On 8 November, Professor Andrea Carandini will hold a lectio magistralis in Florence on the occasion of "Florens 2012 - International Biennial of Cultural Heritage and the Environment", entitled "Culture": what will he say on this occasion?

"I have dealt with the whole life of culture, but, as the lawyer Agnelli said," I speak with women but not with women ". So I would not talk about culture but look at culture to understand what it is. The institutional summits, when they list their programs, never mention it. Culture has been replaced by various technological devices, yet requires attention and deepening ».

What is culture?
"It is the mediation between present and past in view of the future, and not the study of the past or the present. Today in Italy we live in a flat and gray present without vision, neither behind nor in front of us. There is almost the impression of abandoning science and spirit, and this saddens me a lot. Culture today is mainly science and technology. Progress is present in the natural sciences, and the previous one dispossesses truth. But nothing can ever be overcome in the sciences of the spirit ".

But does humanist culture go on?
«Yes, above all the very specialized one in which the past is reconstructed without dialogue with the present».

And does contemporary art still exist?
«I have a lot of difficulty in evaluating contemporary art because it is something too immediate. The distance of time is a very useful element for evaluating it».

Can we evaluate Picasso's work today?
"Yes, because so many years have passed and so we are able to be detached. Dialogue is more effective ».

But is culture a luxury?
"Unfortunately, it is still seen as a luxury and therefore the funds are cut immediately in times of crisis. Yet if the Chinese or Indians want to understand why the history of the West is different from that of the East, they must come to Italy ".

Why in Italy?
"Because from the beginning of the 1600s it was the center of the West. The classical truth and the ancient world were rediscovered with the Renaissance which was a liberation from the Middle Ages ».

Do westerners also need to know oriental art?
"Only by learning and taking possession of things and making them our own we have the possibility of becoming as big as the world".

Do television, google and mobile help us to understand better?
"No, they destroy. I think they are an endless waste of time. To know the world the ways are infinite ».

So true wealth is not money but knowledge?
«I would say more: between being and knowing there is an original constitutive relationship. And the basis of culture is play ».

Why is culture a game?
«Because the game is the intermediate space that is created between the child and the mother, we think of the teddy bear or the pacifier. The latter is the symbol of the breast, so between us and the outside world a third space is created which is what is called precisely a cultural space ».

Can everyone access the culture?
"Yes, because we need to suspend an ordinary life to access an extraordinary life: it is enough to replace the time we dedicate to distraction to a more evolved fun that gives greater happiness".

And how can it be done?
"It takes more silence, solitude, love for effort, for reading. After all, even the Olympic champions train and culture needs brain training ".

What is brain training for in ordinary life?
«The creativity we take care of in the cultural sector reverberates in the production sector. The founder of Eataly did not invent the ham or salad, he made ham and salad a cultural fact and so he employed 500 young people. Adriano Olivetti has put culture and people of culture at the center of his industry ".

Is Apple culture?
"Indeed it is. And Steve Jobs has excelled because he has been able to combine aesthetics and product. Moreover, as a young man he was studying calligraphy. "

And the universities?
«They are fruit because they have dramatically declined. Instead of giving a little wine to the deserving ones, they have indiscriminately distributed colored water and the taste is lost everywhere except in Great Britain, United States, France and Germany where centers of excellence exist and the vertical dimension of merit has harmoniously combined with the horizontal dimension of equality ".

Is talking about cultural tourism important?
"Talking about it, and besides, he talks about it too much without doing anything. We had the old Touring guide and we replaced it with nothing. "

Are there sites on Italian cities and their territories of good cultural quality?
"There is nothing. But it would not be a great undertaking to be launched, rather it would serve to recruit young people so that anyone can understand what there is, what to see, where to eat and where to sleep for example in Ferrara ".

And the archaeological sites?
"They are going to ruin."

Who keeps them?
"We have 86 million available: half of what is needed to build the new Brera".

So?
"In 15 years Italy will be in ruins for earthquakes, landslides and the wear and tear of time. And land wear is always worse because agriculture is reduced to a minimum. At one time there were the means for the ordinary maintenance of cultural heritage. But by cutting so much he would like to eliminate the ministry and abolish article 9 of the Constitution which says that the Republic protects the landscape and the historical artistic heritage ".