Giuseppe Federici Study Center – For a new onset
70° anniversary of the Superga tragedy
Il 4 maggio 1949 the players of Grande Torino, together with technicians, managers, journalists and crew, perished in the plane crash on the Superga hill, in Turin, returning from Lisbon.
Pope Pius XII's message to the families of the victims
“Blessed souls of our brothers, victims of an atrocious fate, may our prayer and the cry of our invincible pain reach you” (and: “FIGC, extraordinary bulletin in memory of the Fallen of Superga, 4 maggio 1949”).
The funeral in Turin Cathedral celebrated by card. Ditches
“(…) The Cardinal Archbishop (Maurilio Fossati) he waits at the top of the staircase surrounded by the canons of the metropolitan Chapter. The space beneath him is now packed in every corner. The funeral office, "the absolution on the mound", it begins. The prayers are said softly, punctuated here and there by the cathedral's choir of singers, now light and caressing, now strong and impetuous like a hymn of triumph. “Free me, Sir, about eternal death, in die illa tremendous…”; the beautiful words of the liturgy descend on the bodies lined up in the darkness, on the motionless crowd. The Cardinal raises the sprinkler, he blesses several times with calm and solemn gestures, towards that black mass that contains the thirty-one coffins and the people, in a single hug. The light of a candle trembles on the prayer book: the only light, viva, and throbbing, throughout the square. "May the angels lead you to Paradise," murmured the choir in a very low voice, at the moment in which the Prelate raises his hand once again in the gesture of farewell and final blessing. The funeral rite ended on the sweet and hopeful verses of the antiphon, and the black mass, I was carried, and the people, he's still holding his breath, oppressed by an unspeakable emotion (…)” (“The Press”, Saturday 7 maggio 1949).
List of victims
– Players
Valerio Bacigalupo
Aldo Ballarin
Dino Ballarin
Émile Bongiorni
Eusebio Castigliano
Rubens Fadini
Guglielmo Gabetto
Ruggero Grava
Giuseppe Grezar
Ezio Loi
Virgilio Maroso
Danilo Martelli
Valentino Mazzola
Romeo Menti
Piero Operto
Franco Ossola
Mario Rigamonti
Julius Schubert
– Managers
Arnaldo Agnisetta
Ippolito Civalleri
Andrea Bonaiuti
– Coaches
Egri Erbstein
Leslie Lievesley
Osvaldo Cortina (masseur)
– Journalists
Renato Casalbore
Renato Tosatti
Luigi Cavallero
– Crew
Pierluigi Meroni
Celeste D'Inca
Cesare Biancardi
Antonio Pangrazi
source – http://www.centrostudifederici.org/70-anniversario-della-tragedia-superga/
