Agrigento Capital of Culture, Mattarella exalts the art and beauty of Italy

The citizens of Agrigento “from today, protagonists of the Italian Capital of Culture for 2025. Agrigento collects this precious testimony from Pesaro, in the center of Italy. Which, in turn, had received it from the north of our Country: from Brescia and Bergamo, of extraordinary value. highlights the link between the different Italian centers. It shows its roots and plans for the future. It highlights their friendship. It highlights the value of exchanges between cultural heritages and knowledge”. This was said by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, speaking at the launch ceremony of Agrigento, Italian capital of culture 2025.

Italy “is full of places full of history, art and beauty. A heritage that accumulated over the centuries has marked its identity. In the succession of experiences of the peoples who have inhabited and grown it. Nothing more than this part of Sicily. Nothing more than this land bears witness to the value of the succession of civilisations”. Nature, history, culture “are elements of our genetic heritage”, explained the Head of State. The Italian metropolises, “destinations of growing tourism, are not the only centers of gravity. The richness of our country lies in its plurality. In its multiple beauty. What gives particular value to Italy is precisely its precious diversity, the hundred capitals that have acted, over the centuries, as places capable of expressing community. A great asset for our national journey. Inheritance received from our fathers. And treasure to invest for the future of our children.”

“One of the intentions for Agrigento, in this 2025, is not only to be the spectacular stage of the Capital of Culture, but to constitute a stimulus and push for many other Italian realities. Many realities, in the regions of Italy – he stated – hold invaluable resources that risk perishing without adequate care. The many treasures of the peninsula are closely linked to the communities that expressed them, to their peculiar development and we are aware that today there are areas in difficulty, necessary abandonments, risks of depopulation. Bringing balance back to places where nature has been forced and where many assets of Italian culture reside is an obligatory path to promote sustainable growth and to strengthen the country as a whole.”

In his speech Mattarella remembered not only the citizens of Agrigento, “from today protagonists of the Italian Capital of Culture for 2025”, but also the “Lampedusani”, “fellow citizens, who the wounds of our time have made the vanguard of European civilization. Expression of solidarity culture”.

“Agrigento – continued the President of the Republic – intends to speak to the rest of the country and to the Europe of which it is part. Agrigento, the center of ancient Greek civilization as early as the sixth century BC. The Akragas of Empedocles, who defined the four elements that he indicated as constituting the whole as ‘roots’: fire, air, earth, water. These four elements are now stylized in the official logo of Agrigento Capital of Culture: for Empedocles the unity of the elements was the spark of the birth of everything, whereas separation was the cause of death. A symbol that reiterates the need to recompose, to regenerate cohesion, to proceed together”.

Regenerating cohesion, added Mattarella, “is asking for it the memory of the dead of the wars that bloodied Europe and the Mediterranean and other regions of the planet. This is required by the tragic violations of human rights that erase dignity and life itself. Growing inequalities demand it. Extreme poverty, marginalization. The lament of the earth, violated by the extreme exploitation of resources, with its catastrophic consequences, starting with climate change, requires it.”