Maison de la Paix || Casa Universale delle Culture (EN)

 

CASA UNIVERSALE DELLE CULTURE

The Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture is a place strongly representative, in which will convey the knowledge of the different identities and cultures, structuring permanently initiatives aimed at the spreading of peace, necessary for the shared development.

The Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture (MdP) is a project conceived by Michele Capasso, approved by many Countries and international organizations. It is an architecture that keeps the memory of many Peace activities which created history, often more than the wars, but it is – above all – a space "to build” Peace.

The architectonical complex has an important symbolic worth: it represents the Countries of the World engaged in the Peace process and the Countries victim of the conflicts.

Proposed by the Fondazione Mediterraneo with the Maison des Alliances – together with the main adherent organizations, such as the Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, the League of Arab States, the "Anna Lindh" Euro-Mediterranean Foundation and others, the MdP represents a referent point for all the ones who dedicate their lives to peace.

The symbol of the MdP is the "Totem for Peace", an artwork by the Italian sculptor Mario Molinari which the Fondazione Mediterraneo is promoting all around the world, creating the network of the "Cities for Peace".

The first seat of the MdP was inaugurated on the 14th of June 2010 (Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture) in the historical building of the Grand Hotel de Londres in Naples.

The action of the Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture aims at improving the main activities of the "Universal Forum of Cultures" in: Barcelona (2004), Monterrey (2007), Valparaiso (2010) and Naples (2013).

The Maison de la Paix performs most of the initiatives jointly with the Maison de la Méditerranée.

 

The Boards of Directors of the Fondazione Mediterraneo and the Fondazione United States of the World ETS have authorised Artè to purchase 20 works by the Egyptian master Fathi Hassan at cost price.
During a brief ceremony, President Capasso highlighted Artè’s role in promoting artists from the Mediterranean region.

Following events in Gernika (April 2025), Naples (June 2025) and Sarajevo (October 2025), a new stage of the programme “Call for Peace: Ending Wars and Upholding International Law” took place in Luanda (Angola) in the presence, amongst others, of Under-Secretary-General Miguel Ángel Moratinos, High Representative for UNAOC, and Dionísio Manuel da Fonseca, Minister of State of Angola.
In a message, the Secretary-General of the United States of the World, Michele Capasso – one of the partners in the programme launched by UNAOC since its very first edition – emphasised the importance of the global call for dialogue and the building of an inclusive peace.
High Representative Moratinos presented the Luanda Joint Declaration, “a new call to end wars, restore trust and respect international law… so that humanity may move forward in unity, dignity, justice and peace.”

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Secretary-General Michele Capasso, together with Pia Molinari and the members of the Executive Board and the Council of Ambassadors, expresses his deepest condolences for the death of Peppino Di Capri, a long-standing friend and supporter of the Fondazione Mediterraneo and the United States of the World.
“One of the last great figures of 20th-century Italian music has left us. A refined pianist, an elegant performer and the composer of songs that have become part of the collective memory, he spanned over sixty years of music, managing to speak to different generations without ever compromising his own style: a dear friend – I remember his last visit to the Museum of Peace,” said a moved Michele Capasso.

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A delegation from the “United States of the World” welcomed Pope Leo XIV, who, upon his arrival in Lampedusa, immediately went to the local cemetery to pay his respects at the graves of the faceless and nameless migrants, before which he remained to pray in silence and lay a wreath of flowers.
“I was deeply moved,” said Secretary-General Michele Capasso, “when I saw the Pope standing before the burial niches that we set aside years ago for nameless migrants, and then I recalled Pope Francis’s visit, thirteen years ago, at this very time of year.”
This was immediately followed by a visit to the Porta d’Europa, where he met with a migrant family and was met with the powerful image of Pope Leo standing on the rocks facing the sea, where the horizon looks towards the lands from which our brothers and sisters come – those forced to leave their homes in search of the freedom and dignity denied to them.
Pope Prevost then blessed a memorial stone renaming the Molo Favaloro as the “Molo Pope Francis”.
In this strip of land closer to Tunisia than to Italy, Pope Leo XIV chooses to let his words fade away to make way for the weight of memory and grief: he remains silent throughout the first, brief part of the journey. The part that takes him to the cemetery at Cala Pisana, then to the Porta d’Europa and finally to the Molo Favaloro, which has today been renamed Molo Pope Francis. There are no words, no speeches and certainly no proclamations – especially political ones – from the Pope; there is a suspended void, set against the stark reality of the migration routes. This reality is told by the crosses made from the wood of the boats salvaged from crossings across the Mediterranean, bearing no names, dates or faces; it is told by the bowls, hats and everyday objects embedded in the ceramic and galvanised iron blocks of the Porta d’Europa; and it is told by the faces – some smiling, some not – of the twenty migrants brought out today from the hotspots and led before the memorial dedicated to Pope Bergoglio.

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A delegation from the "United States of the World" and the “Fondazione Mediterraneo” took part in the celebrations marking the "80th anniversary of the election of the Constituent Assembly and the granting of the right to vote to women".
Organised by the Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, the event was attended by the highest-ranking state officials, members of parliament and observers.
The Chamber of Deputies gave President Mattarella a long round of applause. Everyone then stood as the choir and orchestra of the Opera House performed Mameli’s national anthem.
“In his inaugural address to the Constituent Assembly on 25 September 1945, Carlo Sforza paid tribute to the memory of the martyrs murdered by fascism – Matteotti, Amendola, Don Minzoni, Gramsci, Carlo and Nello Rosselli – concluding that Italy’s future lay in aligning its interests with those of a peaceful and united Europe,” said the President of the Republic.
This passage was met with thunderous applause.
Secretary-General Michele Capasso emphasised the symbolic significance of the commemoration, expressing the hope that it might prompt political leaders to push for the establishment of the "United States of Europe".

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