Casa Italia lights up Milano 2023. Awaiting the opening ceremony of the Fencing World Championships, to be held tomorrow with the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, the CONI hospitality house officially opened its doors in the presence, among others, of CONI President, Giovanni Malagò the President of the Milano 2023 Organising Committee, Marco Fichera, the President of Federscherma, Paolo Azzi, the President of the European Fencing Confederation, Giorgio Scarso, the Milan Sports Councillor, Martina Riva, and Claudia Colla, the new Head of the Milan Regional Office of the European Commission. Guest of honour was the Olympic foil champion, Elisa Di Francisca.

“The minute Milan was nominated, we immediately thought of great synergies, in this bridge between the Olympic cities of Milan and Paris,” revealed Malagò, who acknowledged that the Fencing World Championships is an important step towards the Milano Cortina 2026 Games. “The Fencing World Championships,” continued Malagò, “was conceived a long time ago with the help of key figures who played fundamental roles: Giorgio Scarso, the President of the Federation, Paolo Azzi and Marco Fichera, a former fencer who now has the honour of being the President of the Organising Committee of these wonderful world championships. This Wednesday marks one year to the Games in Paris 2024 and all the organising committees have been invited to Paris to celebrate it. We will do so here at Casa Italia, in a symbolically important moment to be experienced in the Olympic city of Milan.”

“With Casa Italia, CONI wanted to unify the project with the Fencing World Championships; it is an important added value,” remarked Fichera. “A place like this is not only the home of the athletes but home to everyone. We are all on the eve of a test; tomorrow the medals will be awarded and President Mattarella will be here.”

“We are at Casa Italia, thanks to CONI, we are at the House of the Municipality of Milan, which has made everything available to us,” stressed Azzi. “It is a world championship of many firsts: the first time in Milan, the first time with Casa Italia and the first time with the opening of the President of the Republic. Our athletes have prepared well and have done everything they could to match the great work that has gone into this enormous event.” “Good luck to Milan and Italy,” Scarso added.

Representing the Municipality of Milan was the Councillor for Sport, Tourism and Youth Policies, Martina Riva: “It is a thrill to be here tonight, the dream is finally a reality today and it will be an example for all the other sporting events that Milan is set to host. It is great proof of our common goal with CONI – the goal of Milano Cortina 2026.”

Also present at the opening of Casa Italia, set up for the occasion at the Dazi di Milano venue, in Piazza Sempione, were representatives of the European Commission. “The European Commission is here at Casa Italia,” said Claudia Colla, “We are experiencing a special moment. Tonight I am thrilled, but we want to reaffirm once again the support of the European Commission for Milan, Lombardy and the whole of Italy.”

The Fencing World Championships 2023 represents a fundamental step on the path towards the next Games; indeed, in addition to the medals, there will be a significant points haul towards Paris 2024.

In support of the Organising Committee and the Partners of the Italia Team in Paris, CONI will bring its experience by way of Casa Italia, located in a strategic position for the event at the Medal Plaza, set up in front of the Arco della Pace, and open to the public who will be able to experience all the thrills of the event.

Casa Italia will celebrate top-level sport fused with Italian excellence in all its forms, from art to design, from tradition to the most state-of-the-art forms of technology. The two Dazi (historic tool booths) at the sides of the Arch will be brought to life with two completely different targets: the Dazio di Levante is dedicated to the Olympic and fencing experience, thanks to CONI’s Mostra delle Fiaccole (torch exhibition) and the contribution of the Botticino Museum of Martial Arts; while correspondingly, the Dazio di Ponente will offer partners and stakeholders hospitality typical of Casa Italia’s Made in Italy excellence.

It will be in the Dazi itself that the CONI National Board will be hosted tomorrow, the National Council, meanwhile, will be held in the Torre Allianz – home of Milano Cortina 2026 – in conjunction with the event in a year’s time in Paris 2024 on 26 July. The Medal Plaza will also host an acrobatic show dedicated to sport, in which the dancers of the Kataklò company will alternate with athletes from four sporting disciplines (fencing, rhythmic gymnastics, taekwondo and breakdance), in a choral show with an Olympic theme.

The exhibition of Olympic torches, with free admission for all visitors, will include the torches from the last four editions of the Summer Games (Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020), as well as those of the Games held in Italy (Cortina 1956, Rome 1960, Turin 2006), flanked by the official uniforms worn by the champions of the Italia Team, including the outfits to be worn by our athletes at the coming Olympic Games in Paris 2024. An approach that passes through the most significant images of the past towards Paris 2024 and then, above all, Milano Cortina 2026.

Thanks to the scientific support from the Museum of Martial Arts, CONI also intertwines the threads of history that inextricably link fencing, the Italian Renaissance and the city of Milan. Through the pages of important treatises by three fencing masters, Camillo Agrippa, Pietro Monte and Federico Ghisliero – all interconnected in various ways to the city of Milan and its illustrious cultural environment – we are able to trace the development of the discipline, through anatomical, physical, and philosophical studies that determined its rise to the rank of an art form.

In that extraordinary era from 1500 to 1600, the conception of carrying a sword changed, from being a weapon of offence and defence in battle, to being perceived as a distinctive sign of chivalry and all its moral and cultural values. Here, in these treatises, the precepts, which would later become the rules of sport fencing, are flank

to the research that was being undertaken at that time by men such as Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei.

At Casa Italia’s side, there are well-established partners to best express the project’s core principles: Edra, representative of the most innovative Italian manufacturing since Rio 2016, which will decorate the Casa with pieces that have become icons such as the Boa and Tatlin sofas, and the Rose, Favela and Margherita armchairs; Ethimo, with its outdoor decor in a revamped traditional style.

(Photo Simone Ferraro - CONI)