Mayor Damiano Tommasi spoke in Beijing at the ‘Italy-China Cultural Forum – Third Plenary Session’ conference on ‘Cooperation in Cultural Heritage and Exchanges in the Museum Sector’. Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Antonio Tajani and Chinese Minister of Culture Sun Yeli opened the Forum’s work with a welcoming speech.
During the Forum, in the presence of the Presidents of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella and the Chinese President Xi Jinping, a Cooperation Protocol was signed with the city of Hangzhou to further enhance the Twinning (“Gemellaggio”) in the fields of culture and museums, music and live entertainment, trade and sports. With today’s signing of the cooperation protocol, Verona is the only Italian city to have a twinning between UNESCO sites within the Italy-China Cultural Twinning.
The city of Verona thus took an important part in the great institutional platform for exchange and growth between Italy and China. Also in common with the city of Hangzhou are the love stories between Romeo and Juliet and between Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, a very popular legend in China. Verona in 2026 will also be an Olympic city thanks to its most famous monument and symbol, the Arena, where the Olympic values of sport and friendship between peoples will find a home and where a Chinese delegation will also be hosted.
‘The responsibility of having a City with a triple Unesco recognition (Unesco site, intangible heritage for opera, and good practice for the Tocatì) – highlighted Mayor Damiano Tommasi – is to give value and a future to this immense heritage, also linking it to exchanges and friendships that connect the institutions and that can be transformed into projects and development. This is why we believe that the active collaboration of entities such as the University, the Fair, and the FAV is a great opportunity for the entire city. The international twinnings of our city, such as the one that takes us to China, in fact travel with the legs of the people who carry them out, but they must rest firmly on the institutions, which last beyond temporary roles‘.
