O stars, show us the order of the universe and the infinity of the eternal

Solomeo, 24 August 2026 I have gazed at the stars for evenings, for entire nights. And still today, I believe myself to be in love with them. I recall the moving words of Pavel Florensky: “Look at the stars more often. When your soul is burdened, look at the stars or at the blue of the sky. When you feel sad, when you are wronged, when you do not succeed in something, when a storm rages within your spirit, step outside into the open air and linger, alone, with the sky. Then your soul will find peace…”. I often find myself returning to these beautiful reflections, offered by that great poet as he approached death, for I am convinced of their truth, having experienced them myself in moments when the spirit felt less light. The enchantment of the stars lies in their shining, which lights up the firmament, and also in the flickering of their light, as captivating as the movement of the waves at sunset, when the sun is reflected upon the sea in countless, dreamlike glimmers. How important the sky was to farmers! We would call the first star to appear in the evening sky “the beautiful star”, and for those who sail the seas, for centuries, the North Star has been a steadfast guide for navigators. Aristotle, who devoted his entire philosophy to the human being, imagined a sphere of fixed stars as our guide. Each of us, whenever we wish, may single out one or more with which to converse in the evening, when the fervour of the sun subsides, imagining them to be our loved ones, whose souls now dwell elsewhere in eternity. To follow the path of the stars through the verses of poets is the most fascinating journey, and one that is always new. Giacomo Leopardi regarded them as silent confidants, evoking the eternal and the beautiful years of childhood; Dante saw in them the announcement of the great divine light and considered them a symbol of the soul’s salvation. For Shakespeare, they were the emblem of the spirit’s freedom, not bound solely to destiny. The image we preferred for this year’s campaign was chosen together with the Director, Maestro Tornatore, as the one closest to my memory of those times when, living in the countryside, I felt close to divine Nature, and every thought was far from my mind, filled with beauty. It was in those days that, much like the child portrayed in the photograph, I would often lie upon the grass in the evening and fix my gaze upon the sky, losing myself in the infinity of the firmament. Junius Columella, an important Latin author who wrote the finest treatise on gardens that has come down to us, called flowers “terrestra sidera”, namely terrestrial stars. I have never encountered a metaphor so poetic, and in my view, it is no coincidence that it comes from a gardener. For gardeners, and for farmers, what happens in the sky is intimately connected to what unfolds in their fields. The sky, with its stars, has for generations beyond name been observed with sublime attention, in order to understand how the harvest would fare. And so today, we too should always make time to look up at the stars and ask them about the harvest of our immortal soul.