Furioso Festival in Valtellina 2026

📅 Date: 9 to 16 November 2026
📍 Venue: Valtellina: Sondrio, Talamona, Morbegno, Delebio
🕒 Time: flexible—see programme 
🎭 Category: Culture, literature, talks and conferences

Furioso Festival in Valtellina takes place in Valtellina between Sondrio, Talamona, Morbegno and Delebio from 9 to 16 November 2026. It’s a cultural season dedicated to Orlando Furioso, with talks, book launches, seminars and workshops for schools.

The traditional autumn appointments of the Valtellinese ariostesque series return with the theme Magic, the narrative engine of Orlando Furioso and a tool for exploring modern complexity. The programme brings together teachers, intellectuals and writers linked by the thread of chivalric epic—right up to contemporary storytelling. Particular attention is given to the world of schools, because studying and reading the great classics helps shape tomorrow’s minds.

A festival between schools and readers

Eight days of events bring a sense of the magical and the wondrous to students and the public. Guests include Ermanno Cavazzoni, Michele Comelli, Corrado Confalonieri, Michele Neri, Nunzia Palmieri, Maria Grazia Rabiolo, Alberto Ravasio, Gino Ruozzi and Cristina Zampese. Through literature, they tackle many shared themes of everyday life with lightness, irony and a playful touch.

The series is organised by the Bradamante ODV association and is supported by BIM-Provincia di Sondrio, other local bodies and private individuals. The programme grows thanks to new collaborations. The 13 November seminar is the result of a three-year agreement between the Department of Literary, Philological and Linguistic Studies at the University of Milan and Bradamante, for interdisciplinary projects that enhance Furioso and the Valtellinese Ariosto heritage.

Programme

From Monday 9 to Friday 13 November – Delebio, Dubino and Nuova Olonio
The festival opens with a school week at the Delebio Comprehensive Institute. The Florentine writer Michele Neri runs the storytelling workshop From the stories of the paladins to Pinocchio for primary and secondary school pupils at the Delebio, Dubino and Nuova Olonio campuses.

Friday 13 November – Sondrio

• Morning, Liceo Scientifico Donegani: Gino Ruozzi delivers the lecture From Ariosto to Fenoglio and Calvino.
• From 10.00 to 12.50, Palazzo Muzio (Provincial Council Room, Province of Sondrio): educational seminar Ariostesque magics in Orlando Furioso, for fourth-year classes from the Polo Liceale Città di Sondrio, in collaboration with Bradamante ODV. Coordinated by Gino Ruozzi and Maria Carla Fay. Speakers include:
  • Gino Ruozzi (University of Bologna), Historical foresight between reality and irony
  • Cristina Zampese (University of Milan), Magicians with a tender heart
  • Michele Comelli (University of Milan), Ariosto’s incautious necromancers and wicked fairies
  • Corrado Confalonieri (University of Cagliari), Spaces and times of magic in Furioso
• 17.30, Rajna Library: conference by Ermanno Cavazzoni Magic, necromancy and miracles in Ariosto, chivalric poems and the saints. The Emilia-Romagna writer looks at the miracles set against necromancy already in the Acts of the Apostles and in Italian novellas; he also discusses magic mocked by Boccaccio and the enchanted objects and palaces in Boiardo and Ariosto. He concludes with a look at the modern dissolution of the magical.

Saturday 14 November – Talamona, 17.30, Biblioteca Comunale Busnarda Luzzi
The young Bergamo writer Alberto Ravasio presents his second novel, Il grande mantenuto (Quodlibet, Compagnia extra 2026), a tragicomic satire of the cultural system, literary vocation, family and feelings, set between Milan and the Bergamo province. He is in conversation with Ermanno Cavazzoni and with the journalist from Ticino Maria Grazia Rabiolo.

Sunday 15 November – Morbegno, 10.30, Auditorium S. Antonio
Nunzia Palmieri, a lecturer in contemporary literature at the University of Bergamo and curator of publications and exhibitions on Gianni Celati, presents Il pinguino nell’orto (MUP 2026), the winner of the Malerba Prize 2025. She is in conversation with Maria Grazia Rabiolo and Gino Ruozzi. The event takes place in collaboration with the Morbegno association éValtellina.

Monday 16 November – Sondrio, Auditorium Torelli
Nunzia Palmieri meets the first-year classes of the “L. Torelli” lower secondary school at the Paesi Retici Comprehensive Institute, for an event dedicated to Il pinguino nell’orto.

Useful information

• Admission: all events are free and open to the public until seats are fully booked.
• Official website: www.orlandofuriosoinvaltellina.it
• Programme updates: the Facebook page of the Bradamante Cultural Association.
• Organisation: Bradamante ODV, Via Valtellina 2, Teglio (SO). Contact: Silvana Onetti, mobile 333 3783467, e-mail ofstudio@hotmail.com.

• Support and registrations: the festival is supported by Provincia di Sondrio and BIM, with the participation of the Municipalities of Sondrio, Talamona, Teglio, Chiuro, Morbegno, Ponte in Valtellina and Delebio. Partners include also the Comunità Montane Valtellina di Morbegno and Valtellina di Tirano, the Regional Directorate of National Museums Lombardy – Palazzo Besta, the University of Milan (Department of Literary, Philological and Linguistic Studies) and the epic magazine AOQU.

   

  Thanks for the collaboration: Rajna Library in Sondrio and Busnarda Luzzi Library in Talamona.