Today: In 2017 Man Center celebrated its 40th year of activity. The School of Spirituality, promoted by it, sees to forming people internally endowed with peace, harmony and selflessness, by means of a high way of living and the practice of meditation, for which it holds regular Courses. Such people are thus capable of achieving the objectives of Man Center such as:
Man Center, in collaboration with the World Interreligious Center, every three years awards the Art, Science and Peace Prize to personalities of the Arts and Sciences who have distinguished themselves for their message of Peace. It organizes Conferences worldwide in the pursuit of the peace and well-being of all the peoples of the planet. |
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October 2016: Pier Franco Marcenaro was invited to hold a major Conference at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR, Italian National Research Council) in Pisa entitled “Science and Meditation: transcending the body“. | |
November 2015: The Fourth Art, Science and Peace Prize was awarded to the tenor Andrea Bocelli.
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2014: Sargiano witnessed the start of a vast new natural agriculture project devoted to fruit trees and the vegetable garden. The woods surrounding the Monastery were also renewed. |
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October 2012: At the Monastery of Sargiano the 35th Anniversary of the Founding of Man Center was celebrated. The ceremony was chaired by the President Pier Franco Marcenaro, joined by the Patroness of the event, Paola Gassman, who, sharing the Association’s ideals and high values, gave a rendition of a number of lyric poems with a spiritual theme, including “To God”, an original poem composed by her father, Vittorio Gassman, in the last years of his life. | |
August 2012: Professor Umberto Veronesi received from Pier Franco Marcenaro the 2012 Art, Science and Peace Prize. | |
2011: On the occasion of the European Year of Volunteering, the President of the Region of Emilia Romagna conferred a certificate of merit on Man Center “in recognition of the invaluable activities carried on at the service of the regional society and of the values that the Association expresses and represents.” Later, at the Festa della Toscana (Tuscany Day Celebration), the Province of Arezzo awarded a prize to Man Center, in the person of its President Pier Franco Marcenaro, for its work of cultural integration carried on in many years of activity. |
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October 2007: Celebrations were held at the Monastery of Sargiano for the 30th Anniversary of the Founding of Man Center. The Patroness of the event was the well-known Italian journalist Maria Teresa Ruta, who collaborates with the Association in the project for Senegal “100 Children of Diourbel”.
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June 2005: The Monastery of Sargiano hosted the Third World Conference for the Peace and Welfare of Peoples, under the auspices of the European Commission and the United Nations. |
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June 2002: Man Center, in collaboration with the World Interreligious Center, at the Monastery of Sargiano organized the Second World Conference for the Peace and Welfare of Peoples, under the auspices of the European Commission. The Triennial Art, Science and Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to the writer and essayist Fernanda Pivano. |
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August 1999: The Monastery of Sargiano hosted the First World Conference for the Peace and Welfare of Peoples, under the auspices of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy. |
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April 1999: Man Center took possession of the Monastery of Sargiano, a former Franciscan monastery and one of the largest in Tuscany, where Angelo Roncalli, Pope John XXIII, sojourned. |
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1997: Man Center acquired the former Hotel Internazionale located at Berceto (Parma), in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines. |
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Late ’70s – ’90s: The Association spread to several Italian cities and some foreign Countries. |
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May 1977: Pier Franco Marcenaro together with some other members in Lucca founded Man Center, whose first headquarters were a three-storey building surrounded by a garden. |