- 7 -
De-centering And Elevation Along The Silk Roads

December, 2016

The visitors of the exhibition "From the Ancient Silk Road to the New Silk Road" which is under the high patronage of HE Mr Sergio Mattarella, President of the Italian Republic, will certainly appreciate the beauty and the historical value of the collection presented in Rome at the Quirinal Palace.

But while the aesthetic dimension of the objects pleases our eyes, the theme which brings them together stimulates our minds.

The Silk Road connects. The exhibition shows once again that the separation between Europe and Asia has been an abstract construct. The Silk Road is not about a divide, it points at the circulations in the same immense space, it is a reference to the continuities of the Eurasian continent. In geographic terms, the Silk Road does presuppose Eurasia, but, from a cultural perspective, Eurasia is a product of a vast and ancient web of exchanges.

The Silk Road cross-fertilizes. Sameness and otherness do not radically exclude each other, while East and West differ, they should not be absolutely opposed. The history of Eurasia has been marked by the interactions between the Orient and the Occident and this interconnectedness has been often synonymous with mutual enrichment. As two inseparable poles, East and West are closer to the Yin and the Yang than to the opposites of a dualistic representation of the world.

The Silk Road is a work in progress which should not be understood as an exclusively historical phenomenon. In a sense, while the level of exchanges between China and Europe has never been so intense, the Silk Road or the network composed by the Silk Roads, including the digital Silk Roads, has never be so alive. China's effort to be the co-architect of a new Silk Road, the "One Belt, One Road" vision, reinterprets an ancient reality and projects it into the future.

The Silk Road reconciles. Obviously, history has not ended, and, in a multi-conceptual global village, the nature of the articulation between civilizations will determine the future of our world. In this context, the Silk Road remains the most powerful metaphor to approach what has to be a symphony of civilizations.

As two cultural superpowers, Italy and China have a major role to play in the deepening of the Sino-European relations and, beyond, in the making of a more harmonious global village.

All those, from Italy, Europe and China, who generously contributed to the exhibition "From the Ancient Silk Road to the New Silk Road" want to modestly contribute to the dialogue between civilizations. I wish here to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Louis Godart and to Professor Maurizio Scarpari.

These two humanists know what our friendship owes to Professor Romano Prodi, a Statesman familiar with the subtleties of the Silk Roads. I vividly remember an encounter several years ago with Professor Romano Prodi in Urumqi, in China's Xinjiang in the north of the Taklamakan desert, while he was coming from Kazakhstan on his way to Chengdu.

Along the Silk Roads one de-centers to access the other and to know oneself, but, in some places, vertical paths intersect with the horizontal network: crosses, steles, stupas are parts of the road but they are also doors to a higher way.

The Silk Road – an invitation to travel out and up, both de-centering and elevation.