EDITORIAL Andrea Cosimi

THE SECRET OF ITALIAN BEAUTY

What is appreciated most in the Italian world is our lifestyle. We eat well: our variety of fruits, cheeses, fish, vegetables has made this little boot a compendium of biodiversity you can’t find anywhere else in the world. A different breeze, a steeper hill, a nearby strawberry field is enough to totally change the taste of a wine, a meat, a cheese. Beauty seems to have been born here, between wonderful seas and mountains that are world heritage sites. We walk casually every day in the midst of absolute masterpieces of art that do not belong, as for the rest of the world, to a single era, to a few centuries, or to a moment, but to all the millennia that man has known. Here we have Etruscan sculptures, ancient Roman masterpieces, medieval mosaics, Renaissance frescoes, Baroque fountains, dazzling Neoclassic statues, and still today architects who design buildings like clouds and woods. When we are at an event, we usually stand out for our elegance, but we are not outdone if we go out shopping. Fashion gives us completely different styles for a number of brands that have no equal. Our homes reflect us with design objects that become indispensable; we are willing to go into debt for a juicer or a lamp. All this beauty comes from imperfections, from diversity. Nobody understood Michelangelo in his time, or Leonardo or Caravaggio. The strangest car and motorcycle projects were born in moments close to the abyss, to failure. Then a mistake, a hazard, a necessity, and we give life to something unattainable. Sheep that grazed in different places when the grass was spent gave the milk for the ricotta of the Sicilian cannoli, the cheeses hidden under the hay and the pomace in the karst caves in wartime became gourmet excellences; nutella was born when we had more hazelnuts than cocoa for sweets. The Ducati Monster is called so in dialect, not English, of the workers who had nights when the company was in its darkest moment; the Vespa is the daughter of post-war hunger; the Cinquecento is a legend of sustainable rebirth. This is why I believe that this Italian hospitality, this IGLTA Convention, this special issue for which I have committed almost all of my working life, will carry our message of diversity and inclusion to the world. I know that what will simply appear different in the eyes of the untrained will be true beauty and unparalleled value for humanity.

Andrea Cosimi