Two agreements were signed in Genoa between the National Museum of Italian Emigration, the Federal University of Santa Maria, and the Quarta Colônia UNESCO Global Geopark. The focus is on research, culture, and the promotion of the history of Italians in Brazil.
The history of Italian emigration once again unites Italy and Brazil. In Genoa, the National Museum of Italian Emigration (MEI) welcomed a delegation from Rio Grande do Sul to launch new forms of collaboration dedicated to research, culture, and the valorization of the heritage left by Italian emigrants and their descendants.
The meeting represents a further step in the relationship between Italian and Brazilian institutions, particularly with Rio Grande do Sul, one of the Brazilian states with the strongest Italian-origin communities and where the memory of emigration continues to be an integral part of the region’s cultural and social identity.
The Brazilian delegation was composed of Professor Maria Medianeira Padoin and from the professor Jorge Alberto Soares Cruz, of the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), and by the geologist and researcher Joseph Ottria. The guests met the president of the MEI Foundation, Paul Masini, and the museum’s curatorial staff.
From the comparison were born two collaboration agreements: one between the MEI Foundation and the Federal University of Santa Maria and the other with the Fourth Colônia Geoparque Mundial by UNESCO.
The agreements provide for joint research activities, scientific and cultural exchanges, enhancement of historical and territorial heritage, and internationalization initiatives. This project aims not only to preserve the memory of the past, but also to transform it into a tool for knowledge and collaboration for the future.
An exhibition to tell the story of the Italians of the Fourth Colony
Among the initiatives already planned is the creation of a MEI Multimedia exhibition dedicated to Italian emigration to the Fourth Colony and Rio Grande do Sul.
The exhibition will be part of the celebrations for the 150 years of Italian emigration to the Fourth Colony, offering the opportunity to tell, through documents, images, testimonies and multimedia tools, the history of the Italian communities who settled in Southern Brazil.
It’s a story that doesn’t just belong to the archives. It’s still visible today in the surnames, traditions, architecture, cuisine, popular festivals, and languages of the communities descended from Italian immigrants.
During the visit, the Brazilian delegation also donated to MEI a watercolor by Professor Emeritus of Architecture Dilson Sequin, depicting a historic home of Italian immigrants from the Fourth Colony. A symbolic gesture that enriches the museum’s collections and strengthens the cultural bond between the two sides of the Atlantic.
From the Emigration Museum to the Maritime Museum
The collaboration was not limited to the MEI. The Brazilian delegation also visited the Galata Maritime Museum, as part of the project that brings together the MEI, Mu.MA and the Lanterna within the Genoese cultural center dedicated to the sea and migration.
During the visit, possible new scientific and cultural collaboration projects were explored with the president of Mu.MA, Marco Ansaldo, and the director Elena Putti.
The goal is to build a network capable of connecting the history of migration with that of navigation and the relationships between peoples. Genoa, a city historically linked to the sea and to departures for the Americas, represents a particularly significant place in this sense.
The Genoese cultural center brings together heritage and expertise dedicated to the history of migration, the sea, and navigation, creating a journey that connects the memory of Italian emigration to the broader history of trade between Europe and America.
Memory as a common heritage
The agreements signed in Genoa take on a significance that goes beyond simple collaboration between institutions.
For Brazil, the history of Italian immigration represents an important component of the cultural formation of numerous communities, especially in the southern states. For Italy, however, the relationship with communities of Italian origin abroad constitutes a fundamental part of its contemporary history.
Today, generations after the great departures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the challenge is to transform that memory into a shared heritage.
Historical research, university exchanges, exhibitions and cultural projects can thus become tools to keep alive the relationship between those who left Italy and the millions of descendants who live in Brazil today.
The collaboration between Genoa and Rio Grande do Sul was born precisely from this awareness: Emigration is not just a page of the past, but a living story, capable of creating new bonds between Italy and Brazil.