From the Valley of the Temples to the Aniene Valley: the historic connection between the Pirandello family unites Agrigento and Anticoli.

From now on, Agrigento and Anticoli Corrado, the small village in the Aniene valley on the outskirts of Rome, are linked "by a double thread" in the name of the great 20th-century painter, Fausto Pirandello, and his father, Luigi Pirandello. In the council chamber of Palazzo San Domenico, Mayor Franco Miccichè welcomed the mayor of Anticoli Corrado, Francesco De Angelis, to officially sign the Acts of the twinning, which will include a series of cultural initiatives in the spirit of Fausto and Luigi Pirandello, creating opportunities for exchange among students, artists, and associations, involving the two cultural realities in a shared path.

Fausto Pirandello, the third son of the Nobel Prize-winning writer, although born in Rome, had spent a long time with his father, both in Agrigento and in Anticoli Corrado, where he settled to live in the 1920s of the last century, along with his artist friends Felice Carena and Armando Spadini, as well as with his inspiring muse, Pompilia D’Aprile, who later became his wife.

Luigi Pirandello, who also frequented Anticoli because of his son, conceived his last work, which remained unfinished, “The Giants of the Mountain”, in this village. The village of Anticoli Corrado has always been known as “the village of artists” as it has been frequented by painters, sculptors, and ceramicists who find inspiration to work in that particular landscape immersed in nature.

At the signing of the twinning parchment, the president of the Agrigento City Council, Giovanni Civiltà, and councilors Carmelo Cantone and Patrizia Lisci were also present, while for Anticoli Corrado, there were the municipal councilor for culture, Simone Fabbi, municipal councilors Fabio Abbondanza and Angelo Prosperi, and a large delegation of Anticolani.

The twinning with the Municipality of Lazio takes place almost simultaneously with the inauguration of the large exhibition dedicated to Fausto Pirandello “The Magic of the Everyday” curated by Fabio Benzi and Flavia Matiti, set up in the Valley of the Temples as part of an initiative by the Archaeological Park and which will be opened at Villa Aurea on March 20 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the artist's death. It features thirty works by Fausto Pirandello that explore the everyday painting and the Mediterranean light of the artist.