Every time a death penalty is commuted or a government repeals the death penalty anywhere in the world, the Roman coliseum is lit up. The initiative originated with the Community of SantEgidio.

The colisseum is notable as having served for centuries as a site for public executions of various kinds. This is an example of an historical site being used to mobilize sentiment for values exactly the opposite of those it was originally built to promote. Where once thousands were executed in front of cheering crowds, a ceremonial lighting draws smaller crowds of anti-death penalty activists and various dignitaries. To mark the abolition of the death penalty in New Mexico, the governor of that state came to Rome and met the pope and anti-death penalty activists and even a few citizens of New Mexico who happened to be in Rome and heard about the event.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/20/gov_richardson_activists_honored_in_rome

Ephemeral monuments are everywhere. They are warnings to others and they serve important mourning functions for loved ones struggling with the sudden loss of a son, daughter, lover or friend. But how long does an ephemeral monument last? And can strangers also share in the grief associated with the site of mourning? This photograph shows the ephemeral monument to the Torino football player Gigi Meroni who was hit by a car on this corner of Corso Re Umberto in 1967 at the age of 24. The photograph, framed in plexiglass, gives the site a slightly more permanent air, but the materials gathered around it are typically ephemeral: fresh flowers, flags, notes scribbled on multi-coloured pens, balloons and ribbons are regularly found on the site. Very often the writing on these notes is that of a child and it is not uncommon to find teddy bears and other child treasures tied to the post. These are new mourners paying tribute to the footballer, many of them not even born when the player lost his life. Mourning at the site of his death becomes a ritual of belonging to the club. Perhaps that’s why this ephemeral monument has lasted so long.

If you have pictures and materials on other ephemeral monuments you would like to share please send them to us.

On Thursday 17 of May, 2007 the city of Milan is going to unveil a commemorative plaque for the police commissioner Luigi Calabresi, to mark the 35 anniversary of his killing in 1972. Of all the victims of Italy’s anni di piombo –leaden years (from the film of the same title by Margarethe Von Trotta) –Luigi Calabresi was probably the most controversial and the most vilified. Following the bombing of Piazza Fontana in December of 1969, the police commissioner Calabresi was involved in the tragic death of the anarchist Pino Pinelli, who allegedly fell from a police station window while he was being interrogated in conjunction with the bombing. The circumstances of the anarchist’s death were mysterious and while the police claimed he had ‘committed suicide’ the inconsistencies in the reporting of the death raised suspicions of murder on the case. (The Nobel-prize winner Dario Fo famously wrote a play on the subject called ‘Accidental death of an anarchist’). The newspaper Lotta Continua launched an active campaign against the commissar Calabresi who was personally held accountable for Pinelli’s death (although in inquests following the death it emerged that Calabresi was apparently in another room at the time of the incident). Following Calabresi’s assassination in 1972 the leadership in Lotta Continua came under suspicion. Adriano Sofri, in particular, was famously accused of having ordered the murder of Calabresi and although the court case against him was held together primarily on the accusations of Leonardo Marino, a collaborator of justice, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison and would still be serving his sentence were it not for serious health problems that prevent him from being in prison. In the long judicial controversies and struggles over Sofri’s innocence or guilt, Luigi Calabresi remained a figure in the background, a victim but also somehow, in public view, a ‘villain’. His wife today says ‘only after 35 years a plaque restores his dignity,’ it remains to be seen in the next few days how Luigi Calabresi will be remembered and whether, at least symbolically, Italy is ready to turn one of the darkest pages of its history without blinking.

A recent publication by Calabresi's son, Mario Calabresi, entitled 'Spingendo la notte più in là. Storia della mia famiglia e di altre vittime del terrorismo' (pushing the night a bit further. The history/story of my family and of other victims of terrorism) and published by Mondadori has added the family's voice to Calabresi's story and to a debate that had crystallized unproductively over the decades.