label.skip.main.content

Photo from the Fall-Winter 2014 collection Institutional Campaign, shot in the Umbrian countryside.

“I felt responsible for the Beauty of the World”.

‘With this very ancient statement, the Roman emperor Hadrian gave life to this eternal concept, which also encompasses every single aspect of our life in Solomeo.

With the term beauty I mean anything that is good for the soul.

Beauty is one of the things that are closest to everyone, and an endless number of philosophers, poets, artists, politicians, entrepreneurs, people in general, all of us, let’s say, have a direct and engaging relationship with beauty. Dostoevsky thought that beauty will save the world; in the present day, turning the concept around, art historian Salvatore Settis questioned whether the world will save beauty.

"I felt responsible for the beauty of the world." (Hadrian)

As a boy, I used to associate beauty only with form, and it is true that the physical image of things is important in people’s lives. With age, however, I learned that beauty is not just a concept of aesthetic pleasure, it is not, I believe, just the skin of something, it is the expression of substance. That is why it is an internal factor in life, it is a structure rather than an accessory; the Bible reminds us that God was pleased with the beautiful things that He had created, because they were fair, necessary and useful.

Beauty seems to coincide in meaning with goodness, and I like to think that, therefore, beauty and truth are also one and the same; I see how much beauty there can be in people when they take care of their environment, when they are brave, when they balance profit and giving back; and how much beauty there is in the soul of those who lend a hand to others in need. Beauty is universal, and I’ve seen it in every part of the world.

"Only through beauty can man ascend to God." (Plotinus)

Beauty, in the majority of cases, coincides with simplicity. Simplicity does not mean poverty of ideas or of resources, rather, it is a synthesis of exuberant things, of great wealth. Only great human beings can talk about great things with simplicity.

I wish that for all things we could simply say, “they are beautiful”. Beauty, above all, means knowing how to love: if something closes our hearts to love it is a bit harder to notice beauty chanting around us and we become poorer, because beauty enriches the soul.’

1- "Beauty will save the world." (Dostoevsky)

2- "Beauty is the symbol of the morally good." (Kant)

 
My Life
My Life
 
The Family
The Family
 
Media & Campaigns
 
Humanistic Capitalism and Human Sustainability
Humanistic Capitalism and Human Sustainability
 
Technology, Humanism and Artificial Intelligence
Technology, Humanism and Artificial Intelligence
 
The Brunello and Federica Cucinelli Foundation and the Foro delle Arti
The Brunello and Federica Cucinelli Foundation and the Foro delle Arti
 
The Universal Library of Solomeo
The Universal Library of Solomeo
 
Thoughts on the Contemporary World
Thoughts on the Contemporary World