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The Cultural Pyramid of Cilento (Italian: Piramide Culturale del Cilento) is a geometric drawing created in 2020 by the poet Menotti Lerro representing the epicenter of the Empathism. [1] The Pyramid shape came out adding the "Cultural Triangle" founded by Lerro at the historical summits of high cultural tradition of the Cilento area. [2] [3]
The Triangle starts from Omignano (and from Monte Stella (Cilento)) - "The Aphorisms Village", and then joins Salento [4] [5] - "The Poetry Village" and Vallo della Lucania - "Seat of the Contemporary Center of the Arts", summit, the latter, which also coincides with the center of the base of the entire Pyramid. [6] [7] [8] [9] On 13 July 2022 the mayor of the municipality of Salento Cilento, Gabriele De Marco, symbolically gift the territory to found also the Republic of Poets (a micronation located in Salento Cilento) with an official letter sent to the poet Menotti Lerro. [10] [11]
The Pyramid vertices are: Monte Stella (Cilento) (with its megaliths which are recognized as the empathic ancient gods of the Movement), Omignano, Salento, Vallo della Lucania, Palinuro, Paestum, Velia. In 2021, with an official paper of the city hall, also Trentinara - "The Village of Love" joined. [12] [13] [14] On 2 August 2022 also Vatolla joined as "The Village of Otium". [15] On 6 August 2022 also Piano Vetrale joined as "The Murales Village". [16] [17] In the same month also San Mauro Cilento adhered as "Village of incunaboli e cinquecentine". In addition Massicelle adhered as "Village of Toys", while Casal Velino came together as "Landfall Village". In the end a last village adhered: Agropoli - "The Village of the Castle". The final number of villages involved is twenty five. [18]
Within the "Cultural Triangle of ancient Cilento" the new movement of "La Scuola Empatica" (Empathism) [19] [20] [21] rose in 2020, which bases its formal theories [22] on the New Manifesto of Arts to which many authors, visual artists, musicians, philosophers and intellectuals joined. [23] [24]
An incredible scandal happened with the change of the mayor of Salento Cilento - "The Poetry Village" in 2024. In fact, in the first 30 days of his political mandate, without an official paper to justify it, the new mayor Michele Santoro ordered, on the morning of Sunday 7 July, to break down with pickaxes the tiles with unpublished poetry overwritten dedicated to the Cilento's territory written as gift by all the winners of the Cilento International Poetry Prize as Milo de Angelis, Dacia Maraini, Valerio Magrelli, Giampiero Neri, Roberto Carifi and from the founder of the Prize and of the Poetry Village Menotti Lerro. The case became viral and the main televisions and newspapers condemned the uncivil episode occurred. After the medias hype, the Mayor Santoro tried to justify himself affirming that poetry could not stay on the same wall where there was also a plaque for war fallen. But the former Mayor Gabriele De Marco said that, in his opinion, the new Mayor Michele Santoro stopped to destroy the tiles in the rest of the village only because everyone had disagreed shouting nonsense and shame for the destruction of art. [25] [26] [27] [28] On the 23th of July in his second "Foglio Empatico" published on the daily newspaper "Il Quotidiano di Salerno" the founder Menotti Lerro affirmed he never will organize cultural events in both Omignano Cilento (The Aphorisms Village") and Salento Cilento ("The Poetry Village"), and in particular he never will organize the Cilento International Poetry Prize in Salento Cilento again till these two Mayors will be in charge". [29] On the 31th of July Lerro published the "Empathic Sheet N°3" praising all the Mayors of the Cilento's territory helping to develop the Cultural Pyramid, epicenter of the Movement. [30]
Also due to the terrible "day of pickaxes", on the 30th of August 2024, a summit ("Il Convegno di Orria") was held in Orria Cilento between the founder of Empathism Menotti Lerro, and the so defined "good politicians" of the Cilento territory, in order to discuss strategies of development for the Pyramid and also to appoint by the poet Lerro the firsts official "Guardiani della Piramide" (In English: "Guardians of the Pyramid"). The group included: Agostino Astore, Mayor of Piano Vetrale - "The Murals Village"; Gabriele Iualiano, Mayor of Roccadaspide - "The Defense Village"; Gabriele De Marco, former mayor of Salento, Campania - The Poetry Village; Adriano Piano, Mayor of Magliano Vetere - "The Paleontological Village"; Francesco Castiello, Italian Senator. [31] In occasion of the "Convegno di Orria" Gabriele De Marco declared that "the Cultural Pyramid is something stratospheric and brillant and therefore can only be valorised decisively. A great dream for a Cilento as the cradle of contemporary culture". [32]
Casal Velino, also spelled Casalvelino, is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
Centola is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
Magliano Vetere is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy. As of 2011 its population was 739.
Omignano is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
Polla is a town and comune of the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-west Italy. In 2011 its population was 5,327.
Roccadaspide is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
Salento is a town and comune in the Cilento area, province of Salerno, in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
San Mauro Cilento is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
Sapri is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy. It is one of the southernmost towns of the region of Cilento and its population is 6,783.
Vallo della Lucania is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy. It lies in the middle of Cilento and its population is 8,680.
Trentinara is a town and comune near Paestum in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
Vibonati is a town and comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.
Padula is a comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy. It is the home of the Carthusian monastery Certosa di San Lorenzo, sometimes referred to as the Certosa di Padula. As of 2011 its population was of 5,279.
Cilento is an Italian geographical region of Campania in the central and southern part of the province of Salerno and an important tourist area of southern Italy.
Palinuro is an Italian small town, the most populated civil parish (frazione) of Centola, Province of Salerno, in the Campania region. The name of the town is derived from Palinurus, the helmsman of Aeneas, as recorded in the fifth and sixth books of the Aeneid.
Piano Vetrale, also shortened as Vetrale or Piano, is a southern Italian village and hamlet (frazione) of Orria, a municipality in the province of Salerno, Campania. As of 2011, its population was of 475.
Franco Loi was an Italian poet, writer, and essayist. He was born in Genoa, and died in Milan, aged 90. He made his debut in 1973 as a poet using dialect and had a good success with the work I cart, and the following year, 1974, with Poems of love. In 1975, the poet proved to have reached complete maturity of expression with the poem Stròlegh, published by Einaudi with a preface by Franco Fortini.
Menotti Augusto Serse Lerro is an Italian poet, writer, playwright, librettist and Anglicist academic. His work explores matters of social alienation and existentialism, the physicality and vulnerability of the body, the interpretation of memories, the meaning of objects and the philosophical importance of human identity. In 2015 he published Donna Giovanna, l'ingannatrice di Salerno, a feminized bisexual version of the mythical figure of Don Juan, El Burlador de Sevilla. In 2018 he wrote Il Dottor Faust, an original version of the character of Faust. In addition he is the author of a New Manifesto of Arts and the founder of the Empathic movement (Empathism) that arose in the South of Italy at the beginning of 2020.
Cilento International Poetry Prize is an Italian literary prize founded in 2017 by the poet, writer and literary critic Menotti Lerro and awarded annually, in the month of August, in Salento Cilento—"The Poetry Village".
The Empathic Movement is a literary, artistic, philosophical and cultural movement founded in the South of Italy in 2020 within the 'New Cultural Triangle of Ancient Cilento': Omignano - "The Aphorisms Village", Salento - "The Poetry Village", Vallo della Lucania - "Seat of Contemporary Arts Centre". From this first Triangle the Cultural Pyramid of Cilento was born to represent the enlarged epicenter of the Movement with 25 villages involved which joined with a new cultural identity and signing a protocol agreement.