The Ambassador of Italy to the United States, Mariangela Zappia, had a meeting yesterday with Mayor Muriel Bowser, in office since 2015, aimed at strengthening collaboration with the American capital in all areas.
The Ambassador and the Mayor took stock of the excellent level of cultural collaboration – the city hosted in 2023 alone Italian exhibitions of primary importance such as works by Canova at the National Gallery of Art, Leonardo da Vinci at the Martin Luther King Library, and De Nittis at The Phillips Collection, reviewed by The Washington Post as among the 10 most important of the year.
The Ambassador highlighted the “Villa Firenze Contemporanea” project, the exhibition of Italian contemporary art and design works at the Italian Ambassadors’ residence, visited by DC Secretary Kimberly A. Bassett, and the partnerships planned for 2024 also in the field of music, as part of the DC Jazz Festival. The Ambassador and the Mayor agreed on the opportunity to further strengthen the teaching of the Italian language, which is already included in the curricula of six of the city’s public schools, and to consider joint initiatives to promote sports.
Also at the center of the talks, which took place at the same time as a mission of the Washington Chamber of Commerce to Rome and Milan, was economic cooperation, fostered by ITA Airways’ and United’s non-stop flights, which are being strengthened and are also working to increasing tourist flows to Italy. In the economic field, investments in the area of Hitachi Rail (formerly Ansaldo Breda) for the supply of new cars for the Washington Metro stand out. The Ambassador and the Mayor discussed further collaboration in various sectors, including agribusiness, and the strengthening of ties between the two capitals.
