It’s called “Homage to Benedetto Croce” the bronze sculpture created by the artist from Messina Alfonso Maria Delogudonated to the Erminio and Zel Sipari Foundation of Pescasseroli in recent days. The head created in 2018, which depicts the illustrious philosopher, was placed inside the Sipari House Museum in Pescasseroli in the municipality of L’Aquila, right in the room where Croce was born. It is a “recognition of the philosophical and historiographical work of someone who, through his writings, left an indelible cultural trace in the thought of the 20th century”declared Delogu, who on the occasion of this donation wanted to remember his intense activity and link with Messina. Born in 1936, Delogu left the city of the Strait (he was born in the Incis houses in via Giordano Bruno) to move to the capital about half a century ago: the passion for artistic beauty understood as universal harmony is the stylistic feature that characterized his family . One of the Gaetano brothers, who passed away in 2019, was among the most illustrious contemporary conductors while he, from a very young age, cultivated a passion for sculpture.
“I was born a sculptor, I am convinced that artistic flair is a characteristic of the person”, he declares, recalling among his training courses the master Antonio Bonfiglio, an exponent of twentieth-century Sicilian artto whom he dedicated a bronze sculpture. His studio is a “cultural cenacle” where not only artists but also writers such as Leonardo Sciascia, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Stefano D’Arrigo, Giacomo Debenedetti come to life through writings. And precisely among the geniuses of modern writing, he places Croce high, defining him as the greatest Italian-language writer of the twentieth century.”
Among the works dearest to Delogu is the essay “Why we cannot help but call ourselves Christians”, composed by the philosopher in 1942. “I would like to invite everyone, but especially young people, to read this writing: in today’s Europe which is now secular to the bone, it would be the best cure for the minds, noting as Christianity is at the same time feeling, thought and action, that is, fullness of the spirit,” he said.