration with the architect Vincenzo Crisafulli and the Regional Superintendency of BB.CC. and AA. The exhibition (a photographic and documentary excursus on the monuments damaged during the Second World War) was held at Palazzo Ajutamicristo.
In June 2013 for Mediterraniae he realized, with RAI Sicily, of twenty day’s events “July 1943. Palermo under a sky of stars and… stripes”, to remember the 70th anniversary of the Allied landings in Sicily in 1943 and subsequent entry of US troops in Palermo. The opening ceremony was attended, among others, by the USA Consul General Mr. Moore, the Russian Consul Mr. Korotkov, the German Ambassador in Italy Mr. Schäfers and the German Consul in Palermo Mr. Militello, civil and military Administrations, the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Palermo.
Scientific curator of the photo exhibition ” Coastal Fortifications of Palermo from the fifteenth to the twentieth century”, organized by the Ass. Cultural Mediterraniae and held at the Circle Employees Defense – Military Command Region SOUTH Palermo 3 to 11 May of 2008;
In 2003 for Mediterraniae he made a photographic exhibition and documentary “Over all Time – Palermo 1943 – 2003” to commemorate the bombing in Palermo during WW II.
On 6 January 2014, he published the 2nd edition of “Palermo Images of Memory: 1937 to 1947 – Anthology of a Decade”, of which is co-author with the architect Vincenzo Crisafulli (Vittorietti Editor).
In 2010, he published the book “1937 Le Grandi Manovre in Sicilia”, history about the military manouvres before the WWII.
In 2010, he published the 2nd edition of the novel book “The Puparo of Marina Square”.
In 2010, he published the book “Guide to military pillboxes in the territory of Palermo 1940 – 1943”.
In 2008, he published the book “The Puparo of Marina Square”, a selection of short novels whose main characters are some policemen of the “Reali Carabinieri” in Sicily in the early 40’s.
In 2007, he published the book “The Prefecture of Palermo 1930 – 1944. Between the central and the local Government”.
On December 2006, he published on CD–Rom the interactive book “Military architectures strongholds in the territory of Palermo. History of the Italian military strongholds during the Second World War”.
On 18 December 2004, he published the book “Palermo Images of Memory: 1937 to 1947 – Anthology of a Decade”, of which he is co-author with Mr. Vincenzo Crisafulli (SIGMA Editor).
In 2003, he was scientific curator of the documentary and photographic exhibition “Beyond any time”, for the 60th anniversary of the bombing of 9 May 1943 on the city of Palermo.
In 2001, he was curator of the exhibition “The Italian Navy in the first half of the ‘900” at the arsenal of the Bourbon Royal Navy – Museo del Mare di Palermo.
In 2000, he wrote his first book, “Tales of Palermo of the ’43”.