Private initiatives keep culture alive in Rome
The triumphs ofRoman summerthe main cultural event of the Capital, invented by the Councilor for Culture, Renato Nicolini in the left-wing administrations of Giulio Carlo Argan, Luigi Petroselli And Ugo Veterewhich had transformed the Eternal City into one of the most attractive European cultural centers for artists, scholars and visitors.
Grown over the decades, passing through the unrepeatable jubilee year, from 2008 the event began its unstoppable decline which led to the suppression of numerous events (cinema, dance, theatre, exhibitions). Today, the Roman Summer is reduced to little: a popular evening entertainment. Just take a walk on a summer evening along the Lungotevere, starting from Castel Sant’Angelo and going towards the Tiber Island and see what the surviving offer might be.
In any case, despite the general cultural decadence to which Rome has been subject for several decades, it is pleasing to note that, here and there, they emerge autonomously and still quite frequently private proposals and initiatives, which contribute to maintaining a minimum cultural life in the city. This was the case of the recent celebratory conference for the 200th anniversary of the death of Lord Byronheld in the splendid setting of Hall of the Popes of the Dominican Convent of the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minervaorganized by “Tiber Literary Salon” in collaboration with the Pan di Lettere publishing houserepresented by the founder Lara DiCarloand from Keats-Shelley Housethe museum next to the Spanish Steps, the final resting place of John Keats.
And the location chosen for the meeting is full of pathos, as often happens in Rome, given that there are numerous places where the History: the room that opens onto the intimate and private cloister of the ecclesiastical complex saw people pass by Galileo Galilei, suspected of heresy; before him, the mortal remains of Catherine of SienaDoctor of the Church, the “mystic” Fra Angelicouniversal patron of artists and the Pope Leothe son of Lorenzo de’ Medici who during his pontificate had to face theLuther’s heresy.
A circle of private individuals, therefore, who appropriately promoted the initiative for an everlasting author who is perhaps a little neglected today. It is regrettable, in fact, that for a figure of such importance, one of the emblems of English and European romanticism, there were no celebrations organized by the Capitoline Administration; it could have been the starting point to relaunch, with other similar cultural initiatives, the role and importance of culture for the life of the city, also in view of the next jubilee year.
Perhaps, more than all Italian cities, Rome it could live from its history, its art and its culture; but, as with all things of value, culture goes “cultivated” and renewed, not giving in to the temptation of ugliness, in any form, because it is cheaper, more practical and faster. The commemorative event of the great English poet was opened by the greeting message of the Greek Ambassador to Rome, His Excellency Eleni Souranito remember the sacrifice of Byron, who died of malarial fever Missolonghion 19 April 1824, having participated as a volunteer in the insurrectionary movements for the independence of Greece from the oppressive Turkish rule.
After a brief introduction by the two co-founders of the “Salotto Letterario Tevere Roma”, Paolo Dragonetti De Torres Rutili And Carlotta Ghirardinihe spoke writer Vincenzo Patané, one of the greatest scholars of Lord Byron in Italy. The intervention focused on dualism of Lord Byron’s personality, on its numerous contradictions, which outline a much more complex and fascinating figure than that handed down by the usual school studies. A modern figure, still relevant. A man opposed by moralistic and right-thinking institutions, but adored by women and commoners. A melancholic from distant Great Britain but impatient with the English, symbol of Romanticism and then fed up with the corny poems already overflowing among the general public.
Then it was the turn of Count Carlo Piola Caselliwhich revealed previously unpublished aspects and familiar anecdotes handed down by the romantic patriot Pietro Gamba about Lord Byron, when both were in Greece. Count Pietro Gamba (1801-1827) he was the brother of Teresa Guiccioli, lover of Lord Byron, and member of the Italian Carboneria. She accompanied Byron on his mission to Greece in 1823, and was described by the English poet as “one of the most amiable, courageous and excellent young men” he had ever met, “with a thirst for knowledge and a disinterestedness which are seldom met with”. Gamba died of typhus in 1827, while he was still working for Greek independence.
The memory raised by Count Piola Caselli was emotional, in memory of the 266 philhellenes who died like Byron for Greek independence, of which 42 were Italian, whose names are registered in the temple of Nauplia and for which the entire room stood up moved. It was testimony not only to the courage and extreme sacrifice of those patriots, but also to the romantic spirit that pervaded noble men throughout Europe for over a century, carrying the torch of glorious French Revolutionthrough our Risorgimento and up to the 20th century when, on the occasion of Spanish Civil War, volunteers from all over Europe rushed to defend the Republic and to liberate Catalonia. An enthusiasm and adherence to the ideas of freedom and mutual solidarity between peoples, proven with direct participation, even at the risk of one’s own life: everything was questioned for a idealone abandoned the security of one’s daily life and for the future, trusting in the goodness of the cause and in the value of one’s own courage.
Today we live in a society permeated by automatisms, designed to serve us and improve everyone’s quality of life and which, instead, ended up weakening the body and impoverishing the spirit, making us weak in thought and action. Already Leonardo Sciascia, decades ago, had grasped the ruin of contemporary society, when the classification of men declined! Contemporary society, called “fluid” or “liquid”, has been made so because ultra-fast by the machines that have transformed the value of time and the hierarchy of values: if everything is very fast, time becomes excessively monetized, making slaves of the weak, who cannot buy it, and mercenaries of the bourgeois who prostitute themselves with it.
Indeed, we oscillate between necessity and opportunism, without being able to maintain one position of personal morality. We have more time and therefore become incapable of cultivating knowledge and friendships, art and culture, of elevating the spirit beyond the deadlines of everyday dullness and making it capable of a movement of generosity, courage and freedom. Why. to undertake such a journey, one must have the moral strength to renounce the ephemeral – which fills the solitude of our days – and to spend one’s time towards important goals, which however turn out to be risky and tiring, and which therefore are for few.
Such objectives are politically disastrous, because they fail to involve the masses, who have always been compliant and won over “bread and circuses”. And this is why culture and beauty disappear today, a time of populism, from electoral programs and from the political agenda of administrations. The time of culture as a guide of society and politics is no longer…
The co-founders of the Salotto Tevere Carlotta Ghirardini and Paolo Dragonetti De Torres with the actor Bruce Payne
(**) Count Carlo Piola Caselli
