Castelluccio di Norcia
Ten years beside a village that refused to fall.
The earthquake lasted minutes.
The presence of those who didn't leave has lasted ten years.
The story
On 30 October 2016, when Central Italy shook for the second time in a few months, Castelluccio di Norcia lost everything except its name. Resto in Piedi—Italian for "I'm still standing"—was born there: not as an NGO, not as a foundation, but as a gesture. A way to turn t-shirts and hoodies into concrete aid for those stuck in tents as winter closed in.
Behind the campaign were friends, artists, illustrators and volunteers. In front of it were the schoolchildren of Norcia, the Italian Army, the lentil farmers of the Piana, a community that refused to be told only as a victim.
Ten years later, the village still hasn't been rebuilt. But the memory has—and it walks.
Concrete acts
Between October 2016 and 2018, a network of more than twenty emergency-aid collection points across Rome. Rome–Norcia round-trips up to twice a day, unloading at a warehouse in Norcia granted to us free of charge.
Together with my father, and thanks to friends who owned campsites, we delivered twenty-one mobile homes on wheels to twenty-one families in Norcia and Castelluccio. A roof on wheels, when the fixed roofs were gone.
Around 500 hoodies and t-shirts handed to the Italian Army and given to the schoolchildren of Norcia, after the first winter in tents.
A truck full of Bauli panettoni and pandori, distributed with the Army's support, to cover the Christmas needs of the entire displaced town.
A Change.org petition with thousands of signatures to reopen the SP 477 Norcia–Castelluccio road and allow the lentil sowing to continue. In the end the Italian Army stepped in, transporting the farming vehicles up to the plateau.
A donated container, placed in front of the abandoned public toilets. Free meals, community, presence. A living space when nothing else was left standing.
Memory
The earthquake. Norcia, Castelluccio, the Central Apennines. Rome–Norcia round-trips, up to twice a day.
Over twenty aid collection points in Rome. A free-loan warehouse in Norcia. Twenty-one mobile homes on wheels delivered to twenty-one families, with my father and friends from the campsites.
Resto in Piedi is born. Solidarity hoodies, illustration campaigns, deliveries to the Army. A Change.org petition with thousands of signatures to reopen the SP 477 and allow the lentil sowing; the Army transports the farming vehicles up to the plateau.
Gestione Pagine — Digital Factory is founded in Norcia to give fellow townspeople all the digital support they needed to sell online: websites, social media, e-commerce for farming businesses and cured-meat producers. Today it's a structured company, but its first client was the village itself.
The campaign evolves into direct donation. Merchandising is scaled down, focus shifts to community.
My father paints the facade of Casa De Variste with the Italian tricolour flag. For over three years, in a fully demolished Castelluccio, only one sign of presence remains standing: that one.
Zona Cesarina. Social container, meals, presence. Then its removal, so it wouldn't become an alibi for political inaction.
The tricolour facade of Casa De Variste comes down with the demolition. The sign moves. The memory doesn't.
Urbano Testa passes away — the author of the Tricolour House of Castelluccio. Family memory becomes public legacy.
Castelluccio, April 2026
This site gathers the memory of those years and opens the way for what comes next.
Leave us a contact: we'll write when there's something new to tell.
Casa De Variste · 2019 — 2022
In 2019, in a Castelluccio demolished down to its foundations, my father Urbano Testa painted the facade of our family house with the Italian tricolour flag.
For over three years, until September 2022, that facade was the only visible sign of presence left standing in the village: a simple, stubborn, civic act. A hand-painted flag that spoke both to those arriving from the plain and to those who had left.
Today, Casa De Variste tells that story — and the one that continues.
casadevariste.comUrbano Testa · 2019
Local businesses · 2016 →
The support wasn't only about donations. It was something longer-lasting: giving a voice and a market to those who stayed to work the land, to transform its products, to welcome visitors, to sell.
From 2016 onwards, I used the social accounts, websites and pages I was managing to tell the stories of the area's local businesses: farmers, restaurant owners, shopkeepers, service providers. Their products and their work became content, visibility, orders. With campodilenticchia.com and through other dedicated channels, the Piana and the village kept speaking even from afar. When you can't sell in the village square anymore, you sell online — and for many, that was the difference between leaving and staying.
These are only some of the names. Farms, cured-meat producers, restaurants, small local shops: stubborn people who chose not to give up. Their voice, for years, also passed through here.
A person, not an organisation
Daniele Testa has worked in digital since 1999 and in social-media marketing since 2008, with family roots in Castelluccio. Led Resto in Piedi as a citizen, not as an institution. Today he runs the digital ecosystem of Castelluccio di Norcia and works on projects for the inner Apennines.