Agrigento, a hilltop city on the southwestern coast of Sicily, has been crowned Italy’s Capital of Culture for the 2025 calendar year.
The much-anticipated announcement was made during a live-streamed proclamation ceremony on Friday in the Ministry of Culture’s Spadolini Room in Rome.
The process and project
Of the 15 cities that submitted their “dossiers” to the Ministry of Culture for consideration, ten finalists were selected — Agrigento, Aosta, Assisi, Asti, Bagnoregio, Monte Sant'Angelo, Orvieto, Pescina, Roccasecca and Spoleto — and each presented a comprehensive plan during public “auditions” that took place on March 27 and 28 of this year.
At the end of the application process, a seven-member jury made up of experts from the culture and tourism sectors voted and confirmed Agrigento as the winner.
Though Agrigento is best known as home of the ancient Greek Valle dei Templi (Valley of the Temples) — a remarkable and UNESCO-recognized archaeological site containing the remains of seven Doric temples — the Capital of Culture designation is less about pre-existing clout and past glories, and more about encouraging future-oriented initiatives.
Agrigento’s application and proposed project, The Self, the Other and Nature: Relationships and Cultural Transformations, is grounded in efforts to make the relationships between humans and nature more harmonious. While the project touches on pressing contemporary concerns about sustainability, it also draws from the city’s ancient history as the birthplace of the pre-Socratic philosopher Empeclodes (b. 494 BCE), who is credited with creating the concept of the four elements — earth, water, air and fire.
Beyond the city of Agrigento, the project will involve the island of Lampedusa — which is part of the Agrigento province — and various area municipalities. Currently 44 specific initiatives are planned, including 17 with international scopes.
Detailing the reasons the jury choose Agrigento over the nine other candidates, Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano spoke of how The Self, the Other and Nature is of great interest “at a local, national and international level, to a vast audience.”
What’s in a title?
Established in 2014, the Italian Capital of Culture title is awarded by the Italian government for a period of one year. The victorious city receives €1 million to facilitate growth in the local cultural sector and to enhance social and economic development, generally through the initiatives proposed at the application stage.
Acknowledging the work and dedication put forth in the application process by each of the finalists, Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano said, “The projects of the other nine cities do not deserve to be lost; they must be supported. All together these splendid cities make our nation: they must be supported, helped, but above all listened to.”
Sangiuliano added that next year Italy will name a city to be the country's contemporary art capital. Earlier this year, the Ligurian port city of Genoa was declared the Italian Book Capital for 2023.
Past Italian Capitals of Culture were Cagliari, Lecce, Perugia, Ravenna and Siena (who shared the title for the debut edition in 2015); Mantua (2016), Pistoia (2017), Palermo (2018), Parma (2020, and by default in 2021 when the title was extended due to Covid-19 complications). Bergamo and Brescia are the current “twinned” capitals and will pass the baton to Pesaro in 2024.
Watch the video presentation of Agrigento Capital of Italian Culture 2025 here.
