Italy: Pesaro wins county’s Capital of Culture 2024 title

Pesaro: The Italian seaside city of Pesaro has been proclaimed as the country’s Capital of Culture 2024, the culture ministry announced on Wednesday.

Pesaro beat nine other finalists vying for the title: Ascoli Piceno, Chioggia, Grosseto, Mesagne, Sestri Levante / Tigullio, Siracusa, Paestum / Alto Cilento, Viareggio, and Vicenza.

Culture minister Dario Franceschini unveiled the winner, whose presentation was entitled La natura della cultura, after each of the finalists presented their bids in front of a jury.

Located in the Italian region of Le Marche, on the Adriatic Sea, Pesaro is the birthplace of composer Gioacchino Rossini and is famous for its opera festival.

The city’s best known sites include the 15th-century Ducal Palace and Rocca Costanza castle, as well as its Romanesque-Gothic Basilica, built between the fifth and 14th centuries.

The 2022 Capital of Culture title is held by Procida, the tiny island in the Gulf of Naples, while the 2023 honour will go to Brescia and Bergamo after the government bypassed the usual application process in a “symbol of rebirth” for the two northern cities devastated by the covid-19 pandemic.

In recent years Italy’s Capital of Culture title was assigned to Cagliari, Lecce, Perugia, Ravenna and Siena in 2015; Mantua in 2016; Pistoia in 2017, and Palermo in 2018.

The Italian title skipped a year in 2019 when the city of Matera, in the southern Basilicata region, became the European Capital of Culture.

In 2020 it was the turn of Parma to receive Italy’s culture capital status, with the north Italian city keeping the title for a second year to make up for the negative effects of the covid lockdowns.