10–11 July 2025 | Ex Convento degli Agostiniani, Lecce | 7:00 PM
The Fondazione Treccani Cultura encounters voices, memories and visions of “Harmonies of the Mediterranean”
Two days to listen, remember, and imagine. On July 10 and 11, 2025, the Fondazione Treccani Cultura will bring light to the evocative spaces of the Ex Convento degli Agostiniani with the Festival of the Mediterranean—a poetic and musical journey into the heart of a sea that has always been threshold and cradle, border and embrace, separation and bridge. More than a festival, it is an authentic encounter of voices, languages, and stories. A vibrant dialogue between enduring memories and visions that traverse the present.
The Festival of the Mediterranean is one of the most significant events of Harmonies of the Mediterranean, the summer cultural series promoted by the Municipality of Lecce with the scientific and organizational support of the Agenzia per il Patrimonio Culturale Euromediterraneo and with the contribution of TAP – Trans Adriatic Pipeline, Lead Supporter of the initiative. From July 4 to 20, Lecce becomes the Mediterranean itself—a crossroads of arts, knowledge, and humanity—reaffirming its Mediterranean vocation as a place of encounter, listening, and coexistence.
The initiative is part of the official program of summer events promoted by the Municipality of Lecce for summer 2025, contributing to the enhancement of the region’s cultural and landscape heritage through high-quality programming accessible to a wide audience, promoting shared knowledge and intercultural dialogue.
In this context, the Fondazione Treccani Cultura presents two immersive evenings, designed as a single breath. Words become passageways, sounds become roots and sails. A collective and intimate reflection on who we are, what we can still preserve, save, and imagine.
The two-day Festival of the Mediterranean opens at 7:00 PM on Thursday, July 10, within the historic walls of the Ex Convento degli Agostiniani. Here begins the first act of a shared journey through the words, sounds, and visions of the Mediterranean. Welcoming the audience is not a formal ceremony, but a gesture of mutual understanding: the voices of Adriana Poli Bortone – Mayor of Lecce – and Massimo Bray – General Director of the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana Giovanni Treccani – will inaugurate this collective experience, not merely as institutional figures, but as stewards of a project steeped in memory and charged with future potential. Their contribution is not a preface, but a course being charted.
At 7:30 PM, the cloister becomes a listening space: Poetry as a tool to narrate the Mediterranean, a dialogue between Albanian poet Gëzim Hajdari and writer and essayist Angela Bubba, exploring the Mediterranean as a space of memory, conflict, migration, and resistance. Through poetic language, the mare nostrum emerges not only as a geographical place, but as a cultural and human horizon, where languages blend and identities are reshaped. An opportunity to reflect on poetry's power to preserve stories, wounds, and visions of the future.
At 9:00 PM, words give way to music: Stefano Saletti, Fabia Salvucci, and Giovanni Lo Cascio will perform a concert in homage to the ancient Sabir language, once a bridge between peoples—fishermen, merchants, travelers, soldiers, lovers. A sonic exploration of past and present, where melodies intertwine with the deep roots of our Mediterranean identity.
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