L'ultimo bagliore di un impero (The final glimmer of an empire)

An online documentary to learn about Como at a time when there were a thousand gold coins hidden in the city

The City of Como and the cultural association Sguardi present the documentary “L'ultimo bagliore di un impero”. The video is available on the City of Como’s Youtube channel and on the Facebook pages of the Musei Civici (civic museums) and the “Paolo Borsellino” library. The documentary will bring you on a journey to learn about how the Larian city looked like at the time there were a thousand hidden gold coins, which were found in the old town in September 2018.

The video will be used as educational and informational material for a better understanding of the city’s cultural heritage.

The investigation focuses on the fifth century AD, an age that was marked by dramatic and profound changes, and is very interesting to reconstruct through the traces left behind on the urban fabric of our city.

The documentary, written and directed by Paolo Lipari, hopes to attract attention and spark curiosity in an audience without age or geographical limits for material that is so full of ideas. In particular, students of all ages, who are often discouraged from historical research by an education that is too distanced from their world, were targeted as the core audience for this documentary. With this audience in mind, the language used in this documentary is dynamic and gripping. A continuous flow of historical narration, entrusted to expert actors Marco Continanza and Arianna Pollini, weaves through an urban setting – from the sky to the pavement – and vivid digital animations.  

The latter have been designed and brought to life by the students of Setificio “Paolo Carcano” I.S.I.S. (state institution of higher education) in Como, a school that is particularly sensitive to the value of experiences that raise awareness in direct ways. The students of classes 5G4, 5G1 and 3G2, assisted by their teachers who have been coordinated by Elisabetta Casartelli, undertook an extensive training course during the pandemic.

An exhibition in the Paolo Borsellino library will present the compositions of the students to the public from the 12th of May to the 12th of the coming June.
The documentary, which presents a historical setting as interesting as it is complex, is guided by the archeologist Isabella Nobile and by music composed and performed by Alessandro Martire, a Comascan talent who is being increasingly appreciated at home as well as abroad and who, with his enchanting harmonies that pushes you towards contemplation and accentuates the intensity of the most dramatic points.

The final result is a documentary that, in using audiovisual means closest to modern sensibility for cultural dissemination, evokes a desire to know more, and to see and investigate with your own eyes.

The documentary