PROCIDA THE ITALIAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE 2022 THE INITIATIVES GET UNDERWAY - PROCIDA THE ITALIAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE 2022 THE INITIATIVES GET UNDERWAY

On Saturday, January 22th, the first official initiative with Poste Italiane, MISE and Regione Campania will be held on the island. In the evening, special projections will be shown on the main monuments of Campania.

 Together with Poste Italiane, the event will present the commemorative stamp dedicated to the just begun year of the Italian Capital of Culture. The aim is to enrich a day that enhances the role of the written word through 22 symbolic letters that will leave the island to reach "special" recipients. This is how Procida opens the year 2022 with the claim "La cultura non isola: affranca", or culture does not isolate (playing on the word for "island" in Italian) but it frees (playing on the word "affranca" related to the stamp). The event is planned on Saturday, January 22th at 11.00 am set up in the Santa Maria Regina della Purità Chapel (Entrance by invitation only and live streaming available on the Facebook page "Procida 2022").

The issue of the commemorative stamp inspired by Procida, the first of 2022, will be supported by the Deputy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin Ministry of Economic Development (issuing authority of postal stamps), by Alberto Mormile, Director of Production for the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato (that is State Mint and Polygraphic Institute) by Roberta Sarrantonio, Head of Filatelia (Philately) Centre-South area of Poste Italiane, and Carlo Orefice, Director of the Naples 2 Ovest branch. Procida 2022 Director, Agostino Riitano, the councillor for Tourism of the Campania Region, Felice Casucci, and the Mayor of Procida, Dino Ambrosino, will take part in the event..

The idea is to recall the value of culture as freedom (playing again on the word "affranca" related to the stamp), supporting the processes of slow and responsible writing, starting with the letters, as the privileged tool for the correspondence of ideas and values since forever. Therefore "22 letters on the future" will be sent to 22 recipients, in synch with the philosophy of the Italian Capital of Culture. Their identity and the content of the letter will be revealed during the event. Following, connected with Parma, Italian Capital of Culture 2020+21, the mayor Federico Pizzarotti and the Councillor for Tourism Cristiano Casa will send their greetings to Procida.

In the coming weeks, the schools of the island, the Capraro Comprehensive Institute and the Caracciolo High School, will promote a series of initiatives dedicated to Procida, as a mean of communication, thanks to the stamp, the recovery and spread of the use of postal letter, among the new generations.

In collaboration with the Regione Campania and Fondazione Campania dei Festival, starting from 7 pm, the logo of Procida Italian Capital of Culture will be shown on some of the main monuments of Campania, with the claim, "Culture does not isolate". Among these, the colonnade of the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola in Piazza del Plebiscito and Castel Sant'Elmo in Naples, the Temples of Paestum, the Royal Palace of Caserta, the Arch of Trajan in Benevento and the Castello Marchionale in Taurasi.