Rose Island

Book excerpt: The memorial of Giorgio Rosa, a visionary mechanical engineer from Bologna, who designed and built Rose Island. His indipendent micronation was inaugurated in 1968 on a platform outside Italian national waters. This book proposes a reconstruction of its most significant stages, from the earliest enthusiasm for its accomplishment until its epilogue, namely the Italian Navy unlawful occupation and following destruction. An anarchical and utiopian but still contemporary story, rediscovered by Paolo Emilio Persiani in 2009 after having faded into oblivion. Later on it was transposed in books, films that are often far away from historical accuracy, main goal of this hand-written autobiography. "It was in the year 2008, that Dr Rosa thoroughly kept telling me his stories which seemed to have happened just the day before. Forty years had passed but his eyes were shining and still reflected his deep faith in what he had done. Unfortunately, David was defeated by Goliath, as we all know."Every free man's dream: to create an indipendent State. In this little unedited book Giorgio Rosa tells us how he actually built his micronation in international waters outside Rimini's coasts. An extraordinary, fascinating and "pirate-style" undertaking that took place in the revolutionary year 1968.