EDITORIAL

Each year the contemporary man ignored or simply forgot the intimate relationship with the earth. The consequences of concrete, massively used during the '60s/'70s, and the pollution during the '80s/'90s, are now just clear, when our environmental awareness seems to have woken up. This graphic novel is animated by this pulsating vital force and it shows the love for that land, which generated one of the most vibrant, richest and most exciting cities in the world. Written for the Expo, this little great work tells in more than 200 pages the history of Milan and its land: from the Celts to the Roman conquer, from the barbaric invasion to the plague, from the industrial era to the challenge of Ernesto Breda, through the world wars, the deindustrialisation, the post-industrial era, up until the building of Parco Nord Milano, deserving heir of the Great Forest of the Po Valley.
Silvio Da Rù, director, writer and theatre actor, with the extraordinary time machine created by his words, will go with you through the discoveries of Milan's roots in Medhelan ("holy city" in Celtic), and will tell you the story of famous and heroic characters such as the oak Etherna, the real tree of life, or the brave mouse Apodeus, and the visionary Architect, a character loosely based on the great architect and landscaper Francesco Borella, who could perceive the scream of a suffering land and bring it to life again. As for the drawings, a great artist, Beniamino Delvecchio, managed to be as playful and broad as the story of a land and its characters.
Gian Luca Elasti, winner of the Medhelan International Cover Contest, enriched the comic book with a drawing which included the past, the present and the future of this beautiful land, suggesting in the cover, the harmonious relationship between Nature and Civilisation as a unique way for the development of life and prosperity, in respect of our precious and delicate eco-system.

Giuseppe Di Bernardo