The conference moved into full swing with the presentation by Carlo Triarico, President of the Biodynamic Agriculture Association: “The Benedictine method is based on a circular economy and environmental sustainability, just like the agriculture of old, which suffered a sharp break with the advent of the industrial–technological model. That model is by no means virtuous, considering that deaths from hunger in the world are dramatically increasing… The problem of waste and refuse has been addressed by Pope Francis and is an issue that concerns all human beings… Today’s agricultural model employs a largely consumerist method in which the privileged part of the planet seizes most of the available resources, to the detriment of the rest. Indeed, one-eighth of the world has no access to any resources… Saint Benedict’s model was the response to the collapse of the Roman Empire, a model that generated a new approach. This Abbey was the point of departure… We have seen that the ancient entrance door bears the inscription ‘PAX’… And this was a new institution before the Carolingian Empire… The right to food is a human right: and there is a difference between law and right, because law can sometimes run counter to what is right… The Milan Charter, developed on the occasion of Expo 2015, clearly calls for working toward a new agricultural model. We must heal the rupture that destroyed the Benedictine model, a rupture created around the 1800s and 1900s with the onset of forced industrialization which, forgetting its origins, generated a discontinuity with the previous model. We must put the land back at the center and that system that envisaged a harmonious relationship with the cosmos and the seasonal cycle, with animals and crops… The perfect celestial world was thus reflected in the imperfect sublunary world. It was a complex model that represented a living organism and worked both for the vast holdings of the abbeys and for the small plots of family farms. Industrialization destroyed all this, tearing apart that living organism, that body made up of different elements: there is no longer variety in crops, only monocultures!… The Benedictine model placed the human self at the center of the world… Therefore, we must not only have hope but become hope in this particular historical moment. Revive fertility, restore the virtuous and circular earth/sky relationship, and understand — through a biodynamic and participatory model — that the world suffering from hunger today is also a driver for our future!”

The second presentation was by Claudio Serafini, Director of Organic Cities Network Europe: “I will first take you virtually to Tuscany and then move on to the part of my talk dealing with sustainability. In Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico you can admire a singular but effective form of political communication: Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s fresco The Allegory and Effects of Good and Bad Government. Siena is also known for the Crete Senesi, the evocative gullies to the southeast of the city, and for the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, with frescoes by Luca Signorelli and Il Sodoma that depict episodes from the life of Saint Benedict. In Ambrogio Lorenzetti we can appreciate the organic and harmonious relationship between a walled community — the city of Siena — and its surrounding countryside. In Signorelli and Il Sodoma we see the vital, osmotic relationship between the Abbey and the surrounding territory. The first element we deduce is the sense of community, in which the interest of the individual is subordinated to that of the collective, which translates into ‘good government.’ How is life in a city lived? With the wealth generated by the work of laborers, artisans, merchants, and in a climate of internal peace. But it is thanks to constant dialogue with the countryside that the city’s mercantile and labor capital transforms the fields and shapes agricultural landscapes and woodlands…

“Coming to today and to the part of my report on bio-sustainability: Organic Cities was founded in Paris in 2018 based on this contemporary civilizational challenge — namely, how to build the relationship between countryside and city, especially regarding supply. The metropolis of Paris equipped itself in 2023 with a tool — AgriParisSeine — which contributed to developing a plan for sustainable food in canteens, particularly school canteens. We are talking about roughly 30 million meals a year. The plan provides that 50% of these come from supply chains located within a radius of 250 kilometers from Paris, and that 50% be produced by organic agriculture. And all of this is aimed at providing a healthy and inclusive meal for everyone.”

Tonino Bettanini then introduced the second part of the conference, focused on the more cultural aspects connected to the term “hope,” and gave the floor to Prof. Franco Marrocco, Director of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, Milan: “The Abbey of Montecassino is one of the places where I grew up. Among its many treasures, its wonderful library preserves the first document written in the Italic vernacular: the Carta or Placito of Capua… It is without doubt a place of magic, where one discovered extraordinary things… As a painter, I draw on the history of art to address today’s theme: hope in all its dimensions. With Expo 2015 in Milan an exceptional effort was made, imagining a world more harmonious than the present one. It is a tension that should always accompany us, to understand what hope is today… I begin with images by showing you L’Espérance (Hope), painted by the Symbolist Puvis de Chavannes in 1872. It depicts a naked woman lying in a rocky garden, in a harsh place, yet holding a green sprig in her hand… The second image I show you is one of my paintings, the large Palpebra, divided into three parts. A painting that observes the viewer standing before it: we must therefore pay attention to what we look at, since this depiction is looking at us… One of my works is here in this Abbey, in the right-side chapel, and I created it thinking precisely of hope. It is not intended to be a narrative but rather a painting that lives in layers and moves upward… I conclude with Van Gogh’s Starry Night, that is, the hope to hope, to be able to overcome the tragic moments of existence that tragically led the artist to his end… We must listen, look, learn to see and to see again… Even the cry we perceive in Picasso’s Guernica is a cry of hope and not of death.”

The morning session closed with Prof. Nicola Tangari, Professor of Library Science and Digital Library Techniques at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, who before his presentation conveyed the greetings of Prof. Marco Dell’Isola, Rector of the university.

“I divide my paper into two parts,” the Professor said, “and I will begin by describing the relationship between the Lombards of the north and the south. When their descent into Italy occurs in 570, with the establishment among other things of the Duchy of Benevento, Saint Benedict is no longer alive, having died in 547. The decisive event is the conversion of this people to Catholicism, with the rejection of Arianism. The first destruction of Montecassino takes place in 577 at the hands of the Lombard duke Zottone, as Paul the Deacon narrates in his Historia Langobardorum — Paul later became a monk right here at Montecassino. He tells us that all the monks managed to flee, taking the Saint’s Rule with them to Rome. In this way the Rule, ‘thanks to’ the Lombard attack, leaves Montecassino and, from Rome, spreads throughout Europe, giving rise to monasticism. At the beginning of the eighth century another Lombard — Petronace — came on pilgrimage to the Eternal City and the Pope charged him with refounding the monastery and bringing back to Montecassino the Rule written by Benedict… I begin the second part by speaking to you about Beneventan script. The Abbey possesses a rich repertory of Beneventan notation. The chant used during Mass, originating from Ambrosian chant, was in these places called Beneventan. Our goal has been to make this unique historical and cultural heritage accessible through its cataloguing and digitization. These are important secular and liturgical illuminated codices, in the wake of the aforementioned and famous Placito of Capua. The MeMo project — Memory of Montecassino — saw the collaboration of the University of Cassino with La Sapienza in Rome and the University of Catania. It is an integrated system dedicated precisely to the great medieval written heritage preserved in this Abbey, a milestone for the history and the future of humanity.”

“We have heard learned words, capable of suggesting many ideas and inspirations for the future,” Livia Pomodoro concluded the conference. “It has been a meaningful morning from many points of view. The theme of hope was not chosen by chance for the Montecassino stage which, in the face of the immense destruction it suffered, had the courage to go on and rebuild itself… We need to return to speaking and to listening to one another. Words, when they are true, come from the heart and the mind… I invite you all to be present at 3:00 p.m. for the second part of our twenty-fourth stage!”

In the afternoon, after lunch taken in the abbey refectory together with the monks, the day continued with the meeting “The Meaning of Hope in the Ancient and Contemporary World,” which featured the Very Rev. Fr. Antonio Luca Fallica, OSB, journalist Massimo Sebastiani of ANSA, and a video contribution from His Excellency Mons. Francesco Savino, Vice-President of the Italian Episcopal Conference for Southern Italy.

The encounter proved to be an interesting three-way dialogue, despite Mons. Savino’s remote participation; he began by thanking President Pomodoro “for the wonderful intuition of In cammino.” He went on: “The word hope derives from the Latin spes, which in turn comes from pes: foot. Indeed, to hope essentially means to walk on our own legs, to choose. Hesiod tells us that hope was imprisoned in Pandora’s box together with all evils, and it escaped to soothe humanity’s suffering after the box was opened… For some it prevents sinking into illusion; for others it represents a sweet deception. In the Greek world anankē, inexorable necessity, is a fatal entanglement whose coils bind the individual to his destiny, yet hope is capable of breaking these chains and freeing man. According to the cyclical conception of time professed by the Greeks, as opposed to Judeo-Christian linearity, everything repeats… But there is the daimōn, the inner principle, Socrates’ tutelary genius described in Plato’s Symposium — that inner voice that calls us toward what we are destined to be… For Saint Augustine, it is within ourselves that we must dig to reach what is beautiful.”

“I will try to integrate the perspective sketched by Monsignor Savino,” replied Dom Antonio Luca, “the circularity of time in the ancient world compared with the Judeo-Christian biblical experience: rather than a line, I think of the latter as a spiral, an open circularity that tends toward the eschatological. Hope is determined by the different orientation with which a person positions himself in space and time. The fundamental passage is from a life founded on one’s own projects to one based on God’s promise. The etymology of ‘project’ is ‘I take and cast before me’; ‘promise’ instead means that someone else places something before me: hope is God’s promise.”

Massimo Sebastiani: “The original beauty of the word hope is that it has not been eroded much by its modern use, as has happened to other words that lose or assume different meanings… The etymon is the Sanskrit spa, which means ‘to stretch’ — a term that already contains dynamism: think of derivatives like impulse, spend, extinguish… and indeed spiral, glimmer… In fact, hope is dynamic; it is not merely passive waiting.”

Dom Antonio Luca: “Saint Augustine tells us that hope has two beautiful children: indignation and courage…”

Monsignor Savino: “To hope is a creative act, for which one must trust the voice that urges me to go beyond… We must be wary both of the banality of evil, according to Hannah Arendt’s teaching, and of the evil of banality generated by uniformity, resignation, and catastrophism for its own sake. Hope then becomes courage.”

Dom Antonio Luca: “Hope is akin to the verb to wait, to expect. Attendere (to await): to stretch toward, implies a tension; and aspettare (to wait), which shows the same root as spectacle and spectator. We must be able to change the way we look at the present, to transfigure our gaze. On the floor of Chartres Cathedral a labyrinth is depicted that pilgrims cross as a symbol of the difficulties to be faced during their journey and of the final destination to be found. It is illuminated from two directions: in front by the apse windows, behind by the setting sun filtered through the rose window and the stained glass. These two light sources, so as not to be lost in the labyrinth, represent memory and hope for the future, the sun that sets and rises again. To be able to hope one must remember: and this is always a prophetic memory…”

Massimo Sebastiani: “It was Spinoza who told us that ‘There is no hope without fear, nor fear without hope’… We must identify those words that save us, such as hope and responsibility.”

Dom Antonio Luca: “Discernment is also hope. This is not a lighthouse that illuminates the landscape and the road to be traveled behind us, but a small lamp that we carry in our hand and, if we accept to take a small step forward, it lights those few meters and then the next ones, step by step. Hope is collective, not only individual…”

After the screening of the video contribution by Prof. Angelo Rusconi, who listed the analogies and differences between Gregorian chant, Ambrosian chant and Beneventan chant, linking them to the historical and political context of the Duchy and later Principality of Benevento — included in the so-called Langobardia Minor — in close relation with the kingdom of Langobardia Major, the day of July 12 concluded with a concert by the ensemble Orbisophia, centered precisely on a program of Beneventan sacred chants. The group, directed by Tetyana Shyshnyak, performed several antiphons drawn from ancient documents and a very rare Communion chant dedicated to Saint Benedict: “Gloriosus Confessor Benedictus,” transcribed from a manuscript held in the Vatican.