Culture - Il Foglio

THE BOOK

Kierkegaard and the paradox as an authentic way of looking at the world

Kierkegaard regards paradox as the true key to understanding reality, for example in the idea of eternal youth. The light of one’s youth is Ariadne’s thread, which everyone loses and rediscovers along life’s journey. The “Tre discorsi edificanti” are available in bookshops.

Elisa Veronica Zucchi

24 OCT 26

Kierkegaard and the paradox as an authentic way of looking at the world

The artist

The icy blues, the incredible pinks of an eccentric and grumpy painter

Jacopo Carucci, known as Pontormo, shook up the conventions of the Renaissance with unnatural colours and unsettling figures. At the Scuderie del Quirinale, a major exhibition rediscovers the eccentric and surly painter who sought his own unique way of representing reality.

Tommaso Ricci

24 OCT 26

Jacopo Pontormo, The Visitation – photo via Getty Images

MAGAZINE

The biography of Cormac McCarthy, who never went out without a gun and wrote in the shadow of the Twin Towers

In 1980, McCarthy said he had no interest in writing socially critical novels in the vein of John Steinbeck or Upton Sinclair, who were too eager to lay bare racism. In his view, for a serious novelist there were three levels of inquiry, in ascending order of importance: the ethical, the political and the philosophical. His interest lay in “the fate and existence of evil. Or the meaning of life, or of death”.

Giulio Meotti

24 OCT 26

MAGAZINE

Camus against the rioters, eternal rebellion and the origins of the ‘French mal’

From the Bastille to the Yellow Vests, France is the historical crucible of European rebellion. But when revolt turns to destruction, it ends up serving the very power it sought to overthrow. Camus’s lesson to the young people in the streets: listen to the reasons behind the discontent without condoning violence

Stefano Cingolani

24 OCT 26

It is difficult to judge what is happening in France. Two centuries have not been enough to understand the ‘Glorious Revolution’ (photo: Getty)

magazine

Numbers and names. One hundred years since the first telephone directory

A reflection of Italian culture and now a cult object. An exhibition in Turin explores its past and future.

Maurizio Stefanini

24 OCT 26

2.7 million Italian households are still asking to receive the telephone directory at home (photo: Ansa)

magazine

Everything except newspapers. Newsagents are making a comeback – how marvellous. It’s a shame it isn’t true.

There is considerable enthusiasm for the new springtime of newsagents. However, the temples of the printed press no longer exist.

Pierluigi Battista

24 OCT 26

In 1990, there were around 40,000 newsagents in Italy; today there are just over 10,000, and almost two-thirds of the smallest municipalities do not have a single one (Getty)

video

From young designers to families, those on the hunt for vintage posters

In an age where advertising is displayed on giant screens and smartphones, the old-fashioned paper posters of yesteryear – often small works of art in their own right – are enjoying a new lease of life as decorative features. A visit to a specialist gallery in Milan

Francesco Cocco

24 OCT 26

THE BOOK

The rigorous self-awareness (such a rare quality!) with which Bobbio viewed the world

Forty years of correspondence between Norberto Bobbio and Leo Valiani, now published by Biblion. The Italian Communist Party (PCI) postponing its shift towards the West, the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) reduced to a tactical ‘third-force’ stance, and a left that regards every reform as a breach of a ‘taboo’

Matteo Marchesini

24 OCT 26

New issue

Reason of state: a latent force between the realm of rules and that of necessity

In exceptional times, the invisible energy “that dwells at the heart of the political machine is activated” and “power ceases to flow silently behind the façade of legality, revealing its fundamental task: to decide how the state must survive and at what cost”. Lorenzo Castellani’s new essay

Sergio Belardinelli

24 OCT 26

Reason of state: a latent force between the realm of rules and that of necessity

ON STAGE

‘Siegfried’ in Rome. A scene in which they share a kiss: the inevitable beauty of Wagner’s drama

A magnificent Wotan; Harding did well on the podium. Beautiful music, but it takes almost an entire act to forge a sword or share a kiss.

Mario Leone

23 OCT 26

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