Miners' Museum

The Miners' Museum, located in the former police station in piazza San Giovanni, contains documents, testimonies, work tools and memorabilia collected from the second half of the 40s, by Lucio Parrotto, author and director of the museum, a former Casarano miner who, for over thirty years, worked in the mines of Belgium.

The museum represents a unique and fundamental resource to reconstruct the history of an activity, that of mining, on which is based the Italian post-war reconstruction. The museum tells, in every smallest detail, a portion of the history of Casarano and Salento which is also the history of labor and of emigration.
The new location is much larger than a local, looks like a tunnel in the basement of the building, a structure that somehow reminds you of the mine. It's still a work in progress. To put it back on track has been estimated a cost of 48 thousands euros , but Lucio proudly shows us the progress made, such as the brand new burglar-proof door that has just been installed.

In order to complete the Museum (which is also a small social club for former miners) Lucio and his wife Angela have collected , for decades, everything such as newspaper articles, old photographs, tools, shovels, picks, hammers, explosive, lanterns, helmets and even a cart to transport the coal.

The first page of the "Sole d'Italia" stands on a wall. The newspaper for Italians in Belgium, dated August 9th, 1956, cries out in large letters "Another pit of fire" referring to the massacre of Marcinelle, in which 262 men of 12 different nationalities, included 136 Italians, were killed burned and suffocate  at 1,035 meters deep. Never so many victims were claimed by the mine like that 8 August 1956 at the Bois du Cazier.
The result will mark the end of Italian emigration to Belgium and stricter regulations for safety in the workplace.

The Monument to the Miner from Salento was inaugurated on the 7th December 1996 on the 40th anniversary of the tragedy of Marcinelle, by the will of the Belgium former miner Lucio Parrotto, founder and director of the Museum of Miner which was dedicated this site.

It's located within the  piazza Giovanni XXIII, in the gardens adjacent to the Civil Hospital "Francesco Ferrari" in Casarano (Le).

"I wanted to make a monument, the monument to the miner." - he says in the book "Le Risorse Umane" by Angelo Ferracuti - "And with the help of all former miners and local institutions now it is there. But I wanted it to be close to the hospital, and the heads of the town granted me the place. We miners are suffering from silicosis, told the commissioners, technicians, all destined to end up in the hospital. On the marble column you can read: "To the memory of the Salento miners killed in Belgium in the fortieth anniversary: 1956-1996" - " ... by the will of Lucio Parrotto, and the support of the miners families".

At the center is a bronze statue of a kneeling miner, holding a jackhammer in the act of digging into the rock. And on one side, slightly spaced, an original cart of mine.