Italian Capital of Culture, 2015 to 2028

Seventeen Italian cities appear on the Capital of Culture roll from 2015 to 2028: L'Aquila holds it in 2026, Pordenone takes 2027 and Ancona 2028, and 2019 is the one year with no Italian capital at all.

The criterion: a written dossier and a state decree

Nothing on this page is a recommendation. A city is here because a jury of seven experts read its dossier, it survived to a public hearing of ten finalists, and the ministry awarded it the title and 1 million euro to deliver the program it had promised.

The title was instituted in 2014 and first held in 2015. That makes the roll below a full record, not a selection, and it is the only Italian cultural calendar that is fixed three years into the future.

The complete roll, 2015 to 2028

Five cities shared the first year, and only one year since has had more than one holder.

Parma held the title for two years, 2020 and 2021, because the pandemic swallowed the first of them. Bergamo and Brescia shared 2023, the only other year with more than one holder since 2015.

2026: L'Aquila, a title held on a building site

L'Aquila was proclaimed Italian Capital of Culture 2026 on March 14, 2024, at the culture ministry, with a dossier called L'Aquila. Città Multiverso and the standard 1 million euro. The year opened on January 17, 2026 with a program of more than 300⁷ events.

The part worth planning around is the reopenings rather than the events. The city used the year to hand back the Teatro Comunale, the Teatro San Filippo and the MuNDA in the Forte Spagnolo, the sixteenth century castle that had stood empty since the 2009 earthquake. Those buildings stay open after the title moves on.

Already booked: Pordenone 2027, Ancona 2028

Pordenone was proclaimed on March 12, 2025 for 2027, and Ancona holds 2028. Neither city is on a standard first trip to Italy, which is the point of the scheme rather than an accident of it.

The proclamation pattern gives a city roughly two years to build a program, and gives you the same two years to decide whether to be there. Nothing else in the Italian calendar offers that.

The hole in 2019, and why it is Matera's

There is no Italian Capital of Culture for 2019 because Matera was European Capital of Culture that year. Matera had been designated at the end of 2014, the first city in the Italian south to take the European title, and received dedicated state funding for it.

The official ministry roll simply lists 2018 and then 2020, with no note explaining the gap. If you find a list that shows an Italian capital for 2019, it is wrong.

2029 is still open: 17 towns have said yes

The call for 2029 was published on June 3, 2026, and by August 2026 seventeen comuni had declared an interest in bidding. Declarations of interest are not formal candidacies, so the number will change before the shortlist.

Seventeen dossiers for one title and 1 million euro is the clearest measure of what the scheme is worth to a small Italian city. For the year-by-year mechanics of what a title does to a place, see a different capital of culture every year.

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