Battle of Curtatone and Montanara Award - The Witness

To view the video it is necessary to accept cookies experience, metering, marketing

Dante Mortet - Artisan - Bottega Mortet
The imagination was born, in fact, trying to do something that could testify to this great important event.
How can we tell, how do we bear witness to this story?
Here, we bear witness to this story precisely with the witness. We imagined that in that land, like this, during the battle, a trunk remains, a piece of a tree, a piece of a trunk. This trunk sees history and becomes a witness to be passed on, from winner to winner, to be able to renew and tell this story every year.
Carlo Bottani - President - Province of Mantua
Ah, how wonderful. It's a masterpiece. It's a wonder.
Dante Mortet - Artisan - Bottega Mortet
Who is a real witness, just like in a relay race you pass through it during the races. This trunk, which naturally has symbols, so there is the olive tree, an invitation to peace, the oak, which is precisely the strength of these children, and then the plate that expresses in a scroll of the time the will to reward. Here we are now in the seventh edition this year. And then behind it is this writing, always in a scroll, from books to the battlegrounds for the freedom of the homeland. And I think this is a great honor for me to have represented this story, because in here is the spirit, there is the soul of all those young people who today, thanks to the Municipality of Curtatone, to the imagination of Massimo, of Dante and of all those who are following us, and also yours who carry it, this spirit is still alive today.
And so the honor of these people is safe and their sacrifice was not in vain, because with this instrument, which is the witness of Curtatone and Montanara, which is also an artistic object, we

transmit history.

The Witness: an object that tells the story

At the heart of the Battle of Curtatone and Montanara Prize, a powerful and meaningful symbol is born: the Witness. A work designed and created by the Roman craftsman Dante Mortet to preserve and pass on the memory of an event that marked history.

A simple tree trunk, imagined as a survivor of the battlefield, today becomes an artistic and symbolic object: a witness to be passed from year to year, from winner to winner, to continue to tell the value of sacrifice and the identity of a territory.

Enriched with profound elements — the olive tree for peace, the oak for strength, a plate that recalls the cartouches of the time — the Witness is much more than a prize. It is a bridge between past and present, a way to keep alive the memory of young people who fought for the freedom of their homeland.

As in a relay race, the gesture of passage becomes ritual: not only is excellence rewarded, but every year the commitment not to forget is renewed, to pay homage to those values that today, thanks to the initiative of the Municipality of Curtatone and shared creativity, continue to live with intensity.