Neuroscience Festival

The Neuroscience Festival in San Giovanni Valdarno

The Neuroscience Festival is a scientific outreach event held in San Giovanni Valdarno, a key municipality in the Province of Arezzo, located in the heart of the Valdarno region of Tuscany. The event transforms the historic setting of Palazzo d'Arnolfo—a masterpiece attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio overlooking the town's main square—into a grand laboratory of ideas, where the complexity of the human brain is explained with scientific rigor yet in a language accessible to everyone.

A citizen science project

Conceived by Professor Alessandro Rossi, a lecturer in Neurology and Human Physiology at the University of Siena and scientific director of the Fondazione Gianfranco Salvini, the festival was born as a citizen science initiative: a way to bring citizens closer to research, breaking down the barriers between the academic world and the public. The first edition was held in 2024 at the Castello dei Conti Guidi in Poppi, while from 2025 the event found its main home at Palazzo d'Arnolfo.

Neuroscience, physics, philosophy, and art

The hallmark of the Neuroscience Festival is its interdisciplinary dialogue. Each edition addresses a theme that compares neurology with other fields of knowledge: quantum physics, the philosophy of complexity, linguistics, theater, and the arts. Neuroscientists, physicists, philosophers, science journalists, and artists take the stage in a discussion that reveals to the audience the richness and the mysteries still surrounding the study of the mind.

Organization and patronage

The event is promoted by the Fondazione Gianfranco Salvini together with the Clinica di Riabilitazione Toscana, with the patronage of the Ministry of University and Research and the Tuscany Region. The sessions are also streamed on the Clinica di Riabilitazione Toscana YouTube channel, reaching an audience far beyond the borders of the Valdarno.

An opportunity to discover the Valdarno

Attending the Neuroscience Festival is also a perfect excuse to visit San Giovanni Valdarno, the birthplace of the painter Masaccio, with its splendid medieval town center, the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie, and the local museums. A day that combines intellectual stimulation with the beauty of the surroundings in one of the most characteristic areas of eastern Tuscany.