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The proposal to hold the 27th EPF Conference in Turin constitutes in itself a ‘rupture’ in the best known image of Italy.
To be fully known and understood, Turin and its culture require a break with conformity and with whatever inclines us to take things for granted and to see them as obvious. Turin has always been a city of new beginnings, a place which has created discontinuities. From the historical perspective, in 1861 it became the first capital of the Kingdom of Italy, a fulcrum for bringing together a series of small fragmented states which considered themselves to be founded on a linguistic, artistic and scientific tradition woven from a common fabric (we need only think of Dante, Leonardo, Galileo, Verdi, etc.). From a commercial perspective it was the home of the largest and most important heavy-metal industry in Italy, one which stamped a distinctive character on the Italian working class and on the development of the country's economy. Not everyone may know that FIAT is an acronym standing for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino [Italian Car Factory Turin]. From the cultural and civic point of view, Turin's university and publishing industry have developed a critical intellectual class which is not aligned with power, and which is represented by cultured minorities (Jews, Protestants, Waldensians) who have made fundamental contributions to the development of thought rooted in civilized, communitarian, anti-Fascist values. Turin is the city of Primo Levi, Luciana Nissim Momigliano and Rita Levi Montalcini. It is also a city with close links to nearby Ivrea, in which a great reformer, Adriano Olivetti, made a break with the traditional idea of the factory, transforming it into a community of productive and cultural life. In Turin itself, a courageous publisher, Paolo Bollati, proposed to one of the founders of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society, Cesare Musatti, that he should arrange the Italian translation and publication of Fr