“Artisans of peace”, here is the manifesto of the Via dei Librai of Palermo

Being artisans of peace in a world dominated by wars and growing conflicts and while metropolitan violence also marks everyday life even a stone’s throw from our home. It is the spirit of the manifesto that launches the ninth edition of the Via dei Librai scheduled on the Cassaro Alto from 23 to 28 April.

The observation of the ongoing persistence of a cultural and social system based on conflicts, the need to develop without hesitation and time delays an alternative system that allows “an evolved or worthy behavior of man” push us to propose for the ninth edition of ” La Via dei Librai” is a path of community reflection on the collective perspective that commits everyone to being “artisans of peace, on the path to peace” – write Giulio Pirrotta and Francesco Lombardo who signed the document of the scientific committee.

And the manifesto recalls two recent interventions of important value. Last December 31, in his end-of-year speech, Sergio Mattarella, President of the Italian Republic, identified a generative link between conflicts and the implementation of a principle of inequality, stating that “war – every war – generates hatred. And the hatred will last, multiplied, long after the conflicts end. War is the result of the refusal to recognize people and peoples as equals. Equipped with equal dignity. To affirm, instead, under the pretext of one’s own national interest, a principle of inequality. And it claims to enslave, to exploit. We try to justify these behaviors because they have always happened in history. Rejecting the progress of human civilization.”

And before him Pope Francis – who dedicated the 57th “Day of Peace”, New Year’s Eve 2024, to the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Peace – in the encyclical Brothers all (citing a previous writing) had observed how: “In this world that runs without a common route, we breathe an atmosphere in which «the distance between the obsession for one’s own well-being and the happiness of shared humanity seems to widen: up to to suggest that it is now underway between the individual and the human community

a real schism.”

Here is the horizon of the ninth edition of the Via dei Librai which will have many innovations on an organizational level starting from the presence of the assistant booksellers who will make their debut in the stations along via Vittorio Emanuele. Experiment shared with ALI, the national booksellers association belonging to Confcommercio – Imprese per l’Italia, whose president Paolo Ambrosini comments: “We applaud an initiative which is almost unique in the national panorama and looks carefully at the role of the bookseller in the diffusion of books ; today, in fact, booksellers are required to have skills that go beyond the management of an already complex activity such as the organization of events, the promotion of the book through the valorisation of its contents; this is why as ALI we have revised the program of our training school for booksellers this year and we are happy to share its spirit with La Via dei Librai”.

Furthermore, of particular importance is the agreement between La Via dei Librai and the Kòrai-Territorio, Sviluppo e Cultura cooperative, manager of theItinerary Rosalie on the occasion of the 400th edition of the patron saint of Palermo.

The agreement with La Via dei Librai starts with the collaboration for the book shop in San Francesco Saverio and the creation of a section dedicated to books on Santa Rosalia on the web platforms and in the app of La Via dei Librai. The Church of San Francesco Saverio, as an asset which houses the triumph of S. Rosalia painted by the Flemish Geronimo Gerardi (once it also preserved very important relics of the Saint, no longer available today) and from whose tower one can admire the system of Rosalian places with one’s gaze of the city, is a candidate to be a reference and Sanctuary for young people and a stop on a journey in the footsteps of Rosalia, young saint and “Pilgrim of hope”. The Jubilee year is precisely the opportunity to strengthen the presence of the Church of San Francesco Saverio in the urban circuit linked to the Cammino di Santa Rosalia.

The opening of the bookshop is one of the pieces of the project of a widespread urban museum and valorization of the Rosalian Way embraced by the Archdiocese and the Municipality of Palermo and joins the program of opening to visits of the church, carried out by the Rectory of San Francesco Saverio and from Kòrai, territorial workshop of the Policoro Project of the Archdiocese of Palermo.

And this will be a further stage in the journey of the ninth edition of La Via dei Librai with a meeting on Thursday 7 March at 5pm in San Francesco Saverio, in which the 2024 thematic manifesto will be presented and the details of the agreement will be communicated.