Events

Let’s get back together after the summer break with the Aperilibro event on Friday 30 October at 7:00 pm.

What happens when a long-standing cultural tradition – one that has shaped Russian identity – encounters the language of modern-day propaganda? And where does the fine line lie between contemporary reality and the myth of an imperial past?

We’ll be discussing this with Gian Piero Piretto, author of Il Paese di Putin. Venti parole al servizio della propaganda (Raffaello Cortina Editore), a journey through key words to understand how vocabulary can become a tool for storytelling, consensus-building and the consolidation of power.

Registration required via the link. Free event. For those who wish, an aperitivo is available for €10.

As part of the three-year initiative Luoghi di comunità armoniche (Places for Harmonious Communities), of which Horti is a partner, a major contemporary art outreach project designed for schools across the Province of Pavia is now getting underway at the Baratta-Maragliano campus of the Istituto Maserati in Voghera. The project aims to create an ecosystem of artistic experiences that will foster new spaces for community gathering throughout the province.

On Tuesday, 3 November, at 9:00 a.m., we will inaugurate Fare Spazio, a mural created by artist ETSOM, at the Baratta-Maragliano campus of the Istituto Maserati. The creative process behind the artwork began with a participatory workshop involving the artist and the school's students.

We look forward to welcoming you next Tuesday at the Istituto Maserati Baratta–Maragliano, Via Don L. Milani 21, Voghera. Admission is free.

The project Luoghi di comunità armoniche (Places for Harmonious Communities), led by Almo Collegio Borromeo in collaboration with the Province of Pavia and Fondazione Horti ETS, is made possible thanks to the support of Fondazione Cariplo andthe Lombardy Region.

Luca Bernasconi’s exhibition “Che io veda. The Gaze, the Face, the Other and the Infinite” is being shown for the very first time following the agreement signed between ICS Maugeri Pavia and the Horti Foundation. Two Pavia-based institutions coming together and finding common ground in the field of care. Because caring for vulnerable people means laying the foundations that make it possible to feel well, whatever the circumstances. This is the spirit that inspired the photographic exhibition. In the photographs by Bernasconi, a palliative care doctor at ICS Maugeri Pavia – as well as in the everyday, expert gestures of healthcare workers – art appears as a form of care: it is creativity that takes on the burden of fragile humanity, observing it and, in doing so, restoring its presence and dignity.

Come and visit the Extra Art space, Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00 to 19:00.

"La Cattedra della Speranza" returns to Horti, a space where personal testimony becomes a lesson for interpreting the present and believing in the possibility of a better world. Our guest speakers share the reasons for their hope, which is nourished by looking around them.

As part of this series, on Thursday 5 November at 6.30 pm we will be hosting Eugenia Carfora, headteacher of the Istituto Morano in Parco Verde, Caivano (Naples). We will discuss school as a bastion of hope, education as a means of redemption, and the courage to remain where everything seems to suggest there is no future. Drawing on her experience, we will reflect on how schools can open up new paths, restore young people’s confidence and transform vulnerabilities into opportunities. Because believing in the possibility of a better world means, first and foremost, never ceasing to invest in people and their future.

The event will be introduced by Mauro Querci (journalist), and moderated by Alessandro Carrara, a PhD student in philosophy. Attendance is free, but registration is required via the link.

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From 20th October to 17th November, the Horti are hosting a workshop to explore the indispensable bond of friendship through literature, psychoanalysis and plenty of discussion.

Each session of the workshop focuses on a core value underpinning friendships. Each theme will be explored through artistic and literary insights and from a psychological and analytical perspective, in an ongoing dialogue between Gaia Manzini, journalist and writer, and Dana Scotto di Fasano, an SPI psychoanalyst. Each session will feature a practical or writing exercise. The sessions will take the form of a workshop, designed to engage participants and foster fruitful dialogue.

For the second session on 27 October, we will be exploring the themes of irony and cheerfulness. What is it about friendship that makes us laugh, even in the most difficult moments? Through literature – from Jerome K. Jerome’s "Three Men in a Boat" to Stefano Benni’s "Bar Sport" – we will explore irony as a precious ingredient in relationships. Together with Manzini and Scotto di Fasano, through anecdotes, reading recommendations and exercises, we’ll try to draw up a set of guidelines on light-heartedness and find the words to define what it means to be friends. Sign up via the link

Upcoming sessions:

10 November: CARE

17 November: SHARING

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A Horti Book Club was created by our student collective. The reading group will meet every two months and, at each meeting, will discuss a book belonging to a different genre. In this first edition, entitled Sui generis, participants will embark on a veritable 'reader's journey', exploring literature through the nuances and peculiarities of the literary genres that comprise it.

On 10 December at 6.30 pm, we will be hosting the final ‘chapter’ of the 2026 Book Club. For this session, which is dedicated to the ‘gothic thriller’ genre, we will be discussing Shirley Jackson’s "The Haunting of Hill House". We will soon be announcing the new dates and titles for the 2027 Book Club. For further information, please email bookclub@horti.it