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Posted: March 10
Yesterday I went to a press conference at the headquarters of the Fondazione Mario Cecchi Gori in the Palazzo Borthese not far from the Spanish Steps in the elegant heart of the Renaissance Rome. The Fondazione is a film production company well-known in Italy for its high quality theatrical films, and they had called the conference to announce their project of doing a major television documentary on Father Matteo Ricci, the seventeenth century Jesuit missionary extraordinare to China. I was invited by Father Giovanni Marchesi SJ, who developed the story and serves as consultant to the project. The director will be Falco Quilici who made his reputation filming documentaries on nature and science. Pasquale Squitieri, the producer, said that filming would begin within six to eight months, as soon as the final permissions were worked out with the Chinese government. The company’s president, Vitori Cecci Gori, was there, along with Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Counsil on Culture. All in all, it was quite a high-powered cast unveiling plans for the documentary.
I was pleased to hear about the production because of Ricci’s historical importance and the film makers’ view of him as a model of cultural dialogue, a theme so important for our own epoch of violent antagonism and lack of respect between the major cultures. But I have to admit that it was also a delight to be able to enter one of the great Roman palazzos that normally I can only see from the outside. The building served as the residence for the Borghese family, from whom came several popes and innumerable cardinals and civic leaders. Fondazione Mario Cecchi Gori has its offices in the palazzo, just beyond an incredible sculptural garden that you pass through to reach its offices. The sala where the reception was held boasted a painted ceiling with bodies angling upwards in perfect perspective, and lavish decorations around the deep windows which could be blocked off to darken the room. A very modern screen sat high up on the front wall facing a projection booth which had been built somewhat incongruously in the back of the room. The conbination of elegant old architecture and modern technology is typically Roman; a film production company obviously needs a screening room, but few companies would have a room with museum-quality decorations.
The historical ambience echoed the theme of the movie that Ricci was a pioneer who viewed the Chinese people from the perspective of his treatise, “De Amisticia” (On Friendship). Although Ricci is less well-known in Italy than his fellow-countryman, Marco Polo, he opened up a relationship between Europe and China at a much deeper level. Cardinal Poupard praised Ricci for creating “bridges of dialogue” between the two cultures.
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