Maya Vassallo Di Florio
BIOGRAPHY
Maya Vassallo Di Florio is the founder of the Temple of the Great Goddess (Tempio della Grande Dea) in Rome, research center / association / community / sacred place that she created with the intent of manifesting a new culture, educating to a new social paradigm and to the creation of new and more balanced models of existence. For years she has been collaborating with the La Sapienza University of Rome and is a teacher in study paths dedicated to those who feel the urgent need to recover the matricentric philosophy of care, nourishment, communication and peaceful interaction between people, partnership between women and men, attention to needs, respect for the balance of the planet and all the creatures that inhabit it, centrality of mothers, the elderly, boys and girls within society.
On the 4th of March 2020 she was invited at the La Sapienza University to give a talk about the Temple, the Goddess and the archaic and contemporary Matriarchal Societies, enjoying great and lively interest and obtaining numerous awards for this epic event: it was in fact the first time in history in which these themes have been openly spoken of in the academic environment.
She was also invited by Christian Raimo, councilor for culture from the III Municipality of Rome, to hold a conference on past and present Matriarchies in the Council Chamber.
In addition to La Sapienza University, Maya Vassallo di Florio’s work has aroused much interest at some of the best Universities in Italy and around the world, such as the University of Turin, John Cabot University and Oxford University.
Since 2019 she has also been collaborating with the International Women's House, which recently offered her a space in the structure to be used as a Research Center and a branch office of the Temple.
For several years she has been training Priestesses and Priests of Aphrodite in an intense three-year course of study and offers other philosophical and practical training courses, which include students from all over Italy and the world.
She weaves the project of Re-Activation of the ancient Temples and Sacred Places of the Goddess, with the aim of developing tourism and culture, restoring the dignity and life of those places, also through a dialogue with the directors and managers of the sacred archaeological sites.
In various parts of Italy and the world she holds workshops and conferences concerning Aphroditic Philosophy and Spirituality and the need to recover a Matriarchal structure in our society.
She is the creator and founder of the Roma Goddess Conference, the first in Italy on the model of that of Glastonbury in the UK, to which the BBC has dedicated several documentaries.
After having achieved with full marks a degree in Communication and Journalism with a thesis on the Belle Epoque and its influence on mass culture, a second degree in Publishing and Journalism with a thesis on Spirituality and the mass media and finally one in Theater and Performing Arts with an experimental thesis entitled Eros and Thanatos in Shakespeare, she perfected the study of Shakespearean acting in the original language, deepening her studies in London with actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company.
As a Priestess she trained at the Glastonbury Goddess Temple.
Her travels through many Holy Lands such as Cyprus, Glastonbury, India, Thailand and Mexico and her studies with internationally renowned teachers, professors, shamans and priestesses have been a very important part of her training.
She has published a feminist, spiritual, sensual book on Aphrodite, which is among the bestsellers in Italy, and a book on the Temple of the Great Goddess, Feminist Philosophy and Spirituality and Matriarchal Societies (with appendices by the most authoritative researchers, feminist philosophers, university professors and priestesses in the world ), which will be published by the La Sapienza University publishing house.
The fervour of her studies, the sense of urgency for the social and environmental crisis in which we find ourselves, combined with a profound optimism, led her to pioneering the Temple of the Great No-Profit Goddess, the first in Italy, in Rome, over 2000 years after the destruction of all the Temples dedicated to female divinities by the patriarchate.
On the 4th of March 2020 she was invited at the La Sapienza University to give a talk about the Temple, the Goddess and the archaic and contemporary Matriarchal Societies, enjoying great and lively interest and obtaining numerous awards for this epic event: it was in fact the first time in history in which these themes have been openly spoken of in the academic environment.
She was also invited by Christian Raimo, councilor for culture from the III Municipality of Rome, to hold a conference on past and present Matriarchies in the Council Chamber.
In addition to La Sapienza University, Maya Vassallo di Florio’s work has aroused much interest at some of the best Universities in Italy and around the world, such as the University of Turin, John Cabot University and Oxford University.
Since 2019 she has also been collaborating with the International Women's House, which recently offered her a space in the structure to be used as a Research Center and a branch office of the Temple.
For several years she has been training Priestesses and Priests of Aphrodite in an intense three-year course of study and offers other philosophical and practical training courses, which include students from all over Italy and the world.
She weaves the project of Re-Activation of the ancient Temples and Sacred Places of the Goddess, with the aim of developing tourism and culture, restoring the dignity and life of those places, also through a dialogue with the directors and managers of the sacred archaeological sites.
In various parts of Italy and the world she holds workshops and conferences concerning Aphroditic Philosophy and Spirituality and the need to recover a Matriarchal structure in our society.
She is the creator and founder of the Roma Goddess Conference, the first in Italy on the model of that of Glastonbury in the UK, to which the BBC has dedicated several documentaries.
After having achieved with full marks a degree in Communication and Journalism with a thesis on the Belle Epoque and its influence on mass culture, a second degree in Publishing and Journalism with a thesis on Spirituality and the mass media and finally one in Theater and Performing Arts with an experimental thesis entitled Eros and Thanatos in Shakespeare, she perfected the study of Shakespearean acting in the original language, deepening her studies in London with actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company.
As a Priestess she trained at the Glastonbury Goddess Temple.
Her travels through many Holy Lands such as Cyprus, Glastonbury, India, Thailand and Mexico and her studies with internationally renowned teachers, professors, shamans and priestesses have been a very important part of her training.
She has published a feminist, spiritual, sensual book on Aphrodite, which is among the bestsellers in Italy, and a book on the Temple of the Great Goddess, Feminist Philosophy and Spirituality and Matriarchal Societies (with appendices by the most authoritative researchers, feminist philosophers, university professors and priestesses in the world ), which will be published by the La Sapienza University publishing house.
The fervour of her studies, the sense of urgency for the social and environmental crisis in which we find ourselves, combined with a profound optimism, led her to pioneering the Temple of the Great No-Profit Goddess, the first in Italy, in Rome, over 2000 years after the destruction of all the Temples dedicated to female divinities by the patriarchate.
The Temple is today the most important research center in Italy in the philosophical, anthropological, archaeological and spiritual fields for spreading Goddess Spirituality, Feminist and Matriarchal Philosophy and Spirituality.