BREAKING #313 | TRAVEL JOURNAL

‘A crisis of beauty’

Nicole Ex

Column

April 2026

Nicole Ex

is a writer, art historian, and founder of See All This art magazine. Since 2020, she writes a weekly column for the BREAKING-the-week art newsletter.

Column

April 2026

The first blackbird of the day. The sun rising through the open window. Just before dawn, in that half-sleeping state, I imagine the journey has yet to begin, that I still have to set out – yet we are already here, on the edge of Città della Pieve in Umbria, looking out over the fields among which those of Quintosapore must lie.

Quintosapore is a regenerative farm, born from a Roman family who left the city behind, a mother who spoke to plants, and a gardener who taught the twin brothers, Nicola and Alessandro Giuggioli, about nature and seeds. Like their sister Livia, they went on to become thoroughly urban figures, building careers in the worlds of fashion and film, before all three returned during lockdown.

Can it really happen? Can Romans become farmers without any farming lineage? Can city people restore the earth? Listening to their story – a prayer shaped by care and setback, motion and surprise – I sense an added force within it. It is often the pioneers among us who find new answers to old problems and bring about real breakthroughs.

A piece of land needs seven years to recover. Through their close collaboration with science, the magnetic revitalisation of water with trace elements, and the teachings and support of the surrounding forest, they managed it in three and a half. Several families are now able to make a living from this small, young agricultural producer.

At their annual Humus gatherings, they bring together farmers alongside thinkers such as Satish Kumar, the former Jain monk and peace activist who, this morning, is calling for ‘a garden for every school,’ anywhere in the world. ‘The climate crisis is really a crisis of beauty, a lack of aesthetics,’ he says. Making life beautiful is at the heart of everything.’

Click here to watch the videos with Nicola and Alessandro Giuggioli and with Satish Kumar: ‘Everyone is an artist’

And here to read the interview with Satish Kumar from issue 36 with guest curator David Whyte.