THE BURNING WORD
The Apocalypse in literature: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

with Don Paolo Alliata (writer), Simona Marchesini (archaeologist, linguist), Felipe Leon (cello)

Ancient peoples mistrusted writing as a means of transmitting knowledge. It is orality – they thought – that best guards the word from the risk of misunderstanding. From this point of view, the burning of books, which brutalised various pages of history, could not prevent the transmission of knowledge, the running of wisdom under the sky.
In Bradbury’s novel, too, there is a tension between the written and the oral. In a future, dystopian world, where literature is banned because it makes people think and opens up spaces of dangerous depth to the imagination, a few courageous dissidents preserve entire works in their memory, in order to hand them over to the civilisation of tomorrow. They have become true tabernacles of the word.
Memory and the depth of the heart are the fire to face the dark days. To keep oneself open to some tremor of revelation just when one risks drowning in superficiality.

In collaboration with: Educandato Statale Agli Angeli and Diocese of Verona

Thanks to: Zanotto Foundation

Simona Marchesini, archaeologist and linguist, studied in Pisa and Tübingen, and has taught at the universities of Tübingen and Verona. Her fields of research are the fragmentary languages of the ancient world, sociolinguistics, text linguistics and the anthropology of writing. Recently, he has been devoting himself to an integrated theory of linguistic ‘context’, which aids in the understanding of text ‘meaning’. In 2009, he founded and coordinates the research organisation Alteritas – Interaction between Peoples, which studies the dynamics of encounters between peoples in space and time. He is scientifically responsible for two European projects.

Don Paolo Alliata, After graduating in Classics from the University of Milan, Don Paolo Alliata was ordained a priest by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. He is vicar in the Milan parish of Santa Maria Incoronata. He has written theatrical texts on the Bible for children and young people. He is committed, through preaching and writings, to proposing interweavings between the Bible and non-religious literature. Since 2019, he has been in charge of the Service for Biblical Apostolate of the Diocese of Milan.