Alain Elkann Interviews

IN CONVERSATION WITH CARDINAL TIMOTHY RADCLIFFE : A LIFE OF HOPE AND HUMANITY. Timothy Radcliffe OP is an English priest who served as Master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. He is the only friar of the Dominican Order's English Province to hold the office of Master-General. Created a Cardinal by Pope Francis in 2024, he took part in the recent Conclave to elect Pope Leo XIV, the first American Pope.

"What really sustains me all my life has been friendship."

"You meet people as a fellow seeker after meaning, because every human is really in the depths of their being a seeker."

"The Conclave was a fascinating experience. We have to honour these moments of change."

THE CHRISTOPHER GIBBS AESTHETIC. Lucy Moore is an author and historian, well-known for her engaging biographies, including of the dancer Nijinsky, the politician and rake Lord Hervey, and three generations of Indian princesses in Maharanis. She wrote Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties and the widely acclaimed In Search of Us: Adventures in Anthropology. As Editor of the book Christopher Gibbs: His World she sought to create an enduring memorial to Christopher Gibbs, the renowned British antiques dealer, decorator, and quintessential English gentleman-aesthete, who died in Morocco in 2018.

"The gentleman-aesthete is a great English tradition and he was part of that."

"One of the great triumphs of his working life was discovering an unattributed Holbein"

"Extraordinary personal charm, which was reflected in the places that he created"

ALWAYS ON A ROLL. Rolf Sachs is an artist born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1955 who works across a diverse range of media, from photography, painting, sculpture and installation, to interiors and set design. In 2018 he moved to Rome where he opened a new studio in 2020. From July 17, 2025 to October 25, 2025 the Kunsthalle Schweinfurt in Germany presents Rolf Sachs: be-rühren, his most comprehensive institutional exhibition to date. The title be-rühren is a wordplay on the German verb 'to touch', and captures Sachs's focus of a deeply empathetic and sensory exploration of the human condition.

"What has always moved me most deeply is the human soul."

"I paint mostly with my fingers"

"My studio has become my think tank, a place where I can truly develop creative ideas."

BUILDING EXPERIENCES FOR LIFE STORIES. David Prior is a travel writer, editor, and the founder of Prior, a travel and media company that curates immersive journeys and offers custom travel planning. He was formerly a contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler and Vogue Living, and his work has appeared in various publications like T: The New York Times Style Magazine and WSJ.

"Australia is the most visceral example of humans' connection to the power of the land."

"PRIOR has a very global reach and attracts a certain type of person."

"If you want to be involved in something that is predictable, don't get into the travel industry!"

WORKING FOR GLOBAL SECURITY. Sir John Chipman KCMG is Executive Chairman of The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). As former Director-General and Chief Executive of the IISS he directed its growth globally as the world's premier institute providing facts and analysis on international security issues. He developed the IISS role as a convener of vital inter-governmental summits, conceiving and establishing two regional security institutions under IISS auspices: in the Asia-Pacific the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue hosted by Singapore, and in the Middle East the IISS Manama Dialogue hosted by Bahrain.

"Europe's strategic personality will be ushered in through NATO's new spending doors."

"It's sometimes underestimated how diverse the power centres have become in today's world. Big companies in particular, having more power than most medium-sized states."

"The proliferation risk is very high right now."

PORTRAYING THE DESTRUCTION OF CULTURE. Piers Secunda studied painting at Chelsea College of Art in London. Since the late nineties he has developed a studio practice using paint in a sculptural manner, rejecting the limitations imposed by the canvas. Piers' work examines some of the most significant subjects of our time, such as the deliberate destruction of culture.

"I make the work so that in the future people can learn from them"

"Sometimes people come into art galleries and see my work and cry"

"The bottom line is a level of awareness"

STANDING FOR CLARITY AND COMPLEXITY. Emily Greenhouse has been the Editor of the prestigious New York Review of Books magazine since 2019. She is the first woman to be sole editor of the magazine, and when she was appointed was the youngest editor in its history.

"What we publish is very accessible and very delightful"

"We are a very jousty magazine."

"It is our job to talk about complex things and allow them to be complex"

A LINEAGE OF THE REAL AND THE AUTHENTIC. Luc Tuymans is a Belgian visual artist, many of whose paintings explore people's relationship with history and confront their ability to ignore it. World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust is a recurring theme in his many faceted work. Tuymans is a key figure of the generation of European figurative painters who gained renown at a time when many believed the medium had lost its relevance due to the new digital age.

"I want the feeling of doing something special"

"For young artists now, it is very strenuous and very difficult"

"There's a big difference between a drawn line and a painted line"

CURATING THE VERY DIFFERENT IDENTITIES OF THE PELLICANO HOTELS GROUP. Marie-Louise Sciò is CEO of the Pellicano Hotels group in Italy, which today comprises Hotel Il Pellicano in Porto Ercole in Tuscany, La Posta Vecchia Hotel near Rome, and Mezzatorre Hotel & Thermal Spa in Ischia. The youngest child of hotelier Roberto Sciò, Marie-Louise studied design and architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design in the USA and then worked in interior design beside Massimo Zompa in her native city of Rome before returning to her first love, Hotel Il Pellicano, her father's establishment in which she grew up.

"I curate the whole aesthetic experience of the hotels"

"We have Il Pellicano lovers, we have Mezzatorre lovers, and we have La Posta Vecchia lovers, but it's the same very international clientele"

"There's a magic about it. The region is great, the atmosphere is great"

SINGING WITH THE PIANO. Ludovico Einaudi is an internationally celebrated pianist and composer. Born in Turin, Ludovico is the son of two exceptional people. His mother, the pianist and composer Renata Aldrovandi, was the daughter of the conductor and composer Wando Aldrovandi and had a great influence on his future life. His father Giulio Einaudi was a famous publisher and chairman of the Giulio Einaudi editore book publishing house.

"I went to the North Sea in the Svalbard Islands to make a video and I played in front of a glacier."

"There was a strange sensation, like they were composed by someone from my family, but not me."

"The chance to dive into different cultures always enriches myself and my music."