Telosaes.it

“The expression I often use to talk about my activities in the years subsequent to my professional career, from the age of 60 on, is indeed that of giving back everything that, during the miracle of my life, I have received.”

Telos: “After receiving so much in my 50-year professional career, I knew it was time to give back.” What was the result of this sense of urgency?

Emmanuele Emanuele: I have always thought, even during my university and professional career and as the administrator of public and private companies, that my professional success was somewhat miraculous, because it allowed me, when I arrived from my natal Sicily in the sixties, to almost immediately enter the top national and international echelons. Therefore, the expression I often use to talk about my activities in the years subsequent to my professional career, from the age of 60 on, is indeed that of giving back everything that, during the miracle of my life, I have received. In order to do this, I identified the neediest sectors of society in the dramatic times we are currently experiencing: the healthcare sector, where there are pathologies that are often ignored and consequently lacking in care and requiring specialist scientific research; helping the less fortunate, which very often and increasingly translates into meeting people’s dietary needs, especially in the regions of southern Italy and the Mediterranean; education, a key element that will allow us to overcome barriers between social classes, ethnic and religious groups, as well as culture. I have oriented my life toward these goals, contributing decisively to protecting the economic assets of the old Italian savings bank Cassa di Risparmio and, even before that, of the very old loan institution Monte di Pietà, and through the Foundation – first, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio of Rome and then the Fondazione Roma tout court, which I established – ensure that the profits generated by the brilliant use of economic resources were channelled into the sectors mentioned above.

So, science and healthcare are central to your philanthropic life, as well as art and culture. Could you tell us about your most recent projects?

In the area of healthcare, 30 years ago I thought of creating a Hospice for terminally ill patients to provide free assistance to people in their last 30-50 days of life. However, my project was demonised, because at the time, palliative care had yet to become part of our national healthcare system and had negative connotations, which led to one constant in my experience: solitude.
For those pathologies where there is no cure, such as Lou Gehrig’s disease and Alzheimer’s, I created facilities to take in patients suffering from these diseases free of charge. I also provided support in ophthalmology by contributing very significantly for 30 years to the activities of the Bietti Foundation, which today is one of the top foundations worldwide in the treatment of glaucoma. Recently, I have contributed to cutting-edge healthcare research, such as, just to name a few: the CEMAD, a pioneering facility of Gemelli Hospital in Rome in the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic digestive tract pathologies, which has recently been recognised internationally; the MEBIC, an interuniversity consortium established through the collaboration between Tor Vergata University and the Telematic University San Raffaele in Rome with the aim of studying the shape of cells magnified millions of times to investigate the effects of pharmaceuticals, the interaction between molecules and the effect of rehabilitation at the molecular and cellular level; my collaboration with the Hospital Physical Therapists Institutes (IFO), to whom we donated a state-of-the-art confocal microscope to use in translational research and in precision medicine.
In terms of culture, I transformed the spaces of Palazzo Cipolla, once used for banking activities, into an exhibition space where since 1999 I have supported the hosting of 59 temporary exhibitions. At Palazzo Cipolla, I wanted to explore the art of faraway lands (like China, India, Japan, Russia, the USA) and the fruitful merging of art and new technologies (Quayola, Ipotesi Metaverso), in addition to another roughly 50 exhibitions in southern Italy and abroad. At the same time, over the years I have implemented the Permanent Collection of the Rome Foundation, housed within an ad hoc exhibition space at Palazzo Sciarra and including works of art from the 1400s to today, including an innovative contemporary section dedicated to street art. Regarding this, one of the projects most important to me is an open-air museum at Tor Marancia, in Lot 1 of this working-class neighbourhood in Rome. In 2015 I supported a project called “Big City Life”, involving 22 street artists from 10 different countries all over the world. They painted the facades of buildings as if they were enormous canvases, giving life to a truly unique brand of urban requalification that transformed this residential area into a colourful art district.

Right now, we are experiencing what, each time, appear to be epoch-making revolutions at a velocity never been seen before. In your cultured eyes, full of life lived intensely, what do you think are the real changes and what are just short-lived chimeras?

If there is one dominant feature of human history, it is that change is continuous and incessant; however recently this change has become faster, with increasingly significant consequences across the board. In fact, we are experiencing a digital revolution that is closely connected to technological progress and the rise of the internet and global connectivity, as well as the dizzying expansion of robotics and artificial intelligence. To use a synthetic but significant image, we are going from being an ‘analogue’ man to a ‘digital’ man, or the man who is experiencing this novel dimension, filled with potential but with just as many risks, with excitement but also unconsciously and with dangerous superficiality. Mobile phones, icons of today’s world, have become absolutely central to our lives and to our way of relating to the outside world by simplifying many activities and making numerous services accessible. We entrust all sorts of data to them, even data relating to our health. In the field of healthcare, for example, today there are physicians who dialogue with patients using WhatsApp or platforms that allow them to use virtual assistants. They perform surgical operations using remote-control robotic arms; AI algorithms can read and assess diagnostic results. New tech has now invaded every area of our daily life and obviously even impacts the work sphere, significantly contributing to either helping or replacing man in repetitive, strenuous activities, ones that require absolute precision, including intellectual activities. These brief remarks make it clear that this process is irreversible and unstoppable, which is indeed why it must be governed, not demonised or, even worse, ignored. Actually, our digital future could be envisioned as being at the service of man, as is already happening in the working sphere. As I have mentioned, it streamlines and speeds numerous tasks and processes, produces new professions when others disappear, facilitates scientific progress, especially in the medical field and in research, in environmental protection and alternative energies; and it opens us up and allows us to know spaces, cultures, faraway and diverse realities through immediate, global connectivity. However, this epoch-making revolution must be tempered by allowing more and more space for cultural creativity in all areas as a remedy against the power of the algorithm.

You are a university professor, a lawyer, an economist, an essayist and the administrator of various types of companies and entities. Yet you are also a poet and a lover of art and music. Many are the 'personae' you have been and are. In which of them do you find your deepest essence?

Helping others, because of the happiness it gives me, according to an old teaching adopted from my family. Helping ‘the last ones’, in the words of my father, a physician, aristocrat, man of action, fighter for liberty, who spent his whole life, after long days in his clinic, going around the poorest neighbourhoods in our city to help those in need.
And, as I have already said, culture, which I believe plays a key role in society. In my case, this manifests as poetry, as a passion for music, which led me to create the Rome Symphony Orchestra and the Piazza Vittorio Orchestra, and finally, in the visual arts, as I said before. I find my essence and a reason for living in these things in this last phase of my existence.

Marco Sonsini