Cultural Pyramid of Cilento

The Cultural Pyramid of Cilento (Italian: Piramide Culturale del Cilento) is a geometric drawing created in 2020 by the poet Menotti Lerro representing the epicenter of the Empathism. The Pyramid shape came out adding the "Cultural Triangle" founded by Lerro at the historical summits of high cultural tradition of the Cilento area.

The Triangle inside the Pyramid
The Triangle starts from Omignano (and from Monte Stella (Cilento)) - "The Aphorisms Village", and then joins Salento - "The Poetry Village" and Vallo della Lucania - "Seat of the Contemporary Center of the Arts", summit, the latter, which also coincides with the center of the base of the entire Pyramid. On 13 July 2022 the mayor of the municipality of Salento Cilento, Gabriele De Marco, symbolically gift the territory to found also the Republic of Poets (a micronation located in Salento Cilento) with an official letter sent to the poet Menotti Lerro.

Mountain and villages involved
The Pyramid vertices are: Monte Stella (Cilento) (with his megaliths which are recognized as the empathic ancient gods of the Movement), Omignano, Salento, Vallo della Lucania, Palinuro, Paestum, Velia. In 2021, with an official paper of the city hall, also Trentinara - "The Village of Love" joined. On 2 August 2022 also Vatolla joined as "The Village of Otium". On 6 August 2022 also Piano Vetrale joined as "The Murales Village". In the same month also San Mauro Cilento adhered as "Village of incunaboli e cinquecentine". In addition Massicelle adhered as "Village of Toys", while Casal Velino came together as "Landfall Village". In the end a last village adhered: Agropoli - "The Village of the Castle". The final number of villages involved is twenty five.

Empathism
Within the "Cultural Triangle of ancient Cilento" the new movement of "La Scuola Empatica" (Empathism)  rose in 2020, which bases its formal theories on the New Manifesto of Arts to which many authors, visual artists, musicians, philosophers and intellectuals joined.

Destruction of the poetic tiles with pickaxes
An incredible scandal happened with the change of the Mayor of Salento Cilento - "The Poetry Village" in 2024. In fact, in the first 30 days of his political mandate, without an official paper to justify it, the new Mayor Michele Santoro ordered, on the morning of Sunday the 7th of July, to breck down with pickaxes the tiles with unpublished poetry overwritten dedicated to the Cilento's territory written as gift by all the winners of the Cilento Poetry Prize as Milo de Angelis, Dacia Maraini, Valerio Magrelli, Giampiero Neri, Roberto Carifi and from the founder of the Prize and of the Poetry Village Menotti Lerro. The case became viral and the main televisions and newspapers condemned the uncivil episode occurred. After the medias hype, the Mayor Santoro tried to justify himself affirming that poetry could not stay on the same wall where there was also a plaque for war fallen. But the former Mayor Gabriele De Marco said that, in his opinion, the new Mayor Michele Santoro stopped to destroy the tiles in the rest of the village only because everyone had disagreed shouting nonsense and shame for the destruction of art.