William Morris 
News from Nowhere 

William Morris was highly eclectic: novelist, thinker, artist, politician, trend-setter in various subjects such as architecture, design, graphic and interior design. In this novel, which tones are strongly utopian, Morris tells us about a time and a place transformed not so much by ideology – Morris is a tireless defender of the British socialism – but by the desire of men to regain some of the dignity lost with the advent of the industrial era: for example, for people to spend together better quality time; doing work that is driven by the real needs of the people and not by the logic of profit; educate young people according to principles that go back to the natural development of things; focusing on personal relationships oriented on social acceptance and sharing.

Morris is also a firm believer in the recovery of manual labor and the ancient crafts. Not coincidentally he founded the company Arts and Crafts, still in business; its teachings are the basis of some recent Italian examples (Brunello Cucinelli identified Morris in reference to his School of Trades started in Solomeo). Rediscovering Morris and his News from Nowhere holds an important meaning: discovering an ideal of life close to the principles that were the cornerstones of the humanistics, reaffirming the value of man over things, taking care in the education of people through knowledge, following the example of the masters and expressing the love that sustains the beauty of ‘doing things’.