Methodist and Waldensian Cultural Heritage Days

A journey into Waldensian memory in Torre Pellice

The Methodist and Waldensian Cultural Heritage Days are an initiative spread across the national territory, promoted by the Historical Archive and Cultural Heritage Office of the Waldensian Board, which every year opens churches, museums, archives, libraries, and cultural institutes of the Italian Protestant world to the public. The hub of the event is Torre Pellice, a small town in the province of Turin known as the "Italian Geneva" and the historical capital of the Waldensian Valleys.

The theme of the 2026 edition: Giving voice to heritage

Reaching its fourth edition in 2026, the festival has chosen as its guiding theme "Giving voice to heritage", an invitation to let the documents, objects, and places that safeguard the memory of a faith community speak for themselves. In Torre Pellice, events are concentrated in the spaces of the Waldensian Museum and the Waldensian Board Archive, at via Beckwith 3, managed by the Fondazione Centro Culturale Valdese.

Guided tours, concerts, and seminars

The program weaves together different languages to tell the Waldensian story to a wide audience:

• Guided tours of the permanent historical section of the Waldensian Museum, a journey retracing eight centuries of history, from the medieval origins of the Waldensian movement to the present day;
• Cine-concerts, concerts, and exhibitions that accompany visitors through music, images, and period documents;
• Seminars and expert talks dedicated to confessional defense, book culture, and archive conservation;
• Activities for children, designed to introduce kids and families to the history of the area.

The context: the Waldensian Valleys of Piedmont

Torre Pellice and the surrounding valleys have represented the heart of the Waldensian presence in Italy for centuries. The Waldensians, a Christian community born in the Middle Ages and later merged into the Protestant Reformation, resisted long persecutions right in these alpine valleys of Piedmont. The event allows visitors to discover this unique heritage, made of archives, temples, symbols, and traditions, which continues to live in the cultural fabric of the region. Visiting the Heritage Days means coming into contact with a history of religious freedom, tolerance, and identity that has left a deep mark on Italian history.