San Salvatore Covid Hospital

Excerpt from a text I wrote in March 2020, after taking these pictures, during the first pandemic wave. These are the doctors and nurses of the San Salvatore Hospital in Pesaro, Italy, the city of my birth and where I once again reside, which from day one has sadly been at the top of the COVID‑19 contagion and death charts. I photographed them at the end of their shifts—twelve hours without a break during their fight in an unequal war. In the quiet moments in front of my camera, these embattled individuals are in a state of total abandon, victims of an exhaustion that eats away at the body and the mind, a breathlessness that renders one disoriented, detached from time and space. They would take off their masks, caps, and gloves in front of my lens, remaining motionless, looking for some sort of normalcy amid the hell they were living. In the deep imprints left by their protective masks, I found a symbol of their sacrifice, but above all, I found evidence of the pain and helplessness of standing before an unknown enemy. If the marks left behind are the only trace, the