Presentation of the novel by Adriana Lotto, La casa di Sveti Vid, Cierre Edizioni, 2025.

In conversation with the author, the Director of Isbrec, Enrico Bacchetti.

Adriana Lotto is the president of the cultural association Tina Merlin, is a teacher and researcher, and taught contemporary history at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Iulm in Milan, Feltre campus, from 1997 to 2003.

She has been a subject expert at the Department of History at the University of Venice and is part of the board of the Historical Institute of Belluno for the Resistance and Contemporary Age.

Author of books, essays, and articles in magazines and newspapers, she has published with Cierre: A Woman at War. Diary of Isabella Bigontina Sperti 1918 (1996), That of Vajont, Tina Merlin, a Woman Against (2021); Between Charity and Credit. The Monte di Pietà of Belluno in the 19th and 20th Centuries (2021).

With Campedel she published Belluno from Annexation to the End of the Nineteenth Century (2016). The novel La casa di Sveti Vid, Cierre Edizioni 2025, is presented in preview at Villa Patt.

The cover image is a painting by Adriana, “Three Women by the Sea” 80×100, oil on canvas, 2002.

The protagonist is the young Croatian Marija, and along with her, the women from both sides of the Adriatic play leading roles.

On an April evening in 2015, the two women take turns narrating a story that begins in 1943 on the island of Veglia (Krk) occupied by the Italians, unfolding in fascist internment camps in Italy, in Belluno, during the Resistance, and finally again between Veglia and Rijeka until 1950.

The story is inspired by real events.

Enrico Bacchetti (Belluno, 1968) has been a teacher on leave since 2010 at Isbrec, which he has directed since 2014.

A medievalist by training, he graduated with a thesis on the Venetian prison system in the medieval period.

With Adriana Lotto and Diego Cason, he has curated the scientific direction of the volume The Courage and the Passion. Recognized Partisans and Patriots in Belluno and Bellunese Soldiers Recognized as Partisans Abroad, edited by Franco Comin and Silvia Comin (Isbrec, 2023).

The event takes place as part of the photographic exhibition Ruggero Monego: A Life Courageously Lived.

The exhibition focuses on the final period of World War II, specifically on the day of Liberation in Santa Giustina.

The displayed photographs, taken on May 2, 1945, document the welcome given by the local people to the Allied liberation troops.

These images were kept by Ruggero Monego, who made them available for reproduction about twenty years ago, along with his personal memories of that day.

The exhibition remains open to the public until September 28, 2025, and is free of charge.

A guided tour of the Museum of Alpini is available on September 27 at 4:30 PM.

For information, send an email to museodolomiti@provincia.belluno.it, tel. 0437 959162.

The opening hours of the exhibition: Monday to Friday by appointment, contacting via email m.barbonetti@provincia.belluno.it or calling 0437 959 331.

On Saturday and Sunday, free entry is from 00:00 to 12:00 and from 15:00 to 18:00.

Preview presentation of the novel by Adriana Lotto, The House of Sveti Vid, Cierre Edizioni, 2025.