MPERIAL PLAY. Giuliano da Empoli was born in 1973. He is an Italian and Swiss writer and political scientist living in France. He was a senior advisor to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. His debut novel The Wizard of the Kremlin became an international bestseller and was translated into 35 languages. A 2025 film version stars Jude Law as Vladimir Putin. His latest book The Hour of the Predator is currently France's best-selling non-fiction title.

"These characters could originate from a Machiavelli book or a Roman history book."

"The predator's political miracle is bypassing rules and laws, transgressing and wiping out the system as we know it to impact the problem that nobody could solve."

"I'm a very strong pro-European and I want a European Federation. I want Europe to be politically united."

A JOURNEY THROUGH JOURNALISM. Mishal Husain is a celebrated British journalist who joined Bloomberg from the BBC, where she presented its leading news programme Today on BBC Radio 4 for over a decade. Before joining Today in 2013, she was an anchor on the international news channel BBC World News. In 2024 she was awarded the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism by the British Journalism Review. Mishal has written a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller family memoir, Broken Threads: A Family From Empire to Independence, and The Skills: How to Win at Work.

"The Elon Musk interview is amongst the most difficult that I've done."

"I've realised that we are now, perhaps increasingly, again in an age of division."

"I hope that in one way or another we still have people who are going to search for the forgotten, overlooked stories."

MODERN ARCHITECT. Sean Griffiths is Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster and former Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University. His current architecture and design practice Modern Architect was founded in 2014 and has worked largely on residential, commercial and public art projects. Previously Sean Griffiths was a founding director of the internationally renowned art/architecture practice FAT, where he won many design awards. FAT represented the UK at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014.

"I was really thinking I would pursue a career as an artist"

"The idea that you make architecture as a sort of branding jewel that you place in a city is not something that I particularly love"

"We use language to help us navigate the world, and architecture also creates patterns that help us navigate the world"

PHOTOGRAPHER MONK. Nicholas Vreeland, also known as Rato Khensur Thubten Lhundup, is a Tibetan Buddhist monk and the former abbot of Rato Dratsang, an important 14th-century Tibetan Buddhist monastery reestablished in India. The first and only Westerner the Dalai Lama has appointed Abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, he is a photographer who learned his craft as an assistant to Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.

"Once you are a monk, you may receive a teaching from a holy being, a lama or master, on techniques by which you can cultivate concern for others and diminish self-cherishing."

"The real person whom I have to remain vigilant over is myself."

"The emphasis should be on being a good person."

EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY. Ruthie Rogers CBE is an American and British chef who owns and runs the Michelin starred Italian restaurant The River Café in Hammersmith, London. She is the widow of the Italian-born British architect Richard Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside, who together with Renzo Piano created the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

"I always want somebody to come to the River Cafe and leave happier than they arrived."

"A lot of immigrants talk about the food of their grandmothers, because very often the mothers adapt and the grandmothers retain the cooking of their country of birth."

"I'm really proud of this beautiful book when I hand it to somebody. The fact that it's called Squeeze Me is sexy and fabulous."

REVOLUTIONALIZING FASHION IN MILAN. Coco Brandolini was nobly born in France. An Italian fashion executive, artist and designer, in 2022 she launched her own brand called d'AddA and established it in a charming apartment on Via Montenapoleone in Milano. She describes her enterprise as a joyous ode to her heritage transformed into limited edition pieces made from upcycled materials.

"The craftsmanship is superb. Milano is the most interesting and efficient city for me to work. Everything is here."

"Clients love that each piece is almost unique."

"If a woman is comfortable with the clothing she's wearing so she can sit the way she wants, so she's not contrived, to me that's what is attractive."

GLOBALLY RELEVANT DESIGN. JENNIFER ROBERTS became the Chief Executive Officer of Design Miami, the global forum for collectible design, in 2015. She has introduced several new verticals for the company including Design Miami Curatorial Lab, a strategic consultancy to help businesses build cultural capital. In addition, Roberts successfully launched Design Miami.Paris and developed new event formats including Podium and In Situ. Born and raised in Manhattan, schooled in London, she has a residence in the unspoiled jungles of Ilha Grande, Brazil.

"The interior design market comes through Paris."

"All of the great architects have done furniture."

"There's no higher bar than impressing the French in design or creativity or fashion."

INSCRIBING IDEAS TO MEMORY. Amos Gitai is an Israeli film-maker, internationally known for his documentaries and feature films about the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and personal and collective memory. Born in Haifa, Israel in 1950, Gitai was wounded during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when a medical evacuation helicopter in which he was travelling was hit by a Syrian missile. He has drawn on biographical, familial and generational themes throughout his career, as well as the trauma of war and the celebration of life in the face of adversity.

"You have to inscribe some ideas in memory"

"We have to always take into account the other, because if we will only think about us it will never bring reconciliation"

"The human answer to mechanical reproduction is to propose a non-linear association that AI cannot predict"

ART FOR PUBLIC PURPOSE. Dr Caroline Campbell was born and educated in Belfast, and became Director of the National Gallery of Ireland in 2022. She studied Modern History at University College Oxford, and has an MA and PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. A former Fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, New York, before joining the National Gallery of Ireland, Caroline was Director of Collections and Research at the National Gallery, London. Earlier in her career she held curatorial positions at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Courtauld Gallery, London, and the National Gallery. Caroline has published widely on European art from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, particularly on the Italian Renaissance, most recently Mantegna & Bellini and 14th Century Siena.

"The Taking of Christ is an absolutely astonishing painting because of the moment of drama in it, and that, as much as the name Caravaggio, is what really excites our visitors."

"Irish art is really strong, but it is much less known outside of Ireland. I would love people to be able to appreciate it more, as part of the more widespread European and Western tradition."

"I love the connection that people have with the gallery."

COSINESS NEVER GOES OUT OF FASHION. Antonio Monfreda is an Italian art director and curator who has become a defining figure in the worlds of design, photography, and art direction. As international editor of Martina Mondadori's Cabana Magazine since 2016, from the very first issue he turned his talent to the photography of interiors and lifestyle. Monfreda's new book Tuscan Rooms: Interiors from the Heartland of the Renaissance, published by Rizzoli International Publications and Cabana, is an exclusive look into Tuscan interiors that has the hallmarks of Cabana Magazine's coverage of remarkable, eclectic, and dramatic spaces.

"Tuscany is the biggest garden of Italy"

"It's as if everything was there since ever"

"Recently I discovered that the word ARTISAN has inside it the word ART!! Like an artist!!"