Peace in flight on butterfly wings

Fifteen years after the Dayton Agreement and created jointly with all the INFIORE project partners, the “Garden of Peace”, a shared and perennial garden in the heart of Cervia, bears fundamental witness to how we can work together concretely, consolidating bonds between towns and countries with different cultures. It’s also one more example of activity oriented towards the creation and promotion of a common sensitivity on the subject of urban upgrading, aimed at encouraging tourism in the partner areas and improving the quality of life. The floral arrangement is inspired by Tonino Guerra’s poem “The Butterfly” and is also the symbol of an “ideal” town where green areas and environment are no longer just added value but fundamental and indispensable elements for harmonious development of a territory and the well-being of its inhabitants.

Riccardo Todoli
Public Green Areas Delegate

THE GARDEN OF PEACE
Rotonda della Pace
Lungomare D’Annunzio – Cervia

The Butterfly

Contented, I’ve been really contented
many times in life
but most of all when
they liberated me in Germany
and I set to looking at a butterfly
without the desire to eat it.

Tonino Guerra

Butterflies , which overcome all barriers, introduce us to the idea of world peace, of global solidarity, the overcoming of wars and the construction of an alternative to struggles among peoples. Something that can ensure the prospect of a decent life for new generations. Butterflies arrive and set down everywhere, from the burning sands of Africa to the most uninhabited and out of the way places. They recognise neither barriers nor borders, good or bad, rich or poor, and wherever they go they bring lightness and joy. The three butterflies , in Corten steel faced with  glass spheres in the colours of the flag of peace, are a symbolic representation of the whole of Europe’s desire to achieve a geopolitical and social balance among its countries and peoples. The structure in the central flowerbed, with the wings closed, is flanked by a stylised outline on the ground depicting a small butterfly, created with white and pink annuals of Begonia semperflorens and yellow leaf Helichrysum petiolare. The great butterfly with its wings half closed, poised on a large daisy, was created by using, in the central capitulum, a mixture of annual species of high development and of pastel colouring – Nicotiana, Cosmea, Heliotropium and Argyranthemum – and in the petals a succession of white and pink Begonia semperflorens. The butterfly with open wings is the actual focal point of the bed, soaring skyward after having broken its restraining chain, the latter created with Vinca cataranthus var. Egeo and Cora in pastel colours, intermingled with Salvia farinacea var. Strata.