El Sindic(h) de Precott
Good morning Folkriders,
If you're familiar with the Northeast area of Milan , the one that always seems to run away from Piazzale Loreto toward Brianza, you'll surely be familiar with an old meeting place for all the area's night owls, cyclists and others: "Eight o'clock in Precotto!" Leaving aside the easy rhyme, it's almost automatic to think of it as a kind of mantra, almost as if to mark the beginning of every possible adventure, whether towards the city center or the edge of the metropolis. A land in between, let's say. A land that first experienced the countryside, then industrialization with the resulting migration of workers from other parts of Italy, a land that today hosts diverse cultures, a city that constantly changes colors, flavors, and smells. A land that smells of an old Milan, while casually embracing the new.
Until the early 1920s, Precotto was still an independent municipality, before being incorporated into Milan's ever-expanding city. A hundred years have passed since then, but although its civic identity is further enhanced by the presence of a Red Metro stop—Milan residents can only know it as such—Precotto still bears the imprint of an almost rural village, dotted with narrow streets. compact, almost terraced houses, mischievous little streets where you want to get lost.
Maybe by bicycle. Maybe following in the footsteps of some local rascal , some picturesque character who could only emerge from a village from another era.
And of course we tried. We remembered that crafty protagonist of the popular song, El sindic(h) de Precott . A troublemaking caricature who goes from his small town to cause damage. We followed him through the verses of the song, starting from the aforementioned subway stop.
A first tour of the neighborhood. It's Sunday morning. We pretend to identify with the mayor, who strolls between the bars and taverns with his neighborhood "right-hander" smile. We imagine his fellow villagers greeting him, perhaps suppressing a slightly sneering sneer. Precotto is waking up, perhaps much faster and more dynamic today than it used to be, but it's always a very slow Sunday dawn.
Today we chose the GR 116 TWANG JET for this tour. Perhaps just like the mayor, it too is champing at the bit, nervously weaving through the alleys and narrow passages, almost seeming to reject the straight stretch of Viale Monza in favor of darker corners, side streets, and one-way streets. It hops slyly, dashing toward the beating heart of the city, driven by mischievous intentions, somewhat in keeping with its rock rebel attitude!
After departing from the metro station and getting lost in the side streets of the old Precotto district, we found ourselves in the middle of the Gorla-Crescenzago-Cimiano triangle . This area is characterized by the Martesana canal, and the atmosphere is always suspended between the calm of a riverside village and the frenzy of a city tending to implode toward its center. We are on a typical line of the Green Metro—to use the Milanese's primary reference—and we are resolutely heading for Piazzale Loreto and the Central Station. Our mayor, obviously, could not have imagined a hundred years ago the significance and importance these places would acquire, historically, urbanly, and even modernly. Now out of the neighborhood, he is ready to grab his loot around the city. But where exactly?
Here come the verses of the popular song to our aid, which mention, in order, Porta Magenta, Porta Vigentina, and Corso Vercelli , in a perhaps unorthodox, almost chaotic, trajectory perfectly in line with our protagonist's nature. Woe betide anyone who forgets that linearity is not a virtue of scoundrels!
Porta Magenta was one of the six main gates of Milan, demolished in 1897, located in the center of what is now Piazzale Baracca, directly connecting the Corso of the same name and Corso Vercelli. Having arrived in the Porta Garibaldi area, which is now one of the most modern in the city, we were already tempted to take a shortcut through Parco Sempione, quickly reaching the beginning of Milan's western zone, the one undoubtedly capable of showcasing its commercial and residential excellence, between the modernity of CityLife and the artistic immortality of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper.
Following the mayor through the musical chronicle of his adventures, we imagined that, in a rapid and tragicomic sequence, he had received a good load of slaps for having drunk too much Brenta (at Porta Magenta) and an equal amount of slaps for having eaten other people's peas (in Corso Vercelli), just as the song narrates. The perfect combination to return to the neighborhood and encounter the hearty laughter of the fellow villagers!
But we told you about something non-linear, something we were forgetting too. What a shortcut to Parco Sempione! There was a missing piece. A turn toward the south-east center, yes, toward the still-existing and famous gates of Milan: Porta Ticinese and Porta Romana. Except we were looking for what was once Porta Vigentina . Where, according to the song, the mayor stole a chicken. You can imagine the consequences!
Porta Vigentina, like Porta Magenta, no longer exists, swallowed up by time and change. Also incorporated into the Spanish bastions, and home to the toll booths that opened onto the Vigentino River, it was one of Milan's four branch gates, the younger sister of the much more famous and still imposing Porta Romana. To get there, we could have followed the route of the Yellow Metro, towards Missori and Crocetta, where the gate once stood.
But once we reached Via Torino, and encouraged by the GR 116 T TWANG JET, which always teaches us not to resign ourselves to the simplest trajectories, we decided to replicate what we'd done a few hours earlier in Precotto. Not by following the main roads, but by abandoning ourselves to a broader panorama. In our case, going down towards the Columns of San Lorenzo and Piazza Vetra, crossing Corso Italia towards the Oriana Fallaci garden, caressing Crocetta and then returning to Viale Beatrice D'Este.
In short, we enter the Circonvallazione, with a capital C, finishing our detour, once completed it's time to unleash the GR116T TWANG JET on the wide roads of the inner circle, and redirect ourselves towards Corso Vercelli, to ideally complete our rascal mayor's tour.
Listening once again to the refrain, which praises the small great novelties of that Milan, of that time (the salami-slicing machine, for example), and making ourselves bearers of a spirit that is, if you like, more naive, less linear, less stressed, but more genuinely enthusiastic.
In this, and for this reason, we wanted to follow our mayor. Misdeeds aside, of course.
If you feel like listening to that song, Folkriders, perhaps you'll do so with an extra smile. And if you can picture the mayor as we did, described—not without a typically Milanese irony—as "handsome, kind, and healthy as coral," you might even want to follow in his footsteps, cutting the city in two with a sly air and a lighthearted spirit. Starting from there, at eight o'clock, at the Precotto stop...
The link to the track is https://www.komoot.com/it-it/tour/2559183082