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Balestrino is a comune in the Province of Savona in the Italian region of Liguria. A picturesque seaside town in Italy's countryside, Balestrino has a long, fascinating, and at times gruesome history, and in the present day exists as a town of two halves because the land the old portion was situated on was geologically unstable. The old centre is now a ghost town, but Balestrino as a whole remains inhabited, as everyone simply moved downhill and built new buildings that are on more stable terrain. As of 2011, there are 607 people living in the new town beneath the old Balestrino.[1]

Coverage[]

Balestrino is featured in Home Wrecked Home, where 60 years after people have let nature to confront every former shelter and community with catastrophic threats. Gordon Masterton, along with Ubaldo Pastorino, explores the town and tour the ruins and the invasion.

History[]

The ancient Italian hill town survived a dark and tortured past but not the shifting earth beneath its walls. Gordon Masterton stated if the stones of Balestrino could talk, they'll tell a story of 700 years of the rise and fall of a community, a story of a town teetering on the brink of collapse over many centuries but surviving because man used his intellect and ingenuity to keep it surviving.

PunishmentatBalestrino

Feudal lords punishing a peasant.

Beneath the once picturesque village lies an ancient legacy of brutality and oppression like in the decaying courtyard where the lords of Balestrino once executed barbaric punishments to anyone who challenged their cruel dominion. Ubaldo Pastorino stated that one of the most common penalties was to hang people with their wrists behind their backs so that the shoulders broke and the victim would not able to work and die of starvation. From the 1400's onward, the town was ruled by feudal lords who treated the impoverished town people like slaves. Ubaldo Pastorino stated that the Marquis of Balestrino was a tyrant, an absolute owner of the people and the place by owning the ovens, water, streams around the area, and all connected with the food for the people.

The Problems Begin[]

GordonMastertonshowingmaterials

Gordon Masterton explaining the materials used in a wall.

Balestrino's feudal history planted the seeds of it's physical collapse since the feudal lords preserved the best building materials for themselves, residents had to make due with whatever they could find. Gordon Masterton shows the external skin of the wall where it reveals a lot about the construction of the buildings with it fallen away and revealed the underlying construction by different types of stones incorporated into the wall in what look like sandstone, limestone, bricks, tiles, and anything that was available to the builders that incorporated in and cemented within a loose laying mortar. When the area's frequent earthquakes damaged fragile homes, resident had to make due again. Gordon Masterton shows a room with a double voltage roof and at some point in its history, it developed a crack along the center and people tried to repair, stabilize it by putting the tie side to side and tighten it up. He then shows the arch is originally opened with the arch stones but at a later date, it has been plastered over and a simple rectangular framing put in but at the crack and in time it going to be worse and one can see the framing to close to failure.

The modern age brought Balestrino's people their freedom from the cruel gasp of the rulers of the past, but not the iron gasp of nature. Gordon Masterton stated that the buildings are built on the slopes and if it's susceptible to landslips and movements, the buildings will be as well. The unstable soil and Italy's susceptibility to devastating earthquakes compounded the problems of the town's makeshift construction. An example is in 1997, when an earthquake in Assisi 200 miles away provided a stark reminder of the threat lurking beneath Italy's sun-drenched landscape and even the famed basilica of Saint Francis provided no sanctuary.

Down with the Old, Up with the New[]

Balestrinoruinedstructure

An abandoned structure with a roof that collapsed long ago.

The town was eventually abandoned in the 1950's as fear arise that even worse could happen on Balestrino's failing hillsides. The Italian government evacuated all homes and built a newer and safer village nearby and since then, Balestrino's slow slide to ruin bears testimony to the impermanence of the works of man. Gordon Masterton stated that while the armies of the past failed to conquer Balestrino, nature is winning the battle. In 60 years since people departed from Balestrino, signs of geologic chaos radiate in every direction. Gordon Masterton shows a street thoroughfare through the town and explains what happened is that the gable wall has collapsed, creating rubble and the tie bars that are common feature to the stabilization measures of the buildings aren't strong enough to prevent the whole wall from collapsing into the street.

Streets that echoed with children's laughter only echo with the bleating of stray goats. Ubaldo Pastorino grew up in Balestrino and showed his old home. He recalls that it was his happiest memories of his life with his father shaving on the balcony, his grandmother giving them dried figs, and was pity that everything is in ruins that makes him sad. Gordon Masterton stated that there are still signs that the hillside is on the move and in the long run, nature will win the battle and the hillside will overcome the old town of Balestrino leaving little sign of what was once there.

At the foot of the hill, Balestrino in its present form stands. This town, which will eventually become the sole representation of Balestrino's past, is home to many of the families who once lived on the hill, as well as their descendants in the present day.

Exploration Conclusion[]

The exploration concluded with the statement from the show that the decline and fall of Balestrino bears mute testimony to the impermanence of every home on the planet.

Gallery[]

References[]

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