The historical memory of work and agricultural enterprise in the Ferrara area
Guido Scaramagli, renowned local farmer and founder of the Centro di Documentazione del Mondo Agricolo Ferrarese (Ferrara and Province Agricultural History Documentation Centre) in San Bartolomeo in Bosco, died on July 23rd, 2010. He was born on September 24th, 1921 into a farming family and was to become a pioneer and leader of fruit production in the Ferrara province, introducing new business strategies whilst preserving and re-evaluating the memory of the surrounding countryside. For over fifty years he collected objects, agricultural implements, machinery, archive material, etc., covering the period from the end of the 19th century to 1955. His fundamental insights later met with the unconditional support of Renato Sitti, founder and director of the Municipality of Ferrara Ethnographic Centre. This important relationship led to the creation of the Centro di Documentazione del Mondo Agricolo Ferrarese, known today as ma f. In a recorded testimony, Guido Scaramagli remembers his beginnings as a collector-researcher: "For about ten years now I have collected everything I find that relates to the life and work in the Ferrara rural agricultural community.
Why do I do it? People, above all the young, forget many things. Hemp cultivation, for example (...)". Guido Scaramagli stipulated an agreement with the Municipality of Ferrara, thereby starting an important cooperation between public and private sectors, that would later become a source of inspiration for similar projects in other Italian museums. At the beginning of the 1980's the activities of Guido Scaramagli, Renato Sitti and the Ferrara Ethnographic Centre were developing in three areas: organizing and filing the material collected, preparing the museum displays and the progressive enrichment through new additions. The first section of the museum deals with the collection and rationalization of resources, thereby creating the part dedicated to the transformation from manual labour to mechanization; life and work in the rural village, the home and kitchen, the real heart of life in the countryside. The cultivation of hemp in the vicinity of Ferrara was the first important display project. Planned as a mobile display and exhibited in 
1982 at the Sala Efer in Ferrara and numerous other provincial and regional locations, it became the herald of the emerging documentation centre, and received praise at a national level, also thanks to the catalogue edited by Renato Sitti, Roberto Roda and Carla Ticchioni (1982). This fundamental section will become one of the key attractions of the museum. Two exhibitions followed: Un paese dagli album di famiglia. Una ricerca di Guido Scaramagli a San Bartolomeo in Bosco (1982) e I mestieri ambulanti nelle campagne ferraresi (1984). The preparatory phases were combined with cultural study conferences, with reports published in 1989 in the book La Terra Vecchia. Contributi per una storia del mondo agricolo ferrarese by Violetta Ferrio
li and Roberto Roda. Guido Scaramagli, together with Renato Sitti and Carla Ticchioni, made a decisive contribution to the creation of the catalogue Dal lavoro manuale alla meccanizzazione. Inventario-guida del Centro di Documentazione del Mondo Agricolo Ferrarese, "Quaderno" number 27 (1985) Ferrara Ethnographic Centre, the first organic analysis of the activities and achievments of the MAF. "Cultivated" with passion and competence, the structure of the MAF constantly changed, enriched with more exhibits and new reconstructions. Between 1986 and 1988 special workshops were presented (puppets, theatre sets, scripts, props, etc.) held by puppeteers Ettore Forni and Pompeo Gandolfi, His documentary material was used for film productions such as La neve nel bicchiere (Florestano Vancini, 1984) and In nome del popolo sovrano (Luigi Magni, 1990). The 90's were dedicated to new experiments, such as the use of wind power in agriculture, the restoration of many machines, including the American Peerless and Mogul steam tractors. An agreement was also made with the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Bologna, encourag
ing the development of doctoral dissertations on the history of agriculture. In 1993 the Chamber of Commerce of Ferrara awarded him formal recognition.
In 1992 he started publishing writings in dialect based on his life experiences, especially those of his youth. His poetry, composed in the vernacular of San Bartolomeo, provides us with genuine sketches of life in the countryside and small villages. Scenes of age-old everyday life describe farmers, the trials and labours of the 'arzdóra' (the farmer's wife), the tailor, the innkeeper, the shoemaker, work and its seasonal cycle, down-to-earth religion, traditions, family ties and sentiments. Full of emotion and sensitivity, La mié tèra (My Land), is Scaramagli's declaration of love for Mother-earth:
O dólza, o fòrta ma ssémpar pìna ad blézza
at véd cumè ai prìm an dla giovinézza
quand a campàva cuntént e in alégria
còl giòi che ti t'am dav o tèra mia.
Al témp al passa ma tì t'an cambi mai
e quand l'arssùra o al mòi it dà di guai
ta ti ssupòrt..., e apéna dì, o a l'óra ad nòt
at trassùd dai crèp o da la smòrcia ch'è ssui lòt
cal vapór fin, alziér, ssénza culòr
cl'am tién avsìn a tì con tant amór
e che l'am fa arcurdàr acssì 'luntiéra
che la cùna dal mié vivar l'è chì
in mèz a la mié tèra.
(Sweet or strong, but always full of beauty / I see you as in my childhood / when I lived happily and cheerfully / with the joys you gave me, my land. // Time goes by but you never change / and when droughts or floods torment you / you bear them..., and when day breaks, or in the middle of the night / a fine, pallid mist rises from the cracks in the land or the mud on the turf / that keeps me affectionately close to you / and happily reminds me / that the cradle of my life is here / in the heart of my land).
His folk-culture play Al spusalìzzi 'd la fiòla dal Segrétari (The wedding 
of the Party Secretary's daughter), was written in local dialect and set in his museum during the fascist period. He then published La grande siepe (1994) and L'ultimo fronte (1997). The first traces his love for Africa and shows us the continent "from the inside", lived in direct contact with that striking environment and its inhabitants. The second book witnesses the final days of World War II and describes some of the most exciting and dramatic events that marked the history of the countryside around San Bartolomeo in Bosco. The exhibition Il mondo rurale nei disegni di "Nino" Zagni (edited by the author) was staged in 2003. Guido Scaramagli continued his valuable work until the twilight of his life: his achievements can still be admired in "his" Ferrara Province Agricultural History Documentation Centre (MAF), one of the most fascinating museum locations that characterizes the territory of Ferrara.