This article was published in issue 23 of Vanity Fair, on newsstands until June 8
With an insistent repetition, not supported by any reflection, we are often led to associate words without dwelling on the authentic meaning determined by their union. A rhetoric made up of obvious, colorless expressions thus risks obscuring profound truths and, above all, does not prompt us to draw adequate consequences. How many times have we heard and repeated the word “beauty” associated with “Italy”? It is an indissoluble hendiadys, of course, but, although it recalls an evident character, it cannot be exhausted in an invocation.
To give depth to this extraordinary combination of words, it is necessary to resort to the meaning that our Constituent Fathers were able to give to a third word: “culture“. It is the value of culture, affirmed by art. 9 of our Constitution, to sculpt, in just two short periods, the centrality that the question assumes in the catalog of the fundamental principles that inspire the life of the Republic.
Alongside culture there is the value of research, scientific and technical, of the landscape, of the historical and artistic heritage of the nation, all assets to be promoted and protected. A relevance that develops in two other articles of the Constitution, inseparable from article 9: freedom for art and science and the freedom of their teaching (Article 33) and the right to knowledge for all (Article 34).
A pedagogical path that crosses the Constitution, indicated by Constituents as the Marchesi and Aldo Moro Concept: the fundamental Charter not as an inert book but as a vital and fertile document, capable of proposing a public ethics shared by Italians, cultivated over time as a dimension of life civil.
The design of art. 9 of the Constitution is of extraordinary importance, because it not only prescribes a duty for the public authorities, but also encourages every single citizen to take on the beauty of our country in an active and not just contemplative way. An even more topical commitment, revisited in these days in the parliamentary debate, with an eye to the transmission of this heritage to future generations.
Some questions ask us. What does it mean to be Italian? And, closely linked to this question, what cultural mission has Italy carried out, is carrying out, can it carry out, in strengthening the European identity, in the international context? It’s still: Does culture play a role in the country’s recovery? These are questions we should all answer. It is an appeal, an invitation, addressed above all to young people. To respond to you by raising an awareness that concerns them and that concerns their future.
It exists, first of all, an obligation to know our history, of our language, of our art, starting with our cities, our villages, our wonderful villages, each of them capable of preserving extraordinary art treasures.
Active citizenship involves an element of dialogue and cooperation with public institutions in the promotion, development and protection of cultural and landscape heritage, because it is a dimension of enormous proportions of our life, perhaps the largest concentrated in a single country, and the budget of the Been alone is not enough to cope with it. The numerous meritorious initiatives of voluntary associations and non-profit foundations have enriched a panorama that also deserves more widespread attention from the business system. It is the entire community that is involved and guarantor.
Istat certifies the presence in Italy of 4,908 museums, archaeological areas, monuments and naturalistic areas that can be defined as ecomuseums. It is a heritage scattered throughout the national territory, with the presence of a museum in at least one third of the Italian municipalities. Looking at Italy, it can be said that we can not only talk about art cities as much as, really, about an entire “treasure peninsula”, to recall the title of a far-sighted initiative of the Italian Touring Club.
To the museums are added the precious networks of libraries, theaters, auditoriums, academies and institutes, cinemas, art galleries, cultural festivals, which make Italian legacies current and the liveliness of expressions accessible. contemporary art.
This immense wealth is constitutive of the same Italian identity, and deserves to be lived with full awareness of its multiple value: historical, aesthetic, economic. Let’s think of the words of President Ciampi when he observed, in 2003, that “the economy itself must be inspired by culture, as a seal of its Italian character“, To conclude that” the promotion of his knowledge, the protection of the artistic heritage are therefore not an activity among others for the Republic, but one of its most proper missions, public and inalienable by constitutional dictates and by the will of a millennial identity “.
The insults to the landscape and nature, their abandonment, in addition to representing an affront to intelligence, are an attack on our identity, a fundamental constitutive element of that European culture to which the Union refers, starting from the Treaty of Lisbon, since its preamble, citing the “cultural, religious and humanistic heritages of Europe”, and pledging to supervise “the safeguarding and development of the European cultural heritage” (Article 3 of the TFEU).
It was a man originally from Northern Europe, Frederick II of Swabia, of the Hohenstaufen family, who loved the South of Italy and conceived with modern sensibility a design of Europe looking at the “human wonder” of this land of ours. He became aware, with an anti-seeing spirit, of the role of cultural diversity in the Mediterranean basin, and of the richness deriving from mixtures, encounters, mergers, peaceful cohabitations and the demolition of walls, sometimes erected with artificial identity alibis.
Culture is, by definition, plural. It is so in its articulations, in its inspirations and roots, in its expressions, in its manifestations. It consists of a dialogue that must be perpetually cultivated to re-establish the relationship between arts and society, institutions, to make use of their contribution. It is true in this period that we are committed to defeating the pandemic.
The Quirinal it has the duty – and nourishes the ambition in this area – to be a privileged point of observation, of listening, of stimulus. He tried to bear witness to this, also through the contemporary Quirinale project.
The creative process in our country has never stopped and the years of the Republic have seen the creation of significant works.
The history of art will tell us if these human events will find a place in the periodizations of the birth of some artistic school or some literary current.
What is certain is that the beauty of Italy never fails to amaze us, whether we look to the past or if we turn our gaze to the present.
Italo Calvino attributes his own to Marco Polo Invisible cities a thought that has the sound of a poem about the Italian reality: “Arriving in each new city, the traveler finds a past of his that he no longer knew he had”. We must ensure that the same is true of our future.
Here because the restart puts in the foreground the exaltation of our cultural resources and virtualities. This is why the hendiadys of “beauty and Italy” goes far beyond the call of a successful emblem, and extends to a broad vision, to be a propulsion for the future of the younger generations.
(Photo Paolo Pellegrin)
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