The great philosopher Massimo Cacciari marries Chiara Patriarca at 81, disproving Nietzsche and the history of philosophy
Well yes: even the columns of the most gruff and intransigent thought collapse when faced with a ring (or perhaps a bureaucratic form). Massimo Cacciari, the man who seemed to have dismissed the idea of marriage thanks to the insights of Friedrich Nietzsche, will say his “Yes” to his partner Chiara Patriarca.
Let’s face it: for a philosopher who has accustomed us to digging into the soul, not discovering the little word “forever” had a bit of the flavor of existential failure. But, as the wise Paul Valéry suggested, security is just a mechanism to reassure ourselves and (above all) others. At 81, then, the “forever” has the duration of an excellent vintage of Amarone, so the “tremendous sentence” is decidedly reduced. Perhaps the philosopher has only come to terms with the biological clock and, as Karl Löwith recalled, with the two inescapable boundaries: birth and death. And between one border and another, it is better to fix things.
Who is the bride
The real news is not so much the marriage, but the fact that one of the misanthropes par excellence (we’re joking, of course) had lowered his guard as early as 2020 and accepted cohabitation in the Navigli area of Milan. Friendsapparently, they were were amazed: “It had never happened that Massimo decided to live in the same house with a woman.” Is Covid to blame, or perhaps the irresistible spirit of the Patriarch?
The bride-to-be, described as architect (or “something like that”, because Cacciari is notoriously more discreet than a Swiss safe), is the true heroine of this story. Again according to friends, in fact, Chiara “She’s really nice and knows how to stand up to him, not only from an intellectual point of view but also on a character level.”
Philosophical marriages in history
Cacciari, by getting married, performs an extremely courageous act, if we look at the precedents. Yes, because the gallery of philosophical connections, let’s face it, is scarier than a black and white horror film.
There is Socrates and his Xanthippewhich went down in history as the epitome of «ungraceful pain in the ass»who dared to torment the philosopher with “vulgar practical questions”. Poor woman, she had to make ends meet while her husband conversed about virtue with Phaedo and Alcibiades… Then we have the bachelors par excellence: Kantthe Prussian clock of thought, e Schopenhauerwhose misogyny (inherited from a dominant mother) led him to throw a noisy neighbor down the stairs, which he was forced to pay for for the rest of his life. His lapidary (literally) comment on the death of the unfortunate woman, «obit anus, abit onus» (“the old woman is dead, the debt is repaid”), represents a rather eloquent epitaph.
Has Casanova infected Cacciari?
AND Nietzschethe Cacciari lighthouse? He had tried, of course. The beautiful one Lou Andreas-Salome he told him «No, let’s stay friends, do you want?»saving him from a potential marital catastrophe. Same fate for the misanthrope Emil Cioranwho lived together without commitment, only to then fall in love with an admirer and propose to his partner a desirable unlikely ménage à trois.
In short, historically the philosopher does not marry on principle, or he fails miserably. We hope that Massimo Cacciari, in this sense, is an exception. However, one wonders what the real cause of Cacciari’s “surrender” is. Certainly not nihilism, which at most made him gruff (and perhaps a little tired of cooking). The answer may lie in his Venetian origin: that “so much Casanova” that runs through the veins and that, sooner or later, had to perversely creep into our hero. After all, even the original Giacomo Casanova needed a logistical base.
One can therefore imagine that the philosopher opted for the triumph of practical reason over existential idealism. Or, more simply, that Chiara Patriarca has finally found the right way to tell him: «Massimo, either you get married, or you cook for yourself!» And so, philosophy has surrendered to love.
