The Tuscan town of Pistoia was chosen out of nine finalists to be the Italian culture capital in 2017, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini has announced. The other finalists were Aquileia, Como, Ercolano (Herculaneum), Parma, Pisa, Spoleto, Taranto and Terni.
Pistoia will thus succeed the current Italian culture capital, the Lombard city of Mantua. “I believe we were selected for (our) idea that culture is the first right of citizens,” said Mayor Samuele Bertinelli. “Pistoia invests in culture more than double the national average”.
The city plans to invest over 15 million euros – plus six million euros in operating expenses – to revamp urban areas and cultural infrastructure. One of the projects is to turn the city’s 13th-century Ospedale del Ceppo – founded as a hospital in Medieval times and renovated in the Renaissance by the Medici family – into a multi-use cultural center. The 76,000-square-meter building has a loggia decorated with a 1525 frieze portraying the seven works of mercy, plus tondos by Giovanni della Robbia depicting the Annunciation, the Glory of the Virgin, the Visitation and the Medici coat of arms.
News by ANSA
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