Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s 2025 programme of activities approved

More than ninety events and two main thematic focus points around which all the Foundation’s Institutes and Research Centres will work in synergy: an international and interdisciplinary symposium on ‘Democracy and Pandemics’ and a programme of events on Giacomo Casanova marking the 300^th anniversary of his birth.

The General Council of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini has approved the programme of activities for 2025, which embraces and reflects the spirit of institutional renewal expressed by President Gianfelice Rocca, while implementing the multi-year interdisciplinary working guidelines laid out by Scientific Director Daniele Franco.

The programme features over ninety events that will showcase the seven Institutes and three Research Centres operating within the Foundation. Thirty-two seminars and conferences, twenty-seven educational events and workshops, eight exhibitions, six hosted events, thirty-two concerts as well as a number of publications will fill the Foundation’s annual event calendar.

The programming includes two themes that will foresee the participation of all the Institutes, with the aim of integrating methods, research, materials and a diverse range of imaginaries. The first thematic focus is ‘Democracy and Pandemics’, which will be the topic of an international symposium from 13 to 16 November, with the presence of experts and scholars from all around the world. The second focus explores Giacomo Casanova and eighteenth-century Venice, a theme with which the Foundation will participate in the celebrations for the 300^th anniversary of the birth of this iconic and restless figure of the Serenissima. The journey will culminate in an exhibition project that will be open to the public from October 2025 to February 2026.

Gianfelice Rocca, president of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, explains the vision that accompanies the activity programme as follows: “We are living through a historical moment of profound change, characterised by heightened geopolitical and social fragmentation, with new protagonists and communities bearing divergent values and often polarised worldviews. At the same time, scientific and technological knowledge is advancing rapidly, profoundly affecting all of humanity.”

“We must refer to these challenges when interpreting the future role of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini,” the President added, “while maintaining the strong appeal to humanistic thought on which our civilisation is founded and which the Foundation is committed to preserving, fostering an open and constructive cultural dialogue that facilitates international relations. Of vital importance is the Foundation’s link with Venice, with its millennial history, as a constitutive element of our mission.”

The Scientific Director Daniele Franco underlines: “Over the past seventy years, the Foundation has organised countless events and meetings of a cultural nature, so as to bring scientific and humanistic fields into dialogue on an international level. Next year, with renewed commitment, it will set about addressing the issue of pandemic management in democracies with the participation of experts from all around the world. The Foundation must remain a place of dialogue, hosting figures from different backgrounds as well as research from different geopolitical systems.”