A phrase from the novelist Aleksandar Hemon is probably the primal voice of Sphinx. Here it is: "All the lives we could live, all the people we will never know, or that we will not be, are everywhere. This is the world." It is an echo in which the melancholy of geographical distances and the seasons of life vibrates, of encounters we never imagined and those only brushed against.
I imagined a courier - the one who transports the works of the collection around the world for museums, under their complete responsibility - in a Chinese megacity, a courier who intermittently flees from his life but cannot completely shake it off. He wanders through the territories of his past while, among other things, trying to make amends for a broken promise. And since, as Giorgio Manganelli noted, "every journey begins with a daydream and ends with an instead," the protagonist of Sphinx also departs with a desire, with a purpose, with an imagination, and returns home with an idea that contradicts, at least in part, that state of mind. In Shanghai, in fact, a dual encounter will force him to redefine himself and the value of his life. Gabriele Di Fronzo
We will be skillfully welcomed by Chiara Alpago Novello from 9:30 for breakfast with coffee, tea, all the good things needed to start the day well: cookies made with organic flours baked in a wood oven, local yogurt and cheeses, garden fruit jams, and whatever the awakening and the season inspire (for example, chiffon). At 12:30 a light lunch, greetings and toasts. In between, chats, questions, beautiful ideas. As much as you want.
