ANNUAL REPORT 2018 ANNUAL REPORT 2018 FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano Headquarters La Cavallerizza - Via Carlo Foldi, 2 - 20135 Milan, Italy Tel. (+39) 02 4676151 - email: [email protected] Rome Office Via delle Botteghe Oscure, 32 - 00186 Rome, Italy Tel. (+39) 06 689675 2 - email: [email protected] www.fondoambiente.it A glimpse of the colonnade of the 13th-century Romanesque portico of the church of Santa Maria di Cerrate, in Lecce, a property entrusted on loan to FAI since 2012. In the center, one of the artisans involved in the ancient rural festival called ‘Lu panieri’, celebrated since the 15th century at the abbey in the Salento area to mark the Close-up of the 12th-century Feast Day of the Virgin, and Durini Loggia at Villa del in 2018 held here for the Balbianello (Como), a FAI first time in many decades. property since 1988 2 3 FAI OUR MISSION OUR VISION FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano, FAI in 2023 (the National Trust for Italy) is with the contribution of a non-profit foundation that everyone: ■ The main focus of FAI’s work is operates for the safeguarding to look after the special places of Italy’s natural and artistic ■ takes care of special places that it either owns as a result of heritage. in Italy for present and future donations or bequests or has a generations. concession to manage. These FAI has always drawn inspiration places are viewed and treated as from the National Trust for ■ promotes education, fulcrums within the landscape England, Wales & Northern appreciation, awareness and social/cultural/economic Ireland. It is a member of INTO – and enjoyment of Italy’s systems in which they are the International National Trusts environment, landscape and located. Organisation – and is recognized historical and artistic heritage. as a legal entity through Italian ■ Today, FAI’s monuments and Presidential Decree No. 941 of ■ monitors the protection of landscapes are located for the 3/12/1975). Italy’s natural and cultural most part in the north of Italy. assets, in the spirit of Article 9 We want these to grow in variety Since its foundation in 1975, FAI of the Italian Constitution. and number, across all of the has been promoting a culture of regions of Italy, particularly respect for Italy’s natural heritage, in Rome. It is crucial that we art, history and traditions. It are able to guarantee their protects a legacy that forms a sustainability. fundamental part of the roots and identity of the Italian people ■ FAI intends to increase its by saving, restoring, opening to commitment to building on the the public and making the most relationship between the places of Italy’s monuments and natural in its care and the people and sites. families who enjoy them, in order to respond to their various needs and desires. ■ FAI intends to manage the properties and places in its care, granting decision-making autonomy to the property managers within a framework of rules; to do so, it relies on the organizational infrastructure and on the input of delegates and volunteers. ■ Alongside its conservation work, FAI organizes national education events (FAI Spring Days) and monitoring events (Italian Places I Love), focusing on special places. Delegates and volunteers make an important contribution to conceiving and organizing these events. 4 In this spirit, FAI encourages the opening up to the public of certain “Italian Places I Love”, within a framework of rules. ■ FAI participates in the national debate on major themes concerning the environment, the landscape and cultural heritage, collaborating in this regard with the most active forces in civil society and with institutions. Local issues are addressed by the Delegations, again within a framework of rules. ■ In this vision, FAI aims to attract 1.5 million visitors per year, 250,000 members and 50,000 volunteers, involved both in the management of its properties and in other local activities. ■ To achieve this 10-year strategy (divided into three business plans 2015–2017, 2018–2020 and 2021–2023), FAI intends to target all of its operations towards its mission and vision, with a view to bringing about the integration of the different parts of the organization and avoiding any inefficiencies. The panorama with the Sea Stacks of Capri as seen from the olive grove of the Baia di Ieranto (Naples), a FAI property since 1987 5 FAI Governance (July 2019) AI’s governance structure is composed of the President, the Executive Vice-President, the Vice-Presidents, Board of Directors, Fthe Executive Committee, the Board of Trustees, the Board of Auditors and the Appointments & Participation Committee. The President, Vice-Presidents, Trustees, Auditors and Board Members do not have a specific mandate and receive no remuneration. FAI’S GOVERNING BODIES Honorary President Board of Directors Board of Trustees Giulia Maria Crespi Mauro Agnoletti Giulia Maria Crespi Giovanni Agosti Giorgio Alpeggiani President Franco Anelli Giovanni Bazoli Andrea Carandini Guido Beltramini Luca Paravicini Crespi Ilaria Borletti Buitoni * Guido Peregalli Executive Vice-President Andrea Carandini * Salvatore Veca Marco Magnifico Giulia Maria Crespi Costanza Esclapon Board of Auditors Vice-Presidents de Villeneuve Franco Dalla Sega Ilaria Borletti Buitoni Gabriele Galateri di Genola ** Antonella Bientinesi Maurizio Rivolta Vannozza Guicciardini Paravicini Francesco Logaldo Andrea Kerbaker * Andrea Bignami (Substitute) Director General David Landau * Stefano Danesin (Substitute) Angelo Maramai Stefano Lucchini Giovanni Rossi (Substitute) Marco Magnifico * Marco Marcatili Auditor Francesco Micheli Deloitte Clarice Orsi Pecori Giraldi Galeazzo Pecori Giraldi * Carlo Pontecorvo ** Maurizio Rivolta * Tiziana Sandrinelli Flavio Valeri * Anna Zegna ** *Members of the Executive Committee **Members of the Appointments & Participation Committee 6 Awaken, Italy! Awaken from the collective amnesia that has erased the past, as though we were Martians come to Earth, unable even to remember Mars: sentient, thinking and working, but on a clean slate. From your soil have risen unrivalled civilizations, like links in a chain, civilizations that have made their mark first in our own pivotal part of the world, then around the globe, albeit in spreading they have lost some of that precious blend of liberty, equality and fraternity that is your most precious essence. Just as even the tiniest detail– such as the minute angel recently identified in Giorgione’s Tempest – is necessary in understanding a painting— (such that it is in the whole of the work that we find its truest beauty), it is the journey of humanity in its entirety that provides the foundation on which we are to build our future. We have thrown history to the dogs. Over the last fifty years, our once Andrea Carandini fine schools have declined, especially in the south (as has been shown), splitting President the country in two. Our political culture has crumbled to the point that now, instead of improving our liberal democracy, we look, bewitched, to aspiring despots who would carve up a divided Europe among themselves. Yet, ours has always been both a Mediterranean and a European culture, one of global importance: consider the disparate places from which great minds came to Rome at the height of the empire. This, too, has been forgotten. While the luminaries of the past are celebrated in great tombs and monuments, the little people of today celebrate the triumph of ignorance and vulgarity. We abandoned the slavery of the ancients (setting love for our neighbor, even if he be our enemy, at the core of our ethics), the vassalage of feudalism, the absolute monarchies of the modern age, the dictatorships of the 20th century; we won a national statute, then a democratic constitution, each more befitting than the last of our status as free people. On the way, we reduced poverty (imagine that!), and drove back the ignorance that would make us subjects rather than citizens. Is all that, now, exasperated as we are by the seemingly endless economic crisis, to go up in smoke, with those who most fan the flames lauded most loudly? Italy, the time has come to wake up and fight back. FAI is resisting this decline: by its concrete efforts, it calls us to reconnect with each other, to rebuild – place by place – the backbone of the country, and open our eyes to the mess we are making of our natural heritage, our ravaged landscapes. It calls us to lift ourselves back up by renewing our fallen civilization and taking care of our environment, our things, our people. We study history to avoid repeating our errors, but also to gather to us the many great and beautiful things that our predecessors achieved, to tell them, “you did not live in vain; we will continue to weave the fabric of civilization whose warp you prepared for us”. Shortcuts are an illusion; what is needed is constant, long-sighted effort from all of us. The ship is in danger! To this end, FAI is working alongside our public institutions, bringing private resources to bear in the interests of both the country and Europe as a whole. It is joined by countless contributions from the voluntary sector and those honest citizens that constitute our country’s greatest hope. To them, FAI holds out its hand so that we may continue the journey together under a banner that reads: speak less, and do more, but never against the interests of our grandchildren. 7 Threads retied: Sardinian porcini, the Virgin of Salento and the scent of meadow flowers In the autumn of 2017 – or 2016 perhaps, I don’t remember – it rained heavily in the north of Sardinia and among the ancient juniper bushes, wild olive trees, granite boulders and the impenetrable macchia of myrtle and mastic there sprung up a riot of porcini mushrooms. It was miraculous; nobody, not even the oldest of the locals, could remember such abundance.