Antarctica is undoubtedly a subject that is passionate, but it’s also a reality object of investments, of energies spent on studies and researches that for years are involving the whole world.
For those who did not know, in 1975 the first Italian adventure in Antarctica did start by a private expedition carried out by a Milanese entrepreneur: Renato Cepparo.
Italy did sign the Antarctic Treaty in 1981, a good 6 years after Cepparo’s expedition that built a scientific base in a place called Ezcurra Inlet in front of Admiralty Bay, South Shetland Islands in Antarctica.
The literature is full of stories of Renato Cepparo (I1SR) who named his Base (picture aside) after the Italian explorer Giacomo Bove (WAP ITA-Ø2) and the fact that Italian government, fully disinterested in this tricolor flagging outpost, in 1976 gave it to Argentina which dismantled it by plundering the equipments that Cepparo had left in the Base Bove laboratory. Currently in that place, only the foundation on which the building was based is still visible. Poland, who have his research site (Arctowski Station) nearby, did call Italia Valley the place where the first Italian Base in Antarctica was built.
Now, going out the gymnasium of the Salesian Institute of Lombriasco (Turin, Italy) I did find, hanging on a wall, a postcard signed by the members of the Cepparo expedition, sent on December 25, 1975 from Antarctica to the Salesian Institute of Agriculture of Lombriasco; besides being a precious rarity, it’s a real scoop!
Don Marco Casanova, Director of the Salesian School complex says: – Since my arrival in Lombriasco, I have always seen it there and sincerely, I have never deepened the link between the Salesians, Antarctica and the expedition of Renato Cepparo-.
But there is a bit more: within the frame, a typescript was inserted in; it says: – St. John Bosco in Antarctica – On the subject, perhaps not everyone knows that Patron of the Antarctica – where last year seemed even to break the third world war because of the Anglo-Argentine conflict in the Falklands Islands, gave rise to numerous collections that are now appearing in more and more philatelic exhibitions – is the Salesian St. John Bosco .
Therefore, the Italian Cepparo expedition in Antarctica took place in “December 1975-January 1976“, the Falklands war mentioned in the brief paragraph dates June 1982.
It is likely that the typescript has been inserted inside the frame after 1982 and the question that arises now is: Is the Salesian St. John Bosco truly the Protector of Antarctica? It would be great, even if researches have been carried out, this news is not confirmed yet.