Speaking to an audience in the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, Benedict XVI opposed this model of a liquid society with a model of the society "of life and of beauty." He said that "man is free to interpret, to give meaning to reality, and it is precisely in this liberty that his great dignity lies." He continued: "It is about choosing between a 'liquid' city, homeland of a culture that seems to be increasingly the culture of the relative and the ephemeral, and a city that constantly renews its beauty, taking recourse to the beneficent resources of art, learning, of relations between men and nations.