Events

23 September 2026. A lecture by Festival dei Popoli Artistic Director Alessandro Stellino at the British Insitute of Florence Elaine May behind the camera At 6pm on September 23, join us on site or on line, for a ‘Wednesday Lecture’ at the British Institute of Florence, with Alessandro Stellino, the artistic director of Florence’s Festival dei Popoli – the world’s oldest documentary film festival. The lecture will highlight some of the leading women filmmakers featured in th

17 September 2026: Half-day seminar at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence Ph. Valeria Raniolo, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, Florence From 3:30 to 6:30 pm, join us for a half-day seminar (in Italian) at Florence’s Accademia delle Arti del Disegno: ‘Marilena Mosco: Uno spirito libero nell’arte di Firenze’. Known for bringing overlooked treasures – like historic frames and art-jewels – into the limelight, Marilena Mosco was director of Pitti’s Silver Museum.

22 September 2026: A community art at MAD, Murate Art District, where local and international artists share their book art inspired by Elena Salvini Pierallini's body of work. Elena Salvini Pierallini's 'Black Bags' event at Capraia Island, 2007, ph. ESP One of artist Elena Salvini Pierallini’s (1934-2024) most successful artistic endeavours was to mobilise Florence’s local art scene by creating community events in which artists could produce and share works in conversation

American director Barbara Kopple will be a special guest at the 67th Festival dei Popoli. Fifty years since her 1976 Oscar-winning film Harlan County, U.S.A., the filmmaker will be in Florence to present her landmark debut film on 3 November. On this occasion, she will be presented with the “Women Trailblazers in Documentary Cinema” award, in collaboration with Calliope Arts Foundation. The tribute will take place during the international documentary film festival, from 31 Oc

Alii Horti I, dance performance grant at Villa La Pietra, ph. Viola Parretti Join Calliope Arts and Associazione Culturale Il Palmerino for the performance 'Alii Horti II' at 5.45pm on July 2, at Villa La Quiete (Via di Boldrone 2), Florence. 'Alii Horti II: From Archive to Garden' is an all-female, student-led dance performance conceived by Associazione Il Palmerino through a grant from the Calliope Arts Foundation. Choreographed by Sophie Robinson (University of Toronto), i

German botanical artist Marieluise Bantel comes to Il Palmerino with a new exhibition that celebrates the many phases of flowers

A restored garden and the women who made a 'space of their own' among the green. Join us (in Italian) on Friday, November 21 at Villa La Quiete for a half-day seminar and garden tour: ‘The Happiness of Gardens: The extraordinary lives of women garden designers’ scheduled from 9.30am to 1.30pm. This lecture series, organised by the University of Florence, as part of the ‘Eredità delle Donne’ festival, focuses on several noteworthy women who lived and worked in the 19th and 20t

Resurrecting the Marchesa in an age where women had little public power. Isabella d’Este (1474 – 1539) stands out as a formidable figure. This 6pm 'Wednesday Lecture' at the British Institute of Florence, on December 3, 2025, is sponsored by the Calliope Arts Foundation. Isabella was born into one of Italy’s most illustrious dynasties and married into another. Her husband, Francesco Gonzaga, was a warrior and a philanderer, but their partnership – she ran the state while he

Mabel Nicholson, Nancy Nicholson, EQ Nicholson and Louisa Creed. The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. 6 March to 6 Sept. 2026 EQ at work on a batik bedspread c.1932, photographed by Kit in their flat in Chelsea Embankment. The palette on the wall belonged to Mabel Pryde, Kit's mother The exhibition 'Relative Ties' will explore the work of three generations of women artists from the illustrious Nicholson family, from the early twentieth century to

What can early twentieth-century foundlings tell us about women's history in Florence? 'Girls in the Innocenti Archive: 1900-1921’ at the Innocenti Institute and Museum is a project and exhibition conceived and executed by the Istituto degli Innocenti, in collaboration with Calliope Arts Foundation, aimed at protecting and showcasing the identity tokens that belonged to the girls taken in by the foundling hospital during the early decades of the twentieth century, objects th

Twentieth-century adoptive Florentine artist Flavia Arlotta will be featured in the show 'Inner Gardens: Still-lifes and Landscapes by Flavia Arlotta' at Il Palmerino Cultural Association from 13 September to 16 December 2025. An interview with Francesco Colacicchi and Alta Macadam By Linda Falcone This article was first published in Restoration Conversations magazine, Issue 7 - Spring 2025 Walking up the wide but wooded path, to the Colacicchi house on via dell’Osservatori

Artist Francesca Alexander and her parents moved from Boston to Florence in 1853 and became part of the city's thriving international community. At 5.30 pm on November 26, 2025, join us at Il Palmerino Cultural Association, in the Colonica di Villa Il Palmerino, for a lecture by US writer and professor Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, entitled: The Art and Life of Francesca Alexander (1837 - 1917) , after her recently published book by the same name. She was a largely self-taught

Contemporary art for a former convent turned Future Museum in Florence The exhibition The Rose that Grew from Concrete, curated by Morgane Lucquet Laforgue, r uns from 5 September 2025 to 4 January 2026. It represents the latest stage in Museo Sant'Orsola's cultural reactivation, and it stands as an ideal bridge between the former convent’s past and its future vocation as a museum and contemporary art centre. The future museum will officially open its doors in 2026, followin

La Rocca’s work has left a lasting impact, and this landmark exhibition brings her bold, witty and thought-provoking vision to a wider audience, though her career was cut short by her untimely death at the age of 38, From September 10 to December 21, 2025, the Estorick Collection in London will present the first UK museum exhibition dedicated to Ketty La Rocca (1938–1976), a trailblazing figure in Italian conceptual and feminist art. Ketty La Rocca My Words and You-2, 1971, p

Independent curator and archivist Carla Danella speaks to author and art historian Vanessa Nicolson about her works and life. Tuesday, October 7, 2025, 6pm Il Palmerino Cultural Association, Via Il Palmerino 6 Reservations required: associazione@palmerino.it Vanessa Nicolson is an author and journalist, and a former art historian. Her most recent book, Angels of Mud , is a multi-generational novel set in London’s Italian/Irish neighbourhood of Clerkenwell in the aftermath of