Festival della Mente » 2025

Event #33

Festival della Mente — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 19:30:42 +0000

In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche praised the rites in honor of Dionysus as moments of deep communion with nature – something the modern world, he argued, still desperately needed: "Under the spell of the Dionysian, not only is the bond between man and man tightened, but nature, once alienated, hostile, or subdued, once again celebrates her festival of reconciliation with her lost son.” But what does it mean today to reconnect with nature? Contemporary culture places great emphasis on the visual component of the landscape, flooding us with images of remote, alluring places. Yet there are other sensory paths to rediscovering our sense of belonging to the invisible nature of which we are a part – through music, philosophy, travel, and encounters with other living beings.

Event #32

Martina Ricciardi — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 19:15:33 +0000

A searing and poignant stage work, Mary Stuart marks the theatrical debut of writer Nicoletta Verna and premieres here for festival audiences. Produced by Teatro Franco Parenti and conceived by Andrée Ruth Shammah, with direction by Claudia Grassi, the play traces the awakening of a woman named Mary Stuart – portrayed by Marina Rocco – to the violence she has suffered. In a life scarred by abuse and domination, she resists surrender, waging a lifelong struggle for freedom. Her story is accompanied by the music of saxophonist Marina Notaro.

Event #31

Martina Ricciardi — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 17:00:11 +0000

Upon his return to the city, Plato founded the Academy, parrying the charge that he had given substance to what could neither be achieved nor seen. To such critics he responded with a wry retort: those unable to perceive the Ideas underlying his philosophical and political vision simply lacked the eyes of the soul. The dream of the ideal city had not dimmed. In his later years –tempered by affections and disappointments alike – a new tyrant in Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger, son of the first, lured him into one final attempt. It, too, ended in failure. Yet the man who returned to Athens was not defeated. Here, at what had become the pre-eminent philosophical school of the ancient world, Plato met a young Aristotle. The years that followed were marked by profound inquiry and the creation of his most enduring works. At eighty-one, he left this world – only in body. His thought remains eternal.

Event #30

Martina Ricciardi — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 15:15:23 +0000

From the very first bars of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal let us hear the theme of Keikobad – the Spirit King who controls the fate of every character yet never sets foot on stage. Decades earlier, Richard Wagner opened his Bayreuth theatre with the “invisible orchestra,” and even dreamed of one day creating an “invisible stage.” How he imagined it, we will never know. More than any other art form, music draws us into what cannot be touched or held – into the fleeting, the elusive, the invisible. Guided by the voices and hands of those who bring to life what Schopenhauer called “the noblest of the arts”, Piero Maranghi traces this thread through the great operatic and symphonic repertoire.

Event #29

Martina Ricciardi — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 15:00:33 +0000

Endlessly photographed yet unseen, listened to yet unheard – free to do, but not to be. What does it mean to move from childhood into adolescence in today’s world? Why does the distress experienced by these generations rarely erupt in public protest or rebellion, instead manifesting as school withdrawal, social isolation, self-harm, or aggression toward others? Only the offer of a genuine relationship can keep young people from feeling alone in the crowd. For that, adults must learn emotional literacy and face their own vulnerabilities and contradictions, so they can truly respond to the developmental needs of their children and students. Today’s youth urgently seek meaningful connections with significant adults – are we prepared to meet them?

Event #28

Martina Ricciardi — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 13:15:55 +0000

Thanks to the economic boom in the Global South, the middle class is growing exponentially and investing more and more in international mobility. At the same time, the two longstanding loopholes in the Schengen system—family reunification and overstaying—continue to swell the numbers of new arrivals. Like it or not, it’s already too late: the border is effectively open. Within a couple of generations, all of us will have a relative in India, Egypt, or Nigeria. And this is even more true as we enter the dawn of the Asian century—a time when India and China are poised to reclaim their place at the top of the global hierarchy, and when many Asian, Arab, and African countries will be in a stronger position to renegotiate visa regimes and dismantle the last invisible form of apartheid: the one at the border.

Event #27

Martina Ricciardi — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 13:00:47 +0000

How is a defendant’s guilt or innocence determined? Every decision begins with a narrative – a version of events, often more than one, which may contain errors, omissions, lapses in memory, or contradictions. We are then called to assess whether that story is true, credible, or plausible. Yet classical narrative, expressed in natural language, is not the only tool at our disposal. We also have a complementary one: probability theory – the mathematics of uncertainty. The challenge is that, unlike storytelling, which effortlessly triggers mental imagery, abstract mathematics resists visualization. Formulas and numbers are harder to translate into real-world actions. So how can we reconcile narrative and mathematics to arrive at the most difficult of all judgments?

Event #26

Martina Ricciardi — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 10:15:52 +0000

Subject to endless scrutiny but rarely listened to, the body – so conspicuously on display today – is in fact, paradoxically, invisible. Medicine dissects it into isolated parts, politics appropriates it for its own ends, and online life strips it of touch and connection. It dissolves into the virtual, distorted by decorative stereotypes. Meanwhile, real bodies flicker across our phone screens – shattered by bombs, lifeless; bleeding from acts of femicide. Vittorio Lingiardi seeks to bring the body back to the center of our attention – to restore its vitality through medical and psychological, political and poetic storytelling. “Nothing has changed,” writes Wisława Szymborska, “Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances. Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same.” Because “the body is and is and is”.

Event #48

Festival della Mente — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 10:07:55 +0000

Extreme Writing is a thrilling literary improvisation contest unfolding over three rounds, where competitors face off in the ring, crafting stories on the spot. This edition dives into the fascinating world of ghosts – the twilight presences that inhabit the shadowy threshold between everyday life and the nocturnal realm of our fears, and that have long inspired great writers. Three teams of students under 18, from the local I.I.S. Parentucelli Arzelà school and the Futuro Aperto project, will compete under the guidance of their coaches: editor Edoardo Brugnatelli and writers Chiara Deiana and Leonardo Patrignani. Judging them will be a panel of experts in both writing and nightmares. The event will be hosted by Greta Cappelletti, author, actress, and comedian. This initiative is part of Futuro Aperto, a project selected by Con i Bambini through the Fund for Combating Educational Poverty in Children, with co-funding from Fondazione Carispezia.

Event #25

Martina Ricciardi — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 10:00:21 +0000

Adriano Panatta once remarked that tennis must have been invented by the devil. Certainly, there is something diabolical about it, if even the most seasoned players admit that their toughest opponent is not the one across the net, but the one hidden in their own mind. And yet, tennis is also the sport that best symbolizes openness and wide horizons. Each match is an invisible dialogue: the ball travels back and forth like sentences in a conversation – to stop responding is to concede. The tennis court is, above all, a place of second chances. They are woven into the rules themselves: a missed serve comes with another try; a ball struck into the net or out of bounds must be let go immediately to start again. So that in the end, every mistake remains invisible on the scoreboard.