Retracing the towns and cities affected by the earthquake it is difficult to recognize signs of the events that in 1976 struck the Friuli area. Houses have been rebuilt as they were and roads repaired. Castles, bell towers, churches, historic villas have been athus maintainig intact the knowledge of the previous layout. Rare wooden prefabricated buildings, grouped in makeshift-provisory villages, beat witness at the edge to the former emergency.

The phases and the organicity of operations, within which this episode of settlement can be placed have been widely pondered, and evaluated. The analysis of the motives and the social forces that supported and scanned the moment of the reconstruction becomes from this point of view problematic. The first and most serious doubt concerns the possibility of tackling in the present day, with the same resources, a disaster of equal proportions. The profound changes that have affected the region does not allow for optimism. The disconnection of social values and the disorientation of individuals are dimly perceived as a tragedy which is taking place without any cultural and political development able to fully understand and interpret them. Reflecting upon the intelligence and energy that made for the healing of social –territorial fracture caused by the quake could mark a first step in understanding the challenges that events like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the introduction of the euro, the impact of information technology and the global economy have posed us in the following decades. In the moment which this perspective has been accepted, the reconstruction is no longer a tale to tell to grandchildren, but a critical investigation which, if it is to admit the uncertainty of values and forces that animated the recovery, however, make it necessary to resist the process of deconcentration which the region is subjected. The recent failure of the Carnica Co-operative Society - to cite just one example - is a serious symptom of social malaise-illness due to the economic downturn and the weak protests that resulted from it. The social cohesion and the collective energies that animated reconstruction seem to have broken. Hence the urgent need to re-examine the forces that made the reaction to the 1976 catastrophe possible.

Provisional villages

The temporary housing still present in the area hit by the earthquake may help us to mark the times and ways of the reconstruction. The cabins are found - even though most of them have been dismantled and taken away - in most villages and hamlets of our mountain. As topographic markes revealing extent and scale of the disaster, they attest the loyalty and proximity to traditional communities, as well showing the rationality of the plan according to which the process of rebirth was conducted.
In fact 350 provisional villages, from since 1977 onwards 70,000 homeless people in 21,000 buildings which covered a total area of 780,000 square meters.
To choose the land on which to build the huts was a complex undertaking, because the owners were numerous, sometimes untraceable as they had emigrated, often unwilling to expropriation. In addition, there were no laws that allowed the autorities to requisition in a situation times of emergency the necessary spaces. The interventions of the Special Commissioner, the protagonist of the first phase of reconstruction, solved cases that some mayors had faced without success. From this moment communities, provinces, Region acted as the limits of a single body controlled by a public opinion that shared with them every decision and responsability.
Decentralization was in fact the key policy of success, because it required those in charge to listen to the needs and to incorporate the ideas of those who had suffered the catastrophe. Slogans like "from the tents to the houses", "fasin di bessoi", expressed - with little realism - a stubborn determination to be reborn, the rejection of all passiveness. Transforming this determination into viable projects became the main task for the mayors of each town and village with the coordination of the Region, to which the national government had entrusded unprecedented independence.
The decision to entrust the task of rebuilding the Friuli stricken by the earthquake to the local autorities cannot be underestimated in any way. It can be said that here was applied for the first time with unexpected energy the rules of a Cattaneo federalism. The comparison between institutions and society was open and continuous because the Region entrusted responsibilities and tasks of reconstruction to local bodiess that they were always in touch with the victims.
The choice and decision to repair the largest possible number of damaged houses and to rebuild those destroyed where and how they were before quake was in progress and that the eartquake stoppt, depended not only on the obvious basic needs, but on the will to overcome the condition of the region as "depressed", that in the years before the quake was in progress and that the eartquake stoppt. This time - unlike what happened in the First and Second World War - was achieved the self government which - it must be said - since the Risorgimento the Friuli repeatedly had urged. The consciousness of identity promoted the idea of maintaining the original character of the community and to satisfy the economic transformation underway.
The temporary doubling of the villages - provisional and final village - also speeded up the reconstruction since owners rebuilt the houses by themselves, because the radical transformation of the settlements was accompanied by common choices.
After emphasizing the political decision - matured in Rome – which began the revival of the earthquake zone, it should be recognized the role of the Region at a time ahen for mayors and municipalities overcome by task it offered technical aid as a support for the daily operations.
Decentralisation made each component of reconstruction active and responsible. The Friuli in other words affirmated itself as a region with a distinct identity, not as the periphery of a centralized state. So each resolution respected the will of the individual in a real democratic progress dimension.

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