The whale-shaped fountain in the centre of the pretty little square next to the jetty in San Giuliano a Mare commemorates a sensational event that involved the entire hamlet when, in April 1943, a sperm whale ran aground (an event more unique than rare for this part of the Adriatic) on the Barafonda beach (this is the name the locals gave to the coastal part of the hamlet). The sperm whale was killed with 300 musket and machine gun shots by the coastal defence soldiers. The sad story of the whale, 10.40 metres long, 6.8 metres in circumference and weighing 50 quintals, remained so engraved in the memory of the people of Rimini that – once the war was over – they wanted to dedicate a square to it and build a small monument in its memory.
Here, very briefly, is the story: at dawn on 4 April 1943 – in the middle of World War II – fishermen who had gone out to sea to check the size of the catch in the nets they had left in the water all night came across an incredible rarity: a fin whale still alive, stranded a few metres from the shore. Soon the news spread and almost half of Rimini rushed to the scene. The civil and military authorities also rushed to the scene that morning and – with little charitable spirit – decided to shoot the animal rather than help it find its way back to the sea. Witnesses of the incident still speak of a real execution, with a coastguard patrol boat hoisting a machine gun on the bow and discharging no less than three hundred shots on the defenceless sea creature. But not even when dead was the poor animal left in peace. The carcass, in fact, as soon as it was brought ashore, began to putrefy amidst unspeakable stench and stench that took possession of the entire Barafonda. It was then decided to sell it off to a local company to make soap from it in exchange for its prompt removal. On this subject, Guido Lucchini (local poet and writer) in one of his beautiful stories also adds that the local women – having learned of this – hastened to take their own little piece of pulp before the sperm whale was taken away to make laundry soap out of it in turn (it was wartime and everything was rationed). With the result – between the tragic and the comical – that the stench and stench would continue to haunt them for months to come, getting into all the tablecloths, all the sheets and even into the tiniest of handkerchiefs! Was it the whale’s revenge?
