A square named after Daisaku Ikeda. At 12 next Saturday, April 13, the Municipality pays homage to the Buddhist master and president of the Soka Gakkai International, peace builder (1928-2023), who passed away last November. The ceremony will take place in via Reginaldo Giuliani 562, in the roundabout corresponding to the arrivals from Florence and Sesto Fiorentino.
The mayor Dario Nardella, the councilor for relations with religious confessions Maria Federica Giuliani and the president of the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai Alberto Aprea will be present. Afterwards, after the naming ceremony and until 6pm, the Buddhist cultural center of Florence (adjacent to the square) will be open to citizens. Various activities will take place.
GUIDED TOURS OF THE VILLA
Guided tours of the Villa are scheduled for the entire afternoon of Saturday 13 April with the possibility of deepening our knowledge of the figure of Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhist teacher, philosopher, Grand Officer of the Italian Republic and Honorary Citizen of Florence, who died in Tokyo on 15 November 2023. Ikeda was honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, the largest secular Buddhist movement in the world, present in 192 countries and territories around the world and to which 13.5 million believers belong. His deep relationships with Italy are demonstrated by the fifty-one honorary citizenships he received and the recognitions of various Italian universities. Ikeda visited our country eight times, in 1981 he arrived in Florence for the first time.
In 1992 he returned to Florence again to receive the Golden Florin awarded to him by the mayor Giorgio Morales, and in the same year he went to Milan. In 1994 in Bologna he was awarded the Doctoral Ring by the University of Bologna. In 2007 Mayor Leonardo Domenici awarded Ikeda the Seal of Peace and in 2017 the Florence City Council awarded him Honorary Citizenship at the hands of Mayor Dario Nardella. A commemoration ceremony was held on January 20th in the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio.
The Soka Gakkai Italian Buddhist Institute is based in Florence at the Villa di Bellagio, built around the middle of the fourteenth century, over the centuries it has hosted illustrious Florentine families: in 1427 Francesco and Niccolò Tornabuoni lived there.
In 1986 the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai chose Villa di Bellagio to make it its headquarters. Much of the renovation and restoration work was carried out by volunteers from all over Italy. Since then this cultural center has welcomed thousands of people every year.
SETUP OF THE EXHIBITION “THE LEGACY OF LIFE”
The exhibition “The legacy of life – the climate is a choice, let’s save the future” is organized as part of the “I change, the world changes: think globally, change internally, act locally” campaign of the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai and aims to involve every single individual in major environmental challenges. From the five key sectors on which to intervene – energy, cities, production and consumption systems, trees, food security – we come to reflect on the just ecological transition, on a new model of development, on human rights and on peace. Everyone can do their part with daily and immediate actions also to ask for and support the necessary system actions at a national and global level. The “I change, the world changes” campaign is supported by the 8×1000 funds of the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai.
Source: Municipality of Florence – Press office
