Cultural prescription exists. Italy still lacks a law and a will

For too long we have treated culture as an ornament and music as entertainment. This is an old mistake, but one that is less and less sustainable today. Scientific research has begun to describe with increasing precision what human experience already knew: exposure to the arts, cultural participation and music can affect psychological well-being, emotional regulation, quality of life and, in some areas, cognitive and neurological functions. This is not consolatory rhetoric, but a serious, expanding field of study that demands rigour: culture does not replace medicine, but can flank it, complement it, strengthen it.