No way. Calabria remains out of the running for the Italian Capital of Culture 2026. Cosenza and Marcellinara failed to reach the ten finalists.
The Mibact statement
The Ministry of Culture announces that the Jury for the selection of the city as Italian Capital of Culture 2026, chaired by Davide Maria Desariochose the 10 finalist projects after examining the 16 applications received.
The following Municipalities and Unions of Municipalities will therefore participate in the final phase of the selection, with their related dossiers:
1. Agnone (Isernia): “Agnone 2026: Fire, inside. Margin in the center”
2. Alba (Cuneo): “Living is beginning. Langhe and Roero, another story”
3. Gaeta (Latina): “Blue, the Climate of Culture”
4. L’Aquila: “L’Aquila Multiverse City”
5. Latina: “Latina bonum facere”
6. Lucera (Foggia): “Lucera 2026: Crossroads of Peoples and Cultures”
7. Maratea (Potenza): “Maratea 2026. The future starts from a thousand-year journey”
8. Rimini: “Come further. The future here and now”
9. Treviso: “The Senses of Culture”
10. Union of Valdichiana Senese Municipalities (Siena): “Valdichiana 2026, seed of Italy”
The finalists will be called on 4 and 5 March 2024 for public hearings. It will be an opportunity for each candidate to illustrate their project in detail to the experts who will have to evaluate them. For each dossier, the hearings will last a maximum of 60 minutes, of which 30 are for the presentation of the project and 30 for a session of questions asked by the Jury.
The proclamation of the Italian Capital of Culture will be held by March 29, 2024. The winning city will be awarded a financial contribution of one million euros to realize the objectives outlined in the candidacy project. This substantial funding will allow ideas to be translated into concrete actions, resulting in an annual program to showcase the winner’s cultural richness and development prospects.