Today’s Italy is a living, breathing country that combines a rich artistic and historic heritage with a creative contemporary scene. It is not just the homeland of enviable historic, cultural and artistic traditions (from classical antiquity to the Renaissance), but also a functioning, efficient society with a qualified rate of modernism, both implicit and explicit, rooted in the past but in tune with contemporary international culture, scientific innovation, economic entrepreneurship and artistic creativity (as evident in Italian fashion, design, cinema, and classical and modern music).
In the past 55 years, Italy has come to occupy a prominent position in the international economy and in international politics. In this achievement it was fueled by positive synergies between government institutions and society. This is the authentic “Italian miracle” that I would like to decode for American society, which is so different from our own.
I propose to acquaint the American public with our traditional artistic and cultural heritage: art, humanistic and Renaissance culture (perhaps underlining that modern political science was founded by an Italian, Machiavelli). But our deeply human landscape should also be decoded, allowing people to interpret the signs of successive waves of civilization, each of which added and superimposed its own distinctive features over those of preceding eras.
I also wish to create space for the most explicit manifestations of our artistic creativity today, in the areas of fashion, music and the culinary arts.
I welcome you to our new website and hope that you will find our activity thus far stimulating and that you will participate in our future events.

Paolo Riani