Uno sguardo filosofico sul rapporto tra arte e scienza
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/15307
application/pdf
1973-9494
15307
en
Mauro Mantovani
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
A philosophical look at the relationship between art and science
Text.Serial.Journal
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/
21
Opening section
2022-08-02
2022-07-28
2022-08-02
2022-08-02
CSCH
Mauro Mantovani
2021
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/15307
Rector of the Salesian Pontifical University and President of the Rectors Conference of Roman Universities and Pontifical Institutions, Rome
1973-9494
en
A philosophical look at the relationship between art and science
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/15307/14538
21
A    PHILOSOPHICAL LOOK AT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
     ART AND SCIENCE

Mauro Mantovani
Rector of the Salesian Pontifical University and President of the Rectors Conference
of Roman Universities and Pontifical Institutions, Rome




    I wish to thank with all my heart the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna,
the President and each single member, for this invitation, I am honored.
    I want to greet Professor Lorusso, the illustrious relators and all the participants. I am
truly happy to offer a short contribution – which is especially a personal testimony – to the
presentation of the results and cultural vitality of a Journal in its first 20 years, adding my
congratulations and appreciation for the specific contribution that this publication offers
every year, and as the twenty Editorials recently published in a single volume show, to
promote and realize the fundamental synergy between art and science.
    I do so as the current Rector of the Pontifical Salesian University, though I am at
the end of my mandate and as President of the Conferenza dei Rettori delle Universi-
tà Pontificie Romane (CRUIPRO). For fifteen years the University has been among the
Institutions that have collaborated with the Journal, and I have always been very hap-
py to be personally involved in its scientific Committee, since, with my colleague Rec-
tors and Deans we have always worked hard to encourage in-depth activities of great
educational and cultural quality aimed at constructive dialogue between knowledge
and disciplines, and above all between people, bringing together humanistic tradition,
scientific development, technical applications and technologies and an educational
and intergenerational dimension, for the good of our society.
    And we all well know how the University, as uni-versitas, a place of convergence ad
unum of different kinds of knowledge so that each and every one of them not only pre-
serves but is also protected and promoted in its peculiarity and specificity, starting from
the different methodologies and epistemologies; it is a privileged place to connect pro-
fessionalization and the opening of horizons, memory and innovation, specialization –
not fragmentation – and the ability to view as one, in an environment rich in transmis-
sion (and therefore mission) and studium (which etymologically means passion that
has been experienced and testified to).
    The recent pandemic after all has also reintroduced the past, but always present,
debate on the identity and role of academic institutions, and the relationship between
didactics and research, theory and application; and in this very context it clearly ap-
pears how from the University we expect that new propulsive energy to push young
people towards a united view of the world, with an education that has a “large format”
and “broad thinking”.
    As we were reminded on the occasion of the last inauguration of the academic year
at the Alma Mater of Bologna, a “new Humanism” is needed and we have the education-
al task to fascinate, delight, educate, teach – which is possible because we constantly
experience learning – and mobilize, inspire, young people as citizens and haruspices of
“that tremendous and spectacular thing called life”, as sentinels of what – planned and
built together with them – already prefigures the future for us.
    At our University, which is distinguished by the presence, especially, of humanistic
subjects, we inaugurated the current academic year – to which we have assigned as a
general objective the “shared and convergent Research among specialists of different
disciplines” – with a splendid Prolusion presented by an ex-student from the Universi-
ty of Bologna, the astrophysicist Marica Branchesi who, starting from her experience
spoke about how the “very brief sound” heard in 2015 allowed us to listen for the first
time to gravitational waves, a sensational discovery that enabled the development of a
technology that has been increasingly perfected, and also allowed us to start the lon-
gest and most extensive observational campaign in the history of humankind, conduct-
ed by a community of 3.500 scientists.
    This is what she said: “Today’s discoveries are collective, the result of the collabo-
ration of scientists from all over the world who have been able to break down barriers
and understand that diversity is a value. It is by building bridges and not walls that
these great advances in knowledge are achieved and what is needed therefore is a
change of mentality, a common language for a common end, being aware of the fact
that alone we cannot overcome any of the challenges that we have to face today […]
Research is research that needs to be increasingly more shared and inclusive, be-
cause only this can lead to both personal and social development […] When we ex-
plore the sky, we observe all the elements of which we are made. And we can really
say that we are “stardust”, because in the sky we find what our body is made of. The
beauty of the sky also allows us to better understand what we have around us and
what we are. It is extremely important to push the boundaries of knowledge. Students
who start a course of study have a great opportunity. I hope they satisfy their curiosity,
that they don’t stop dreaming, that they further their knowledge, that they explore
knowledge, that can be done through exploring the universe or exploring a book. For
this reason, the presence and constitution of increasingly international, inclusive and
convergent qualified research centres, and the promotion of proper synergies, are
even more necessary today, and the university environment is the ideal place to grow
and practice it.” (M. Branchesi, Opportune sinergie e centri specializzati, per una ricerca
“condivisa e convergente”. Una testimonianza dall’astrofisica, in G. Ruta, ed., Le scien-
ze: dentro, “a confine” ed oltre…, Las, Roma 2021, p. 290).
    I wanted to refer to this reference because in my opinion the Journal Conservation
Science in Cultural Heritage is a virtuous realization – with a great impact of internation-
al character, as registered by the various “measurements” – of sharing and convergence
among universities, academies, national and international research centres, regarding
the key issues and fundamental challenges of our time, a historical moment that – as
Pope Frances reminds us – is not only an era of change but a real “change of era”.
    Looking at the Editorials shared with Professor Lorusso during these years, for ex-
ample, I notice that together we have examined questions about the relationship be-
tween memory and future, cultural identity (such as the tricky theme of the identi-
cal and the diverse), integration – in knowledge – between singularity and normality
(in putting together “mind”, “heart” and “hands”), the notion of imperfection and perfec-
tion in culture, science, art and research. And in the articles, I had the opportunity to
offer some contributions on beauty and conservation, Church and art, art, science and
history in a globalized world, with a particular look at some interesting experiences in
Italy and China, and also an attempt to reflect – “Virus, art and faith” – about how to
respond to Covid-19.
    I have deliberately left for last, the text, Thinking independently, and, then, as one,
in which we discussed the relationship between truth, art and science in the context of
transdisciplinarity, in my opinion, a particularly important theme because it focuses
on the open discussion about the concepts of multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinarity or
cross-disciplinarity, overcoming the juxtaposition of knowledge and promoting a “strong”
interdisciplinarity through which every discipline relates to the others without degener-
ating or alienating itself, but is enriched by the relationship due to its peculiarity and
specificity, thus allowing it to fully be what it is supposed to be.
    I believe that this is indeed what those who work with the Journal in different ways
experience. I wish with all my heart that the Journal not only “conserves” its youth as a
twenty-year old but also enhances the heritage of which it is the guardian and embod-
iment, for a service that I would dare to define – borrowing an expression by Giovanni
Battista Montini, Pope Paul VI – as “intellectual charity”. As a young priest who accom-
panied university students on their journey of intellectual and spiritual education, he
stated: «science can be charity as well. Whoever engages in a topic in depth […] is a
benefactor of humanity. […] Whoever tries to spread the truth through thought and pen,
serves charity. […] The intellectual activity […] which spreads in the beneficial intention
for others, besides enriching itself with new experiences, and the most useful human
experience, becomes, with God’s Grace, charity» (G.B. Montini, Carità intellettuale, in
G.B. Montini, Scritti fucini [1925-1933], ed. M. Marcocchi, Istituto Paolo VI – Edizioni Stu-
dium, Brescia – Roma 2004, pp. 358-359).
    Congratulations to the Journal for its work in the years 2001-2020, and ad maiora!
