The record
Bought by the Italian Communist Party for the last Festa dell'Unità it ever held, and handed to the city nineteen years later.
An original segment reached Emilia-Romagna as early as September 1990, bought in Modena by the Italian Communist Party. It was to be shown at the Festa Nazionale de l'Unità, the party's annual summer festival, on a site of 360,000 square metres laid out specially to the north of the city, and to mark the first anniversary of the opening of the border. The festivities ran from 1 to 23 September with political debates, exhibitions and concerts, among them a David Bowie performance marking twenty-five years of his career.
They were the last of their kind. The PCI dissolved shortly afterwards and reconstituted itself as the Democratic Party of the Left, which in 2009, for the twentieth anniversary of the fall, formally made the segment over to the city of Modena.
It now stands in a conspicuous place: the ground-floor entrance of the Galleria Europa inside the Palazzo Comunale, the town hall, which houses the Europe Direct information centre supported by the European Commission. The object passed from a communist party to a European Union information office in the same building where it had been a festival exhibit.
How did it get here?
Bought by the Italian Communist Party in Modena in September 1990 for the Festa Nazionale de l'Unità, and transferred to the city by its successor party in 2009.
Sources
Listed by the Federal Foundation as #135 and by the Berlin Wall Archive as #262.
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry ↗
The PCI's purchase of the segment in September 1990, its display at the last Festa Nazionale de l'Unità from 1 to 23 September including the Bowie concert, the party's dissolution, the 2009 transfer to the city, and the present position in the Galleria Europa of the Palazzo Comunale.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17
Servizi di informazione Piazza Grande ↗
The city's own page for the Piazza Grande information services, which include Europe Direct: an original portion of the Berlin Wall stands in the Galleria Europa.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Nuovi modenesi, 212 bambini diventano cittadini onorari ↗
A city press release of March 2024: an original fragment of the Wall stands in the Galleria Europa as a testimony to the values on which the European Union is founded.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 135
Berlin Wall Archive ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 262
Source-reported segments: 1. This is not a separately verified count.
No photograph of this one has been published. If you have taken one, or know when it arrived or who gave it, we would like to hear. Contribute to this record