«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. A chain, of extraordinary value. Which, year after year, 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. 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.” The President of the Republic said it Sergio Mattarellaon the occasion of the inauguration of the year of Agrigento as Italian capital of culture.
«Nature, history, culture are elements of our genetic heritage. The Italian metropolises, destinations of growing tourism, are not the only centers of gravity. The richness of our country lies in its plurality – continued Mattarella – 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 «treasure to invest for the future of our children. Many realities, in the regions of Italy, hold invaluable resources, many risk deteriorating without adequate care”.
«For Empedocles, the unity of the elements was the spark of the birth of everything, while separation was the cause of death» – continues the President of the Republic – A symbol that reiterates the need to recompose, regenerate cohesion, to proceed together. The memory of the dead of the wars that bloodied Europe, the Mediterranean and other regions of the planet asks for it. This is required by the tragic violations of human rights that erase dignity and life itself. Growing inequalities demand it. Extreme poverty, marginalization. Italians from every region will be attracted by your cultural heritage, by the proposals you are able to put forward. Fellow citizens of every country in Europe, tourists from every origin. A frequency of meetings, of faces, of languages, of experiences, of curiosities, destined to leave their mark, to enrich each other’s ability to understand, the identity of each one. In this same year, Italy will share the responsibility with Slovenia of being the European Capital of Culture with Gorizia and Nova Gorica. A choice of the highest value in an area historically burdened by conflicts which today have been able to translate into collaboration and friendship in the European Union. Where opposing borders had separated, today Europe unites.”
«Greetings and best wishes which extend to those in the area who will be involved in the scheduled events. Among them, to the people of Lampedusa. Fellow citizens, whom the wounds of our time have made at the forefront of European civilization. Expression of solidarity culture.”
Bringing balance back where nature has been forced
«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.”
Homage to Pirandello and Camilleri
Homage to Luigi Pirandello and Andrea Camilleri, his great scholar, by the head of state in his speech at the inauguration of Agrigento Capital of Culture 2025. «Luigi Pirandello – underlined Sergio Mattarella – will have a place of honor in this year. With his sagacity, with his irony, with his masks, with his ability to delve into the human soul. In remembering Pirandello, Andrea Camilleri accompanies us and helps us – underlined Mattarella – also a son of these lands. “Who was Sancho Panza? Who was Don Abbondio? – asked Pirandello through one of the characters in search of an author – Yet they live eternally, because they had the good fortune to find a fertile matrix, an imagination that knew how to raise and nourish them, make them live for eternity. We live in a time – he continued – in which everything seems to be compressed and exhausted in the instant of the present in which technology sometimes claims to monopolize thought rather than put itself at the service of knowledge. Culture, on the contrary, is turning to a broad horizon, rebelling against any compression of our humanism, what has made our civilization great.” “In Agrigento, in Sicily – he concluded – we look with hope to this year to be lived together with the desire to welcome, to learn, to dialogue, to undertake a fascinating journey, in each other’s company. Happy New Year as Capital of Culture!
Schifani: «Agrigento Capital, opportunity for all of Italy»
«Agrigento, with the island of Lampedusa and the municipalities of the province, has taken the relationship between the individual, others and nature as its inspiration, thematic reference and objective for this year, placing hospitality and mobility as its fulcrum. The program of initiatives presented to a national and international audience is of great interest. Starting from the extraordinary cultural heritage of the territory, in fact, it enhances a varied cultural offer, in which tradition, intersections and cultural contaminations allow us to define an innovative dimension that looks with confidence at the socio-economic development that, with difficulty but with determination, Sicily has already started.” This is one of the central passages of the greeting of president of the Sicilian Region, Renato Schifani, in the opening ceremony of Agrigento Italian Capital of Culture 2025, which took place this morning at the Pirandello Theatre, in the presence of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, the Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, the president of the ARS, Gaetano Galvagno, the mayor of Agrigento, Francesco Micciché, of the extraordinary commissioner of the Free Consortium of Agrigento, Giovanni Bologna and of all the local authorities.
«Of absolute importance – added President Schifani – is the active involvement of the young generations, in a land that still loses too much energy due to emigration, so that culture can represent a cornerstone of personal growth and that of the entire community. The title of Capital of Culture, which has now been consolidated after many editions, will offer Agrigento and the whole of Sicily the opportunity to consolidate and make its roots known, showing them to Italians and foreigners who, we are sure numerous, will come to visit it.”
«From Agrigento, while a faint wind of peace begins to blow in the Mediterranean, the Italian Capital of Culture will give the opportunity to make known that crossroads of civilizations that has been and is – he underlined – thanks to the ability to reconcile the differences , to systematize them, to bring antitheses back to synthesis precisely through culture and its timeless beauty. «The government of the Region – continued the governor – has started a preparatory action for this particular year by promoting the Christmas concert broadcast from the Valley of the Temples on television. An event that had a significant success at a national level. The significant financial support offered by the Region is justified by the belief that this important cultural investment is an extraordinary opportunity for the whole of Sicily, as Gibellina will be, the first Italian Capital of Contemporary Art in 2026. In Agrigento, in front of this suggestive “sea African, immense and jealous”, a new journey begins today. And it will be intersected by opportunities that need to be seized, by industrious dreams to be transformed into new cultural and entrepreneurial initiatives, supported by the commitment to concrete achievements. This ancient city – continued Schifani – like the whole of Sicily, is the cradle of culture, civilisation, philosophy, literature, law, even if among the terrible contradictions of economic difficulties and the weight of mafia crime, the two black angels from which we are progressively freeing ourselves with a choice of the people that was nourished by the sacrifice of heroes who offered their lives. Pirandello said he was born in Sicily and that here “man is born island within an island and remains so until his death”.
«Starting precisely from self-awareness, of one’s historical heritage, of the immense cultural heritage received, of the precious ecosystem to be preserved and handed down to future generations – concluded President Schifani – we must open ourselves up to others, to the community, to nature , in comparison, often mysterious, with diversity (cultural, religious, ethnic), with nature. A relational, welcoming and dialogue vision which is the ancient legacy of a shared plural identity. We in Sicily have been doing this for centuries. And Agrigento will once again be a testimony and emblem of Sicilian and Italian culture.”