Adifferent Italy, off the beaten track of mass tourism and far from the big names in art, is coming to light again thanks to a brand new festival that combines knowledge, care and participation. It is called Minore and is promoted by Italia Nostra with the support of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies. It will be held in Monticiano, in the province of Siena, from September 19 to 21, 2025. The festival will have a special significance as it coincides with the celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the association. It will be a three-day event of meetings, workshops, moments of celebration and reflection, during which the heritage communities born within the project will have the opportunity to recount their experiences, confront each other and lay the foundations for a stable and lasting network. It will also be an opportunity to reiterate, once again, that heritage protection cannot be a task delegated only to institutions, but must be born from below, through an active and conscious involvement of citizenship.
Founded in 1955, Italia Nostra is among the longest-standing and most active Italian associations committed to the protection of the landscape, environment and cultural heritage. With Minore, the association renews its mission and aims to project it into the future, focusing on less celebrated territories, people and cultural heritage. The choice of Monticiano is not accidental: here, Italia Nostra has been active since 2015 in the project of recovery and enhancement of Bagni di Petriolo, a thermal site of great archaeological and environmental importance that will soon be accessible to the public again. And it is precisely from this experience of regeneration that the spirit of the Festival was born: giving voice to forgotten places, activating communities, creating virtuous networks for participatory conservation of heritage.
"With the Festival Minore we want to restore visibility and value to the Minor Cultural Heritage, often neglected but fundamental to the identity of territories," says Edoardo Croci, National President of Italia Nostra. “The goal is not only to rediscover these assets, but to ensure their care over time through the establishment of heritage communities that include public administrations, third sector entities and other subjects. The festival takes place in Monticiano, in the province of Siena, where Italia Nostra is developing an extraordinary project to restore the ancient baths and other historic structures. The initiative is part of Italia Nostra’s 70th anniversary celebrations and is intended to reaffirm our mission: to safeguard cultural, natural and landscape heritage.”
Among the Festival’s most influential partners is ICOMOS Italy, represented by its president Maurizio Di Stefano: “ICOMOS and Italia Nostra collaborate thanks to a Memorandum of Understanding whose function is to enhance tangible and intangible heritage through the dissemination of the principles of the UNESCO Universal Conventions,” he explains. “Not only attention for the best-known UNESCO sites but also for other cultural places, the so-called ’minor’ ones, which constitute the continuity of Italian Heritage Communities.”
Minor is not limited to the municipality of Monticiano alone, but extends to neighboring towns, creating a diffuse itinerary among places of great historical, artistic and natural beauty. From the ancient baths of Bagni di Petriolo to the historic center of Monticiano, passing through the Sant’Agostino Monumental Complex, the Museum of Sacred Art and the innovative Biodiversity Museum. The journey expands to Murlo with its Archaeological Museum, Chiusdino with the famous Abbey of San Galgano, Sovicille with the Castle of Montarrenti and Civitella Paganico, where the picturesque Borgo di Pari stands. Each stage becomes part of a choral tale about the value of memory and the need for a new cultural awareness.
The Festival is distinguished by the variety of activities offered, all of which are free and accessible: guided tours, walks, treks, art workshops, concerts, performances and thematic meetings, designed to involve a wide and intergenerational audience. The highlight of the event will be the conference MINOR. Tale of an Undiscovered Heritage, which will be held on Sunday, September 21 at the Biodiversity Museum Auditorium. Here the activities carried out by the 35 Italia Nostra sections involved in the national project MINORE. A ’Beacon’ on Cultural Heritage, supported by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy.
The festival will host prominent figures from the Italian cultural scene. Opening the event will be writer and poet Franco Arminio, with a poetry reading and talk in Bagni di Petriolo on the evening of Friday, September 19. Following this, also on the first day, the public will be able to attend a talk by Eugenio Cesaro, frontman of the band “Eugenio in Via Di Gioia,” and a lecture by biologist and ornithologist Francesco Petretti, dedicated to the short-toed eagle, also known as the “snake eagle,” and Mediterranean ecosystems. On Saturday, September 20, however, it will be the turn of Sienese soprano Cristina Ferri, the protagonist of “Melodies among the Villages,” a concert designed to enhance the sound and landscape dimension of the Festival’s venues.
On Sunday, Sept. 21, the Festival will conclude with the conferral of symbolic awards to two personalities with strong ties to the area: the artist Carlo Pizzichini, a native of Monticiano and author of the exhibition Fossili contemporanei e altre derive set up at the MuBa - Museo Bagni di Petriolo, and the historian and writer Giordano Bruno Guerri, known for his commitment to historical and cultural popularization. The recognition aims to celebrate not only the artistic and intellectual value of the two guests, but also their concrete contribution to the enhancement and narration of the Sienese territory.
The Festival thus presents itself as a laboratory of ideas, a ground for comparison, and a platform for the development of best practices. It is an opportunity to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Italia Nostra not with a simple commemoration, but with a look towards tomorrow. Through the enhancement of minor cultural heritage and the building of new heritage communities, the association sends a strong and clear message: the beauty of Italy lies not only in its great monuments or famous sites, but also - and perhaps above all - in its villages, in its widespread memories, in its silent but vital places.
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| "Minor," the festival celebrating forgotten cultural heritage, is born in Monticiano |
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