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A popular youtuber AvE has already done a very thorough preliminary inspection of the engineering factors at play here, and his conclusions are that a lack of maintenance extreme weather probably led to this event. I don't contest this, the man is smarter than I am.

I'll just hit the keypoints I'm thinking about here. I have no clear point here, just some vaguely connected symbols and my understanding of history.

The bridge was designed by Riccardo Morandi, an Italian man responsible for the deign of many bridges across Europe and Africa.

Take a look at this photo and there is a clear resemblance between the masonic square and compasses. Considering the persecution of Genoian mansons under Sardinian rule of the early 1800's, its not hard to imagine the lasting grudge a mason might feel for the reemergence of fascism under Mussolini who attacked masonic ideals during Morandi's college years.

I don't know if Morandi was a mason or not, and frankly the only evidence I can cite is the shape of some of his bridges. Regardless, consider this reaching preponderance of mine for a moment: if you were a radical genius Rome-educated engineer that saw your homeland once again falling to fascism, how absurdly ironic/fitting is it that your work would collapse during the third resurgence of the authoritarian regime? If that man was me, I'd feel like I was the target of something larger, considering my work is still standing in countries like Libya, that have surly been tested more under war than Italy has during its summertime weather.

A popular youtuber [AvE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLwf4_bXOc0) has already done a very thorough preliminary inspection of the engineering factors at play here, and his conclusions are that a lack of maintenance extreme weather probably led to this event. I don't contest this, the man is smarter than I am. I'll just hit the keypoints I'm thinking about here. I have no clear point here, just some vaguely connected symbols and my understanding of history. The bridge was designed by Riccardo Morandi, an Italian man responsible for the deign of many bridges across Europe and Africa. Take a look at [this photo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Wadi_el_Kuf_Bridge_1970%27s.jpg) and there is a clear resemblance between the masonic [square and compasses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_and_Compasses). Considering the persecution of Genoian mansons under Sardinian rule of the early 1800's, its not hard to imagine the lasting grudge a mason might feel for the reemergence of fascism under Mussolini who attacked masonic ideals during Morandi's college years. I don't know if Morandi was a mason or not, and frankly the only evidence I can cite is the shape of some of his bridges. Regardless, consider this reaching preponderance of mine for a moment: if you were a radical genius Rome-educated engineer that saw your homeland once again falling to fascism, how absurdly ironic/fitting is it that your work would collapse during the third resurgence of the authoritarian regime? If that man was me, I'd feel like I was the target of something larger, considering my work is still standing in countries like Libya, that have surly been tested more under war than Italy has during its summertime weather.

5 comments

I agree with the entire comment, but I wonder if you can tell me more about what the church was offended by? I'm familiar with the earlier monetization of the catholic faith through indulgences (which inspired Lutheranism), but I don't know much about other significant deviations from Catholicism.

[–] Dii_Casses 1 points (+1|-0) Edited

Meh. I'm not massively familiar with the dispute, but I can try. King Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife, but the Catholic Church wouldn't agree to it. So he declared that the Pope lacked authority in England, which technically made it a new denomination, the Church of England. This church needed leadership. And who better to lead it than...Henry? There are verses of scripture about submitting to the authorities because God put them there, and Henry exploited those for all they were worth. But he didn't change a whole lot else; he basically just replaced the Pope with himself and declared that he was allowed his divorce.

This created a weird situation for England, since rejecting papal authority technically made it Protestant but it still had almost all the traditions, rules, rituals etc of Catholicism. The Puritans were unhappy at how Catholic their Protestant church was, and were trying to get the CoE to drop those Catholic rituals and traditions. Wikipedia lists a few specific demandsrequests they were making to King James, but I'm not Catholic or Anglican so it's almost all greek to me.

Hey, that's a good explanation. Thanks! I was vaguely familiar with the divorce of Henry the 8th, but I didn't realize what a logistical nightmare that was for the church.

You know, I'm actually really fascinated by the medieval and post-medieval history of Europe's religious/political history. The more I research, the more I learn that a tremendous amount of the actual history of this era was written by whichever clergy dominated a particular decade. Which makes me wonder what really happened during some of those later years that lead into the scientific renaissance that acted as a slingshot into our current world.

Seriously, thanks for bringing up the topic of Henry VII, I haven't even thought about this guy since I was in school well over a decade ago, and it seems like his personal rebellion inspired an entire world of change in Europe and the Americas which I had never really considered.

And on a side note, can you even imagine what kind of woman it would take to make a man openly give the middle finger to the official religion of his country? She was either the most supreme of bitches, or the lady-in-waiting was the dame of all dames. History may never know...

And seriously, game of thrones butchered this shit so badly, its ridiculous.