Giuseppe Cerisola(1980)

Cerisola, born in Varigotti, was nicknamed “Carnera” for his robust physique and “The Australian” because he lived abroad for many years. While a sailor in the Italian navy’s Pacific fleet during World War II, he was captured by the British and imprisoned in Australia, where he remained until the mid-1970s, working as a farmer.

In 1976 he returned to Varigotti and, due to his excellent swimming skills, saved a person from drowning off the coast. He then memorialized this incident in a brightly painted cement autobiographical monument that Cerisola created close to his garden: it is an organically-shaped wall with lifesaving buoys and other nautical symbols, terracotta tiles, niches, and vitrines. Several inscriptions in English and Italian, as well as other newspaper articles, are also included; in these inscriptions Cerisola has recorded narratives of other people he saved in other seas all over the world, and also his attitude toward life: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

The monument, still in good condition, is located along a scenic trail (marked with an X) that joins the Genoese tower of Varigotti to the Capo Noli mountain, near the church of San Lorenzo.

~Gabriele Mina

www.costruttoridibabele.net

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Latitude/Longitude: 44.182202 / 8.402438

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