Anfiteatro Andrzej Tomaszewski - Auditorium al Duomo Florence

5.20 p.m.
The President of the Fondazione Romualdo Del Bianco greets participants
Your excellencies, ladies and gentlement,
I would like to welcome you to this ceremony where we will be dedicating this amphitheatre to
a person who, in different ways, has meant a great deal to all of us.
Thank you for being here, indeed many of you from travelling great distances especially to be
here for this ceremony today.
It is an important day and your presence only increases its importance.
I would particularly like to thank Agnieszka Stachurska, the daughter of Andrzej Tomaszewski,
for lending her support to the initiative.
A few years ago the Fondazione Romualdo ®
Del Bianco published a book entitled: Polish Travellers
in Florence, a kind of tribute to Polish figures who have contributed to enriching our city’s
history. With this ceremony today, our intention is to commemorate another Polish figure, a
scholar and a historian: Andrzej Tomaszewski. But we are not devoting only a page to his memory,
we are dedicating this entire amphitheatre hall in Auditorium al Duomo to him.
Henceforth this hall, this amphitheatre in which we find ourselves, will be known as the
Andrzej Tomaszewski Amphitheatre
This is our way of remembering Andrzej Tomaszewski here, in Florence, with affection and
gratitude, in an especially important and significant fashion.
Why are we doing this?
As you can read in the essay entitled “The reason for a dedication” on the right of the door leading
into this amphitheatre, it was only natural for the Fondazione to decide to dedicate to his
memory this amphitheatre hall, located only steps away from the square over which
Brunelleschi’s immense cupola towers, in a complex which first saw the light of day as an oratory
for the nearby church of Santa Maria Maggiore, but was converted over the years first into an
Educational and Moral Cinema, then into the Dante Cinema, the Mignon Cinema and finally
the Astra Movie Theater, thus it has always been a public area. COMI SpA, the building’s present
owner, and its President Paolo Del Bianco opted to forgo the lure of a potentially highly profitable
megastore, choosing instead to turn it into the Auditorium al Duomo to host encounters,
seminars, concerts for budding talents and other cultural events designed to promote sensitivity
to cultural diversity. The decision was formalized in Odessa, Ukraine, in the home of local
Music Academy Rector Alexander Rovenko, on May 21, 2001.
That is one of the reasons why Andrzej Tomaszewski suggested to Fondazione Romualdo Del
Bianco ®
President Paolo Del Bianco, both in Cracow on 26 May 2006 and in Zakopane the following
day, that he turned this auditorium into a venue for hosting the conventions of the ICO-
MOS International Scientific Committee for the Theory and Philosophy of Conservation and
Restoration, a committee which had been established in the course of the ICOMOS’s 15th General
Assembly in Xi’an, China. The Fondazione welcomed the proposal with enthusiasm, planning
to contribute to the committee’s work by involving its own network of contacts for the
discovery, interpretation and communication of cultural diversity in the field of cultural heritage
protection and enhancement, which has emerged in the course of various international scientific
committee meetings devoted to fostering a better understanding and the potential harmonization
of operations designed to safeguard the cultural heritage of mankind, which is part and parcel
of the universal rights of man. It was in this very room, on 4 March 2009, that Andrzej
Tomaszewski was confirmed as President of the committee, a post he held until his untimely
death. Thus it is a place that was particularly dear to him.
Today this Auditorium, situated only 70 metres from the piazza dominated by Brunelleschi’s
cupola and managed in accordance with the principles and stimulus of the Fondazione Romualdo
Del Bianco ®
, is given over to encounters, communication and knowledge to foster the exercise
59