Barroso inaugurates the new building of Bocconi University

"Milano is a European city, it deserves to host the Expo"

Milano, 5 nov. (Apcom) - The most important representatives of local, national and European institutions inaugurated the new building of Bocconi University, which hosted the opening ceremony of the 2008-2009 academic year. Among the eminent participants were the president of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, Milano's mayor, Letizia Moratti, the president of Lombardy's government, Roberto Formigoni, and Italy's financial elite.

"For me it is a pleasure to come back to Milano," said Barroso. "It is a modern and European city at the same time. Its international role and the commitment shown by Letizia Moratti and her collaborators explain why it was chosen as the venue for the 2015 Universal Exhibition."

Mario Monti, the president of the athenaeum, praised the continuity between Milano and the new building: thanks to its capacity to "distil the essence of the city", the project of Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Dublin based Grafton Architects has recently won the World Building of the Year Award in Barcelona.

"None of our buildings has been built with the aim to only create new spaces intended for the university life, as each one of them has acted as an integral part of the city area," Monti pointed out. "Our campus is the urban and architectural expression of Bocconi's cultural vision, which is characterized both by innovation and by an international vocation."

Also Letizia Moratti dedicated her welcome greeting to this relation. "We are presenting more than just a new building," she claimed. "We are inaugurating a symbol of our city, a place that through architecture shows the main features of our city and its constant redevelopment, without forgetting its identity and its deepest spirit."

Letizia Moratti unveils plaques of illustrious Milanese citizens

Designer Mila Schon and journalist Enzo Biagi among the 14 people

Milano, 5 nov. (Apcom) - "Among us there are people who thanks to their devotion, passion and self-abnegation spirit weave their private life together with the dimension of public commitment in an indissoluble way." These were the words of Milano's mayor Letizia Moratti when, on the day dedicated to the commemoration of the dead, she unveiled the plaques in memory of 14 illustrious citizens, like Enzo Biagi and Mila Schon, in the 'Famedio' (i.e., the part of cemetery reserved for famous people) of the Monumental Cemetery.

"The example of these men and these women is not just memory, it is a reason for hope," Letizia Moratti said. "In Milano, in Italy and all over the world we are living through hard times. This crisis is affecting the companies as much as the families, our financial system as much as every single citizen. We are facing some global challenges, but we perceive its effects in our real life."

"The example and the memory of these people," she added, "can be a great comfort to all of us when we have to deal with daily grind. Thanks to them, we can face our responsibilities with stronger trust and serenity. We thank them and their relatives for the example they gave us and the love they showed for our city."

The new members of the 'Famedio' are: the publisher Franco Angeli, the journalist and writer Enzo Biagi, the sculptor Pietro Cascella, the tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano, composer Aldo Finzi, the conductor Romano Gandolfi, the philologist Dante Isella, the actress Isa Miranda, the actress and playwright Teresa Pomodoro, the entrepreneur Ennio Presutti, the fashion designer Mila Schon, the founder and president of the National Association of hemodialysed people Franca Pellini, the researcher Mario Silvestri and the founder of the homonymous agency of express mail delivery Cesare Rinaldi.

Castello Sforzesco: Leonardo's Sala delle Asse will be restored

Three years of works to rediscover the artist's traces

Milano, 5 nov. (Apcom) - The Sala delle Asse ('Room of the wooden panels'), a room of the Castello Sforzesco with a superb ceiling decoration designed in 1498 by Leonardo da Vinci, will soon be restored. The works will last three years and will cost about 2 million euros. The money will be provided by the multi-utility company A2A (1.5 million euros) and by the Ministry for Arts and Culture.

When it was rediscovered in 1893, the room was in very bad conditions, so the painter Francesco Carlo Rusca repainted it. In 1956 it was restored by Ottemi Della Rotta, who found a fragment of monochrome fresco with tree roots and rocks which was also ascribed to Leonardo on one of the walls. Now restorers hope to find other fragments in order to be able to retrieve all the vault's original colours.

The Culture minister Sandro Bondi claimed that he experienced a strong emotion while "entering the room for the first time, just at the thought that Leonardo da Vinci worked here." "It is not sure that we will find other traces of Leonardo," pointed out Milano's mayor Letizia Moratti. According to her, this work reflects the city's "multi-disciplinary soul". For this reason, the Vitruvian Man was chosen as the symbol of the 2015 Universal Exhibition. "The themes studied by Leonardo," Moratti explained, "will be analysed through a series of meetings" during the next six years.

Taibo II: "Leonardo launched a subversive message in Milano"

The writer spoke to the students: Don't use violence to protest

Milano, 29 ott. (Apcom) - The most "subversive" action of the Renaissance painting is the Sala delle Asse ('Room of the wooden panels') in the north east tower of Milano's Castello Sforzesco, whose decorative works that portray fragments of trees interwoven with golden braids bear the signature of Leonardo da Vinci. This is the theory of the Spanish Mexican journalist and writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II, who explained it during a meeting with a group of students of the Political Science department at the Università degli Studi. As thousands of other young people all over the country, they have been protesting against the measures taken by the Italian government on education for over two weeks.

"All the studies on Leonardo ignore the peculiarity of this room and just talk of a 'decorative experience', although it is much more than this," he claimed. "There is a strong subversive message, because in an age when on the ceilings artists painted only skies full of fat angels and virgins, he chose to depict a complicated geometric wood. His message is clear: heaven and earth are the same thing."

"Nobody ever asked Leonardo why he had chosen that subject," underlined the writer. "He never explained it, but still his message is a wonderful one, you should recognize yourselves in it. Through that work, Leonardo claims that 'the power doesn't lie in the sky'. You certainly need literary languages to understand it."

Paco Ignacio Taibo II, a protagonist of the 1970s student movement, encouraged the young people to continue their protest by occupying schools and universities as a gesture of disagreement. However, he invited them to avoid any violent action. "Occupying this building and sleeping here is important, because it allows you to share everyday experiences," he said. "The only advice I feel like giving you is to be extremely careful with the use of violence, which would turn the movement into a sect. Violence is always very dangerous and reduces the chances of dialogue."

"In certain situations violence is a right," the journalist pointed out, "but in this historical period it just creates isolation." According to him, Gandhi's lesson of passive resistance is more effective. "Civil disobedience is illegal, but morally right." Another advice is to make use of irony and imagination: in 1968, for example, demonstrators organized feigned debates on buses with a student in favor of the protest movement and another apparently against it. "It was one of the most effective things, people started to participate in the discussions spontaneously."

The key of your success," he added while addressing the students, "is the recovery of a language that can tell the truth and win on the communication of the strong. You should be able to look in the eyes of people who haven't joined in the protest yet and tell them: 'We are fighting also for you'." Taibo mentioned the heroes of his precocious literary childhood: Robin Hood, Anna Frank, Sandokan, the Count of Monte Cristo. "The movement must feed on their words: honor, freedom and brotherhood. What counts in life is sentimental education: in these days of protest you have learned the sociology of power more than in many courses."