The Empathic Movement (Italian: La Scuola Empatica / Empatismo) is a literary, artistic, philosophical and cultural movement^[1][2][3] founded in the South of Italy in 2020^[1][4] within the 'New Cultural Triangle of Ancient Cilento':^[5] Omignano - "The Aphorisms Village",^[6] Salento - "The Poetry Village",^[7][8][9] Vallo della Lucania - "Seat of Contemporary Arts Centre".^{[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]} From this first Triangle the Cultural Pyramid of Cilento was born to represent the enlarged epicenter of the Movement with 25 villages involved which joined with a new cultural identity and signing a protocol agreement.^[17]

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The symbolic myth of the movement^[18] is called Unus:^[19] an unknown demigod (son of Zeus and of a mortal woman) representing the Total Artist killed, torn to pieces and thrown into the Alento (Campania) river by his brothers, determining the old separation of the Arts.^[20][21]

The founder Menotti Lerro asked several noted artists to sign the “Empathic Manifesto”, to join in their peculiar expression of the “Arts” in a less individualistic way.^[22] They then started to help create a new cultural pole in Southern Italy, giving life first to the “Contemporary Arts Centre” in the Cilento area, which has invented "The Poetry Village", "The Aphorisms Village" and The Cilento Poetry Prize, giving light to new territory in terms of culture. The decentralization of culture gives voice to the silent masses of Cilento especially the peasant ones in the mountains, with a peculiar emphasis on intense and genuine emotion and feelings to share with others through Arts, refusing individualism, social exclusion, excesses of competition among artists and also rejecting the large phenomenon of plagiarism mainly due to the mass media and internet in particular.^[23][1][24]

Since 2019 the Movement had its own seats (Centro Contemporaneo delle Arti) both in Cilento and in Milan to organize its events.^[25] In the same year the artist and academic Marco Baudinelli from Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara created the logotype of the Centro Contemporaneo delle Arti.^[26] Still in 2019 the official Manifesto^[27] written by Menotti Lerro and Antonello Pelliccia was launched before at the literary Caffè Giubbe Rosse in Florence,^[27] after at the Brera Academy of Milan^[28] and later at the Central Library, Edinburgh in Scotland.^[29]

In 2020 the first official volume of the Movement, with the first one hundred adherents, also defined Empathic Masters, was published in Italy and in Italian language by the publisher Ladolfi.^[30] In the volume are also published the main movement proposals "to combat the stagnation of hypertrophic contemporary individualism". The same were published months later on the Italian literary magazine "Riscontri".^[31]

In 2021 the Soprintendenza of Salerno e Avellino stressed how the Empathic School was the third School started in the Province of Salerno. The previous two were the Eleatic School and Schola Medica Salernitana.^{[32][33][34][35][36]}

In 2022 the Cilento Poetry Prize, flagship of the Movement, got financed by Ministero della Cultura.^[37]

In 2023 the Musician Stefano Pantaleoni, from Parma Conservatory Arrigo Boito, composed the official anthem of the Empathic Movement.^[38][17] Furthermore the first volume about the Movement in English language was published in England with the title The Empathic Movement.^[39] Between 2023 and 2024 the Movement was mentioned several times on the major television channels as Raiuno, Raidue and Raitre.^[40][41]

In 2024 the Italian painter Omar Galliani, from Brera Academy, drew the figure of Unus, the symbolic Total Artist of the Empathic Movement.^[42] In addition the Italian singers Michele Pecora and Santino Scarpa dedicate their own songs to the Empathic Movement.^[43][44] On the 16th of January the Museo Archeologico di Salerno invited Menotti Lerro to present the Movement.^[45] In occasion of the World Poetry Day the Soprintendenza of Salerno and Avellino and the President of the Salerno Province organized a visit to Salento Cilento "The Poetry Village" to have a poetry reading based on the unpublished poems dedicated to Cilento and affixed on the wall of the village, written by all the poets winning the Cilento Poetry Prize, and for a conference about the Empathic Movement.^[46][47][48] The University of Salerno invited Menotti Lerro to present the Movement the day 17th of April.^[49][50][51] On the 9th of May Menotti Lerro and Antonello Pelliccia present the "New Manifesto on the Arts" at the Turin International Book Fair.^[52] On June Menotti Lerro and Antonello Pelliccia present the Movement at the National Biblioteca di Brera.^[40]

The Cilento Poetry Prize (financed in 2022 from Italian Ministry of Culture for 140.500 Euro^[53]) is considered by the Movement as its main present for deserving and empathetic artists.^[54]

• The Empathic Movement, edited by Menotti Lerro (Cambridge Scholars Publishing: 2023), ISBN 978-1527538573
• Francesco D'Episcopo, Giuseppe Lauriello, Menotti Lerro, Luigi Leuzzi, Antonello Pelliccia, "Empatia, Essenza ed Esperienza", in "Riscontri" (Magazine), pp. 11-82. Anno XLIV - N.2 Maggio-Agosto 2022, edited by Ettore Barra. ISSN: 0392-5080, ISBN 978-8831340519
• Menotti Lerro, Antonello Pelliccia, New Manifesto of Arts (Zona: 2020) ASIN B08F2M1785
• Menotti Lerro, La Scuola Empatica: movimento letterario-artistico-filosofico e culturale sorto in Italia nel 2020 (Ladolfi: 2020) ISBN 978-8866445678
• Francesco D'Episcopo, "Nuovo Manifesto sulle Arti", in Menotti Lerro, Tra Drammaturgia e Narrativa (Genesi: 2019), pp. 125–136. ISBN 978-8874147199
• "Nuovo Manifesto sulle Arti" in Annali Storici di Principato Citra, a. XVII n. 1-2, 2019, pp. 318–326. EAN 9788896821503
• Marius Chelaru on "Poezia" Revista de cultura poetica, Anul XXVI, nr. 1 (95) / Primavera 2021.

• Ottavio Rossani, "Domani a Edimburgo Menotti Lerro terrà una lettura di sue poesie e presenterà il 'Nuovo Manifesto sulle Arti' già lanciato in Italia mesi fa", Corriere della Sera, 21 October 2019.
• Ottavio Rossani, "Stasera a Vallo della Lucania il poeta Menotti Lerro lancia la "Scuola Empatica", per lo sviluppo dell'intelligenza emotiva attraverso le arti", Corriere della Sera, 09 September 2020.^[55]
• Empatismo/Scuola Empatica: Movimento Letterario-Artistico-Filosofico e culturale sorto in Italia nel 2020, ISSN: 0392-5080
• By Carlo Di Legge on Nuovo Manifesto sulle Arti
• Ottavio Rossani, on Corriere della Sera, 25 February 2021, "I cento della "Scuola Empatica", nuovo Movimento per le Arti, fondato da Menotti Lerro. Un libro con il Manifesto e le testimonianze".^[56]
• Davide Speranza, on Il Mattino, 09 August 2022, p. 28.
• Ste. Mar., on Il Mattino, 26 January 2023, "Il percorso di Menotti Lerro, da Parmenide all'Empatismo".
• Provincia di Salerno "Domani al Museo Archeologico la presentazione della Scuola Empatica", 15 March 2023^[57]
• Nicola Femminella "La svolta culturale del Cilento realizzata da Menotti Lerro con le sue innnovazioni", Il Quotidiano di Salerno, 31 October 2023.^[58]
• Provincia di Salerno "Presentazione del volume accademico The Empathic Movement, Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2023, a cura di Menotti Lerro", 16 January 2024^[59][38]
• Il Mito di Unus (Artista Totale) by Giacomo Maria Prati^[60]
• Istvàn Szelei, Saggio sul Movimento Empatico.^[61]