St. Francis in Lucca: a year of events featuring poetry, music, and history in 2026
Lucca is celebrating the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’ death with a major cultural project. Starting on March 21, “Francesco. Ottocento anni dopo” (Francis. Eight Hundred Years Later) will kick off, a calendar of meetings, concerts, and festivals created by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca.
Lucca thus becomes one of the symbolic locations for the celebrations dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, eight hundred years after his death.
The Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca has chosen to mark this important anniversary with a major cultural project: “Francis. Eight hundred years later: thought, history, poetry, music”.
The program, which will run throughout the year with meetings, concerts, shows, and collaborations with international festivals, stems from a simple but profound question: who was Francis really?
Not just the saint of tradition, but the man before the legend. A complex figure, capable of influencing European culture in literature, spirituality, and art, whose message continues to speak to the contemporary world.
Lucca celebrates St. Francis 800 years later
The CR Lucca Foundation’s project is part of the international celebrations for the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis (1226-2026), but it does so with a cultural and interdisciplinary approach.
As Massimo Marsili, president of the Foundation, explains, the aim is to investigate the figure of the saint beyond the most established narratives.
Before the official biographies written by Tommaso da Celano and Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, Francis was in fact a different man from the one we often imagine: he came from a wealthy family, was educated, and close to chivalric ideals.
The documents that remain – about thirty texts written in Latin – tell of a man who voluntarily chose pauperitas, a spiritual and conscious poverty, very different from destitution.
The cultural project stems precisely from this tension between history and interpretation. Through literature, music, philosophy, cinema, and photography, the events will seek to recount the cultural legacy of St. Francis and his influence on history.
It is no coincidence that the heart of the initiatives is the Complesso di San Francesco in Lucca, one of the first Franciscan settlements after the saint’s death and home to a highly prestigious medieval studium.
The program of events: poetry, music, and Franciscan thought
The calendar of “Francesco. Ottocento anni dopo” (Francis. Eight hundred years later) kicks off on Saturday, March 21, World Poetry Day, with one of the most eagerly awaited events.
The poet Valerio Magrelli will be the protagonist of a double meeting at the Oratorio degli Angeli Custodi (at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.) as part of the Canone in Verso festival, dedicated to the dialogue between music and words.
The meeting, entitled Literature and Literality in St. Francis, reflects on the relationship between the saint and sacred and poetic texts. For Francis, the words of the Gospel were not only an object of study, but a practice to be lived daily.
Music will be another central element of the program.
On March 29, the Church of St. Francis will host the concert Cantando la Pasqua di San Francesco (Singing the Easter of St. Francis) with the Gaetano Luporini Philharmonic Orchestra of San Gennaro, conducted by Giampaolo Lazzeri, which will perform music by Thomas Doss, Marco Frisina, and Riz Ortolani.
On May 8, the Canone in Verso festival will return with an evening dedicated to the relationship between St. Francis and Dante Alighieri. Scholar Alberto Casadei, professor at the University of Pisa and one of the leading experts on the Divine Comedy, will converse with Lucca actress Matilde Bernardi in the show Un’ignota ricchezza: San Francesco e Dante (An Unknown Wealth: St. Francis and Dante), dedicated to the figure of the saint as recounted in the eleventh canto of Paradise.
On June 26, the traditional concert for the anniversary of the reopening of the Complex of St. Francis of Lucca will be entirely dedicated to the figure of the saint. The protagonists will be the Choir of the Musical Chapel of the Papal Basilica of St. Francis and the Florentine Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Father Peter Hrdy.
On October 4, the feast day of St. Francis, the Archbishop of Lucca, Monsignor Paolo Giulietti, will preside over a Eucharistic celebration followed by a concert organized in collaboration with the Diocesan Caritas, the Boccherini Conservatory, and the Passaglia Music High School.
Conversations and meetings with leading figures in culture
The series of meetings will conclude in November with Conversations, a series of dialogues dedicated to Franciscan thought and its relevance today.
From November 15 to 28, some of the most important voices in Italian culture will participate: writer Fabio Genovesi, poet Mariangela Gualtieri, philosopher Massimo Cacciari, and historian Chiara Mercuri.
Through different perspectives—literary, philosophical, and historical—the meetings will analyze the radical nature of Francis’s life and the power of his spiritual message.
Lucca through cinema, photography, and music: the festivals involved
The cultural project dedicated to St. Francis in Lucca in 2026 also involves some of the city’s main events.
On May 2, the Lucca Classica Festival will bring the show FRANCESCO to the Church of St. Francis, with Aldo Cazzullo and Angelo Branduardi recounting the saint’s life through narration and music.
From September 26 to October 4, the Lucca Film Festival will organize a series of screenings dedicated to cinematic representations of Francis, from the 1911 silent film Il poverello di Assisi to masterpieces such as Francesco, giullare di Dio by Roberto Rossellini and Francesco d’Assisi by Liliana Cavani.
Finally, from November 28, 2026, to January 6, 2027, Photolux will present the exhibition “Francis: his places and the sense of the sacred”, with 56 black and white photographs by Elio Ciol, one of the great masters of Italian photography, dedicated to Franciscan places since the 1950s.
Why Lucca is a key location in Franciscan history
The choice of Lucca for this major cultural project is no coincidence. The Convent of St. Francis is one of the oldest Franciscan centers in Italy and was, as early as the Middle Ages, a reference point for the study and dissemination of the saint’s teachings.
With “Francis. Eight Hundred Years Later”, the Tuscan city thus becomes a space for contemporary reflection on a figure who changed the way we think about spirituality, nature, and our relationship with others.
Eight centuries later, St. Francis’ message—one of simplicity, freedom, and brotherhood—continues to challenge our times.
Information
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