From 27 to 30 October, Vilnius hosted the 26th Week of the Italian Language in the World, dedicated to the theme Lingua geniale: ideare, progettare, creare con l’italiano (Brilliant Language: Conceiving, Designing, and Creating with Italian). The initiative, under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic, was organised by the Embassy of Italy in Lithuania together with the Italian Cultural Institute in Vilnius and Vilnius University, in collaboration with Vytautas Magnus University (VDU) in Kaunas.
Among the key figures was Professor Roberto Antonelli, President of the Accademia dei Lincei, who took part in two events devoted to Italian literature and Dante. The event also involved scholars from the Accademia della Crusca and from Italian and international universities, including Paolo Trovato, Mirko Tavoni, Maria Serena Sapegno, John C. Barnes and Alberto Nocentini.
As Ambassador Emanuele de Maigret pointed out, the participation of high-profile academics bears witness to “the cultural vitality of the Lithuanian scene and the strong interest shown in Italy”.
Among the events on the programme are the roundtable discussion ‘Italian: Language of Opportunities’, featuring Agnė Babrauskaitė, Vilija Paplauskaitė, Rasa Klioštoraitytė Di Pasquale, Gian Luca Demarco, Kęstutis Smilgevičius and Julija Reklaitė, and the opening of the exhibition ‘INTERCONNECTIONS: Italians in Lithuania, Lithuanians in Italy’, organised in collaboration with the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences to mark the 35th anniversary of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Italy and Lithuania. The programme also featured the performance L’uovo di Pulcinella, directed by Annarita Poliseno with musical coordination by Fausto Tuscano, and several events at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, including the concert Cantando nella lingua di Petrarca (Singing in Petrarch’s language), a screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso (Crimson Pig) and the Academy of Italian Studies.
