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TRAVELLING NOTES ABOUT FELICE PEDRONI

Today we know almost everything about Felice Pedroni (Felix Pedro), the explorer born in Trignano, the man who founded the city of Fairbanks.
The youngest of six children, he was born in 1858; he left Trignano, a small village in the county of Fanano, and went to France, where he worked in the coal mines, before going to America. He did not drink alcohol, and the ones who knew him used to say that he worked like a mule. He found the gold in Alaska, on the 22nd of July 1902, in a place which was named since that moment Pedro Creek, near Fairbanks.
The end of the story, which reminds sometimes of a legend, tells about a wedding with an Irish woman, of a secret return in Trignano, and of a mysterious death, at the age of 52. Nowadays Felice Pedroni is buried in the cemetery of Fanano.
We think that the many studies that have been published in these years (among the others, see C. Bonvicini, La corsa all'oro di Felice Pedroni, "Il Resto del Carlino", 15 ottobre 1972; M. Castelli, Felice Pedroni, "La Musola", 51, 1992; V. Muratori, Arrivò solo nel paese dell'oro in Alaska, "Oggi illustrato", 18 dicembre 1974; idem, Un giallo in Alaska nel 1910. Gli Italiani e la febbre dell'oro, "Storia illustrata", 322, 1984; P. Stanton, Le spoglie senza riposo di Felix Pedro, "The Seattle Time", 21 May 1972; M. Turchi, Felice Pedroni e Felix Pedro, um [sic] emigrante fananese, "Fanano fra storia e poesia", 8, 1997; idem, Altre notizie su... Felice Pedroni, "Fanano fra storia e poesia", 9, 1998) are not a sufficient starting point.
The story of Felice Pedroni is one of those stories which invite first of all to "go and see", and to move on his steps. Only a few persons, today, also among the ones who have studied his life, take a rest in the village of Casa Biagio, near Trignano, and go to visit the Teggie, that is to say the place where he was born.
Instead, it is right there that one could understand better the meaning of what many people, without really knowing why, have called an adventure. On an anthropological level, in fact, Pedroni represents something which is beyond the true or false news, and beyond his peculiar story: in the modern world, where also the unknown places have been reached, and where everything can be easily obtained, he is the embodiment of the very old archetype of the man who walks, of the traveller who preserves and unifies space. The rest is only a consequence.
But in Trignano, in the chestnut-trees valley that brings to Rocca Corneta, the river remains frozen and iced all long the winter, suggesting a story which everyone is able to live himself. The life of this man from Trignano seems first of all to point out the following fact: that the steps made by everyone actually repeat the destiny of the great migrations, and that directions exist, which is still possible to follow. Something belonging to Alaska, that is to say, has lived in the Apennines since the beginning, many years before the 1902; and the deep meaning of the idea of journey has not only to do with lives of exceptional men.

Francesco Benozzo - Giovanni Monterastelli [ University of Wales Aberystwyth - Fanano ]