One of the aspects of the idea of civilization which constitutes the bedrock of Cingria’s work manifests itself in the rehabilitation of the symbol of Byzantium and of the notion of commonplace. This dual fight, which he leads on the intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual plane, is less to the detriment of the Enlightenment than against the Orientalism which emanates from it. His thought is impacted by the refusal of an individualistic conception of values and the denunciation of a lack of trans-historical distance. It is built against the grain of the intellectual fashions of his time, rejecting the systematic mind and on behalf of a perennial and federative vision of civilization.