For suiseki fans the proposals organized by the Crespi family were not to be missed: by Mrs. Gudrun Benz and in honour of the late Mr. Willi Benz we attended a lecture on Japanese aesthetics and on issues related to exhibitions of bonsai and suiseki while Mrs. Chiara Padrini made a comment and an assessment of the stones on display.
In the end a display of Kakejiku, an impressive collection of ancient Japanese scrolls going back to the  Edo period (from 1603 to 1868) was set up by Mr. Lorenzo Sonzini. It is fruit of passion, of a continuous research and expertise of my friend Lorenzo who personally explained every single scroll to us.
The exhibitions with contest of bonsai and suiseki are obviously the great appeal of the event. This year they were exposed together in a very elegant new pavilion. While the bonsai had a background of neutral colour, a background of wood panels of dark grey / black colour at different heights was prepared for suiseki. This choice unfortunately damaged the vision of the stones, as you can infer from the photographs, because of too much uniformity between the colour of the suiseki and that of the background.

Some glimpses of the great hall that hosted the specimens on display:

The last picture among the three previous ones witnesses a meeting and a moment which are special for me and will remain among my fondest memories of this show. In fact at last, I got to know Mr. Yoshi Nakamizu after many years of conversations via email. Mr. Nakamizu attended the Meeting as a member of a delegation organized by the Government of the city of Saitama in order to promote the center 'Omiya Bonsai' in Italy. He honoured me exacting to see the stone that I exhibited together with the sensei Mr. Hatsuji Kato who gave a gratifying judgment of it.
The opportunity was obviously.... greedy: we do not often have the opportunity of having a Japanese teacher at our disposal to get comments and feedback of our stones. So, after my island stone, those who wanted could ask for an assessment of their suiseki. In that photo we see Mr. Nakamizu in front of the stone of my friend Giuseppe Cordone while we are listening enraptured. Therefore I thank in these pages Mr.Nakamizu and Mr. Hatsuji Kato for their availability and for the time they gave us.

Also in this edition of the Crespi Cup we met again the team "ItalianSuiseki" and its friends. Mr. Sandro Tschudin came from Switzerland, Mr. Felice Colombari and I spent a whole day talking about suiseki! Unfortunately our Fabrizio was not present being engaged in Rome as a speaker in a meeting on suiseki.

But now let us speak about stones starting with the winners and then continuing with all the stones on display. Unfortunately suiseki were displayed anonymously, so I can give the names of the owners only for the stones of which I knew the exhibitors. May forgive me who will not find his name published. However I am at disposal of  who would tell me his name and I will see to publish it immediately.

The judge of the suiseki was the Chinese Mr. Jiuwei Huang, an expert in international penjing, supported by Mr. Luigi Crespi.

1° Classified and winner of
CRESPI SUISEKI CUP TROPHY
Mrs. Chiara Padrini

Yamagata-ishi
Mountain stone

2° Classified
Mr. Igor Carino

Doha-ishi
Slope stone

3° Classified
Mr. Silvano Provasi

Dobutsu-seki
Animal shape stone

Mention of Merit
Mr. Giorgio Rosati

Toyama-ishi
Distant mountain stone

BCI Excellence Award
Mr. Angelo Attinà

Sugata-ishi
Human shape stone

The other stones in display