The Park of Beauty, Brunello Cucinelli’s Edenic 250-acre redevelopment project in the valley surrounding his Solomeo, Italy, headquarters, features a youth soccer stadium, hiking trails, lush vineyards, golden wheat fields, and silvery expanses of alfalfa leading to a travertine exedra with the inscription “Tribute to Human Dignity.” And this April, it also came to host a vaccination site that has doled out more than 30,000 Pfizer courses. “It’s in difficult moments that you need to be creative,” Cucinelli says.
When northern Italy became a Covid-19 epicenter in February 2020, he was uniquely positioned to help his local community. Cucinelli, whose 100-year-old father, Umberto, labored as a farmer and later as a cement-plant worker, has spent the past four decades transforming the Umbrian hamlet two hours north of Rome into a vibrant center of cashmere production that now employs most of its residents. “I remember asking, ‘Dad, what was the best day of your life?’” Cucinelli recalls.
