Italian Photography Festival - Pratovecchio Stia venues

The national Italian photography festival, also in Pratovecchio Stia

The Italian Photography Festival is the only major event entirely dedicated to Italian auteur photography. Launched in 2024 by the FIAF - Italian Federation of Photographic Associations, it is hosted in the Casentino, the ancient wooded valley in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany. With its widespread format, the festival spans several villages in the valley—Bibbiena, Poppi, and Pratovecchio Stia—offering dozens of exhibitions, meetings, talks, portfolio reviews, and workshops each year centered around a shared theme.

The Municipality of Pratovecchio Stia, formed by the merger of the two historic villages of Pratovecchio and Stia, is one of the event's key venues. The exhibitions are distributed across fascinating locations: the Galleria Mariæ Nivis, the Limonaia del Palagio Fiorentino, and the spaces overlooking the scenic Piazza Tanucci in Stia, as well as galleries and a former commercial space in Pratovecchio. Visiting the festival here means combining the discovery of contemporary photography with the exploration of two of the most characteristic historic centers in the Casentino, a land of castles, hermitages, and sacred forests.

A different theme every year

Each edition of the festival revolves around a major theme. The third edition, scheduled from June 12 to September 6, 2026, is dedicated to 'Rites and Visions. Between the Spiritual and the Material': an investigation into the forms of contemporary spirituality, the gestures, places, and bodies through which the sacred continues to permeate the present, in dialogue with the eighth centenary of Saint Francis of Assisi. The heart of the event remains in Bibbiena at the CIFA - Italian Center for Auteur Photography, featuring the central exhibition 'Body to Body. Visions of the Sacred' curated by Denis Curti, while the venues in Pratovecchio and Stia complete the narrative with dedicated exhibitions.

The Pratovecchio Stia venues

• Stia: Galleria Mariæ Nivis (Piazza Tanucci 47), Piazza Tanucci spaces, and Limonaia del Palagio Fiorentino (Via Vittorio Veneto 35), with the Palagio Fiorentino garden also used for festival dinners.
• Pratovecchio: Galleria Mariæ Nivis (Via Garibaldi 14, 32, 63) and EX-COOP (Piazza Paolo Uccello).

The inauguration of the exhibitions in Pratovecchio and Stia traditionally takes place on the Saturday of the festival's opening weekend, with separate events for the two villages followed by a convivial dinner.

A landmark event for the Casentino

Under the artistic direction of Denis Curti and Roberto Rossi and with the support of the Fondazione CR Firenze, the Italian Photography Festival has made the Casentino and the Municipality of Pratovecchio Stia a reference point for photography enthusiasts, while promoting the villages of the Arezzo province and Tuscany. The festival spans the entire summer, allowing visitors to plan their trip at a leisurely pace and combine it with the discovery of the Casentino territory.