www.festivaldispoleto.it

In the green heart of Umbria, dominated by a beautiful “Rocca” Castle, the historical town of Spoleto is a throwback to medieval times. During the Festival dei Due Mondi the town hosts some of the more avant-garde musical and dance companies. The Spoleto Festival 2008, with his director Giorgio Ferrara, is nowadays a worldwide attraction that gives an international image to the town and is one of the most important cultural happenings in Europe. The festival was first started in 1958 with the intention of bringing together the old and new worlds of Europe and America. It is a unique and incomparable fusion of art and urban spaces, of art and landscape, of art and the social fabric. Combined with the quality of the artistic offerings, this provides the original formula that has  drawn a passionate and ever-growing international audience. The festival opens with the Indian opera “Padmavati”. A prelude concert and several opera performances are held in one of the town’s lovely theatres. Concerts, meetings, exhibitions, dance performances, cinema screenings and a host of classical music performances fill more than two weeks, with a daily series of midday concerts. The Festival unites the arts with the common language of contemporary relevance and thus impacts emotions from within.

www.pisaturismo.it

Thirty years after his death, Pontedera celebrates Giorgio De Chirico, the main protagonist of 20th century painting with Pablo Picasso. Curated by Giovanni Faccenda, the exhibition details De Chirico’s artistic production as Master of Metaphysics. His life and work are centered on his desire to “make visible what’s invisible”, hence the enigma in painting in the title of the exhibition. Among the masterpieces on display Horse and Horseman, Rapallo Castle, The Disquieting Muses, Piazza d’Italia, as well as new works such as Horseman with Dog, Venice and important findings such as Pawing Horses by the Sea, a mini version of the well-known theme of Hector and Andromache. During the same period, the Il Germoglio Gallery in Pontedera hosts the exhibition “La lunga ombra del Metafisico”.