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Coffee (qahwa) is the most loved and consumed beverage in Italy. Once known as the "devil's drink" due to its Muslim origin, in the early 1600s Pope Clement VIII ruled in favour of it and allowed Catholics to consume it.
This decreed the birth and spread of the coffee shop, which over the years became a place not only for convivial aggregation, but also for meetings by educated men, writers, philosophers and politicians. In 1992 the philosopher Marc Sautet began a series of Sunday meetings at the Café des Phares in Paris to advertise his new philosophical consulting firm. The popularity of the gmeetings in which philosophical themes were dealt with, and to which an increasing number of participants flocked, decreed the rediscovery of the philosophical café, in vogue in France in the 1700s. Subsequently, in 1995, Sautet published the book Un café pour Socrate, in which he suggests how philosophy can teach us to understand today's world. Inspired by the popularity of the café philo, widespread in France and other parts of the world, but non-existent in Italy, Daniela proposed to the patrons of the caffè to start a discussion on the big questions of life, in exchange for an espresso. The sitter could propose the question or picked up one randomly from the colourful cards. At the end s/he chose a word to give Daniela and walk away with. September 2020 |