Don Giuliano Zanchi's 'Lo spirituale dell'Arte' Weaves Art, Philosophy, Religion, and Sci-Fi

Giuliano Zanchi, a 56-year-old theologian and director of Rivista del Clero italiano, has published 'Lo spirituale dell'Arte. Estetica e società nell'epoca postsecolare' (Editrice Bibliografica, 220 pages, €23). The book argues that art and religion have both lost authority due to secularism and 'disenchantment' (Max Weber), a decline traced to Hegel. Zanchi identifies three lineages of thinkers responsible: from Spinoza through Kant to Hegel, then Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Foucault; academic critics like Sloterdijk, Charles Taylor, and Slavoj Žižek; and science fiction authors from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov. Surprisingly, Zanchi engages deeply with sci-fi, analyzing films by the Wachowskis, Luc Besson, Ridley Scott, Alfonso Cuarón, Akira Kurosawa, John Irvin, and Gene Roddenberry, alongside writings by J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, and Gabriel Tarde. In the fourth chapter, he addresses contemporary art's break with beauty, citing Nietzsche's 'Truth is ugly.' Zanchi repositions art as a new form of spirituality: museums replace cathedrals, tourists become pilgrims, curators act as priests, and artworks serve as sacraments. The final chapter proposes art as the 'extrema ratio' of Homo Aestheticus against the logos of scientists and the nomos of bureaucrats.