The Saracen founded Nettuno in the 9th century. The Saracen camp at Minturno (in modern days Lazio) by the Garigliano River became a perennial thorn in the side for the Papacy and many expeditions were sought to rid them. In 915 Pope John X organized a vast alliance of southern powers, including Gaeta and Naples, the Lombard princes, and the Byzantines, though the Amalfitans stood aloof. The subsequent Battle of the Garigliano was successful and the Saracens were ousted from any presence in Lazio or Campania permanently, though raiding would be a continuous problem for another century.

The privately owned Villa Costaguti-Borghese at Nettuno, built 1648, has extensive gardens in a landscape park designed around 1840, now protected as a natural reserve. The Borghese Gladiator, a Hellenistic marble sculpture was discovered at Nettuno in 1611 and had its own room in the villa. It was sold to Napoleon in 1807 and is now in the Louvre.

Nettuno has one of the most important Italian baseball teams, Danesi Nettuno often winner of the Championship. U.S. soldiers, who landed along the coasts for the Operation Shingle in 1944, taught this game to the local people during the Second World War.

My idea is to re-visit the cultural background of the town trough those three figures that determined the identity of the place, coming from far away and leaving.

I’d like to collaborate with the local artists involved in the festival, imagining to build up a scenery involving the three figures and work on the possible dialogues and a context, like ghosts or oracles appearing during the time of the festivities. They would function as projection surfaces for actual issues, where the improbable encounter of those figures should point to the heterogeneous origin of cultural identities.

The medias to be used are to be determined by the local possibilities, the stress being put on the collaboration with the organization team of the festival. Nevertheless it should be adequate with a sensation of popular local culture.