Italian Capital of Culture: who holds it

L'Aquila is Italian Capital of Culture in 2026, Pordenone takes the title in 2027 after being proclaimed on March 12, 2025, and Ancona holds it in 2028.

The three years you can plan around

L'Aquila holds the title for 2026, Pordenone for 2027 and Ancona for 2028, which is as far ahead as the designation is currently settled. Each city gets one calendar year and a budget built around a programme submitted during the bid.

The practical use of that list is timing. Pordenone in 2027 will have an event calendar it does not normally have, and Ancona will follow in 2028, so a visit to either lands differently depending on the year.

What the year did to L'Aquila

The 2026 year opened on January 17 with a programme of more than 300⁴ initiatives, and the part that matters is the buildings: the Teatro Comunale, the Teatro San Filippo and the MuNDA museum at the Forte Spagnolo went back into public use. In a city that is still being rebuilt, a reopened theatre is a different order of event from a festival.

L'Aquila also announced the first urban cultural observatory in Italy, set up to measure what the year's cultural policies actually produce. Whether that survives the year is the question worth asking in 2027.

What the title is, and what it is not

The Italian Capital of Culture is a national designation that moves annually between cities, awarded on a bid, and it is not the European Capital of Culture, which runs on its own separate cycle. A city can win either, and the two calendars have nothing to do with each other.

The year brings a programme, a budget and a deadline for works that had been waiting, which is why the reopenings usually outlive the concerts. Background on the mechanism is in a different capital of culture every year.

Three regions, three years

Three regions hold the title in a row: Abruzzo in 2026, Friuli-Venezia Giulia in 2027, the Marche in 2028. None of the three is a standard first-trip destination, which is most of the point of the scheme.

How each one is reached, and what else is open there, is on the Abruzzo, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Marche pages.

↑ Contents