NYT : An Underwater World of Marble to Amuse and Protect Tuscan Fish

[Celerity]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/world/europe/italy-tuscany-fishing-art.html

“Acqua,” a carved piece of Carrara marble by the artist Giorgio Butini, underwater near Talamone, Italy.

TALAMONE, Italy — As the Sirena brought its passengers back to port, Paolo Fanciulli paused from spreading his nets and sustainable fishing gospel to point at an empty spot of sea. “There, below the lighthouse,” said Mr. Fanciulli, clad in his rib-high yellow waders. “The sculptures are there.” About 25 feet below the rippling surface of this rocky promontory on the southern Tuscan coast, schools of fish visited a museum of four marble blocks, mined from Michelangelo’s preferred quarry and sculpted by acclaimed artists.

Farther north, another 20 Carrara marble sculptures had a different job — as submerged sentries against the illegal bottom trawling that has depleted Talamone’s marine life. And in a field down the road, where kite surfers skim the bay, 18 more sculpted marble blocks sat like ruins on the grass waiting for Mr. Fanciulli to find the money to lower them into the water. “Think, in 100, 200 years they’ll find all these sculptures,” said Mr. Fanciulli, called Paolo the Fisherman by everyone around here, including himself.

His “House of Fish” project is part environmental activism, part arts initiative, part marketing campaign, part bid for a lasting legacy. For his native town, he said, having “the biggest museum in the world to save the sea” would also bring scuba divers and tourists and put Talamone on the map. Currently, Talamone is not renowned for much. The year-round population is about 125 residents. “Maybe less,” said Elsa Ciocca, 82, the town’s baker and unofficial historian. “Because I think two or three just died.”

Local residents are proud that Giuseppe Garibaldi, whose statue presides over a sleepy square, stopped here to pick up ammunition during his historic 1860 expedition to unify Italy. They are less thrilled that arms dealers shipped explosives and land mines from Talamone to Apartheid-era South Africa, Iran-Contra-era Iran and Saddam-era Iraq. In the summers, the population swells with fashionable vacationers. Wealthy Romans keep their sailboats at the port and gossip in the cafes about which Russian oligarch bought which nearby villa. Tuscan teenagers and retired politicians come to drink aperitifs and dive into the water under the medieval Sienese fortress. Lately, busloads of Chinese tourists have lined up at the port to take sightseeing boats to nearby Elba.

Few are aware that under the water is an art installation designed to resuscitate Talamone’s aquatic life. Mr. Fanciulli, 58, has made it his life’s work to get the word out........

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