Ore 11 Alessandro Bergonzoni

Viterbo, July 16, 2026 There are meetings that a library organizes. And then there are meetings that remind us, naturally, why a library exists. Alessandro Bergonzoni's visit to the Viterbo Consortium Library this morning was one of those moments when culture stops being a simple proposal and becomes a shared experience, an opportunity for reflection, a space for dialogue. Welcomed by Special Commissioner Paolo Pelliccia and the Library staff, Bergonzoni began his visit in the "Roberto Rossellini" Cinema Hall and the Performing Arts Library, where his portrait is displayed alongside those of great figures in film, theater, and culture. This presence today also takes on a symbolic value: that of an artist who, through tireless work on language, has continued for decades to open unexpected perspectives and suggest new ways of looking at reality. The visit then continued in the conference room, where a large representation of the Library community had the opportunity to meet him. Not a conference in the traditional sense, but an open dialogue in which Bergonzoni shared a reflection on the meaning of humanity, the responsibility of words, and the need to imagine new possibilities for thought. Because, as his entire work demonstrates, changing language means, first and foremost, changing the way we view the world: words not only describe reality, but can also open unexpected horizons, challenge certainties, and restore culture to its most authentic function: that of interrogating the present. At the end of the meeting, Special Commissioner Paolo Pelliccia awarded Alessandro Bergonzoni the first Viterbo Consortium Library Award, reading the citation. "To Alessandro Bergonzoni, for transforming language into a space of discovery, where every word becomes a gateway to unexpected possibilities. His work is based on authentic thought games through words: a linguistic invention that challenges habits, perspectives, and certainties, opening new horizons of meaning. Through relentless work on language, Bergonzoni constructs alternative worlds in which paradox becomes a tool for knowledge and imagination a form of intellectual responsibility. For his extraordinary linguistic creativity and his rare ability to demonstrate that changing words means, first and foremost, changing the way we think and inhabit the world. The long, warm applause that accompanied the meeting's conclusion testifies to how the dialogue with Bergonzoni left those present with something that goes beyond the memory of a morning spent together. The awareness that a library continues to be a place where a community can question its time, cultivate doubt, exercise critical thinking, and imagine the future. This is the vocation that the Viterbo Consortium Library continues to pursue: promoting opportunities for authentic exchange, where books, ideas, art, and people can meet. A journey that, in recent years, has seen writers, philosophers, scientists, artists, musicians, and protagonists of contemporary culture alternate in its halls, making the Library an increasingly recognizable point of reference in the city's and national cultural landscape. Alessandro Bergonzoni's visit confirms a cultural project that continues to grow and finds its truest meaning on days like this, when a library is not just a place where books are preserved but a place where ideas meet people and, through dialogue, continue to generate the future.