On Wednesday 24 May at 6.30 p.m., in building B11, Todo Modo presents Tomaso Montanari’s latest book Se amore guarda. Un’educazione sentimentale al patrimonio culturale, in the presence of the author and with an introduction by Raffaele Palumbo.

We have perhaps lost the profound reason why we really care about cultural heritage and art history: the power with which it opens our eyes and our hearts to an ‘other’ dimension. Its ability to separate us from the uninterrupted flow of current events, to put us in touch with what draws us to life, what gives it meaning.
In order to see and feel all this, however, it is necessary to reactivate its connection with the innermost part of our individual and collective souls; it requires a true education
sentimental education.

As Tomaso Montanari writes in the pages of this lucid and impassioned essay, cultural heritage is our civil religion, our school of liberation: it is not only about landscape or works of art, but above all about us and that love that unites everything. Every glance we take in an ancient church, every foot treading on a pavement, brings questions, answers, interpretations. Thus, step by step, slowly, we re-attribute meaning to things and places until we feel that they are part, almost extensions, of our bodies: because only those give meaning to stones and paintings. And because only in this way can the discourse on cultural heritage help us recover the reasons for a universal coexistence, based on justice and sharing.

Tomaso Montanari, art historian, is rector of the Università per Stranieri di Siena. For Einaudi he has published: A cosa serve Michelangelo? (2011), Il Barocco (2012), Costituzione incompiuta (2013, with A. Leone, P. Maddalena and S. Settis), Privati del patrimonio (2015), La libertà di Bernini (2016), Contro le mostre (2017, with V. Trione), Velázquez e il ritratto barocco (2018), L’ora d’arte (2019), La seconda ora d’arte (2021), Chiese chiuse (2021) and Il nostro volto. Cento ritratti di italiani in immagini e versi (2021, with F. Marcoaldi).