San Gimignano Baroque Festival

An early music festival among the towers of San Gimignano

The San Gimignano Baroque Festival is one of the most highly regarded early music events in the Sienese Valdelsa. Promoted and curated by the Accademia dei Leggieri, it offers a series of concerts each year between late August and September, dedicated to 17th and 18th-century Italian and European vocal and instrumental music—a period when Italy was one of the world's most recognized cultural and artistic hubs. The event takes place in the municipality of San Gimignano, in the province of Siena, one of Tuscany's most famous locations and a UNESCO World Heritage site for its extraordinary skyline of medieval towers.

Repertoire and historical performance practice

The heart of the festival is musical philology: the invited ensembles perform the Baroque repertoire using copies of original instruments, following the performance practices of the time. Over the years, audiences have enjoyed works by Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Frescobaldi, Vivaldi, Händel, Telemann, Barsanti, and Francesca Caccini, alongside lesser-known authors rediscovered through the musicians' patient research. The concerts, often built around a theme or anniversary, alternate between solo voices and chamber ensembles, featuring lutes, theorbos, harpsichords, viola da gamba, flutes, and Baroque strings.

Historical venues

Concerts are held in the historic halls of the town center, particularly in the Sala di Dante inside the Civic Museums at the Palazzo Comunale and at Palazzo Moronti Ciotta. These intimate spaces offer acoustics perfectly suited to chamber music, capturing the delicacy of the Baroque sound in a perfect dialogue between art and medieval architecture.

Part of Accade d'Estate

The Baroque Festival is part of the Accade d'Estate program, a season of events promoted by the San Gimignano Municipal Administration that enlivens the city with over eighty appointments from June to September, spanning music, theater, exhibitions, and popular traditions. The Baroque series represents one of its most sophisticated and anticipated moments, attracting early music enthusiasts from all over Tuscany and beyond.

An experience for early music lovers

Attending a concert at the Baroque Festival means experiencing San Gimignano in an intimate dimension, away from mass tourism: limited seating, up-close listening, and the chance to discover an extraordinary musical heritage within the very walls that have stood for centuries. It is an ideal appointment to combine with an evening visit to the village, amidst silent alleys, illuminated squares, and a glass of Vernaccia di San Gimignano.