cittasantna

Cittasantna is a concept originating from the writings of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. It translates roughly to "holy city" or "saintly city," but its meaning within Agamben's philosophy is far from a traditional religious or urban ideal. Instead, Cittasantna refers to a state of existence where the ordinary and the exceptional, the sacred and the profane, the political and the non-political, are brought into a state of pure immanence. It is a space, or rather a condition, where the traditional oppositions that structure our understanding of the world are dissolved.

Agamben develops this idea in relation to his work on sovereignty and the state of exception. He suggests that the sovereign power operates by suspending the law, creating a state of exception that reveals the law's own foundation in violence. Cittasantna, in contrast, is a realm that exists outside of this sovereign logic, a space of potentiality and pure life. It is not a place to be achieved or built, but rather a way of inhabiting the present moment, stripped of the normative frameworks that usually govern our actions and perceptions. It represents a potential for a life lived without the constraints of political or social structures, a form of life that is simply what it is. The concept is complex and has been interpreted in various ways, often linked to ideas of art, spirituality, and a radical critique of contemporary political life.