On 8 July 2026, while Spoleto was immersed in the Festival dei Due Mondi, Palazzo Due Mondi hosted Viaggio a Lizori – Nihil jucundius vidi valle mea spoletana, an event organised by the Antonio Meneghetti Scientific and Humanistic Research Foundation and coordinated by OfArch – Officina d’Architettura.
Dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of Lizori’s restoration, the event attracted a large audience and brought the history of the village, the research developed over recent years and new possibilities for enhancing rural places into the centre of Spoleto. Engineers, architects, university professors, scholars, professionals, institutional representatives and members of the public took part in a discussion on the relationship between landscape, architecture, identity and the quality of living.
The event was held under the patronage of the Municipality of Spoleto, the Municipality of Campello sul Clitunno, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Perugia, the Order of Architects of the Province of Perugia, the Order of Engineers of the Province of Perugia and the Foundation of the Order of Engineers of the Province of Perugia.
The afternoon opened with greetings from Fabio Fabiani, representing OfArch; Danilo Chiodetti, Deputy Mayor of Spoleto; Pamela Bernabei, President of the Foundation; Filippo Ubertini, Director of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Perugia; Virna Venerucci, representing the Order of Architects of the Province of Perugia; and Moreno Marziani, representing the Order of Engineers of the Province of Perugia.
In her address, Pamela Bernabei thanked OfArch for hosting the event in a space capable of bringing Lizori into dialogue with Spoleto and the Festival. She then explained the particular significance of choosing Spoleto as the setting for the fiftieth anniversary. It was in 1976 that Antonio Meneghetti first came to the city for the Festival dei Due Mondi. He was fascinated by the Festival’s ability to bring music and architecture, theatre and philosophy, art and science into dialogue. During those days, while travelling through the Umbrian countryside, he saw Lizori for the first time. The village was then abandoned, yet he recognised a possibility where it was still difficult to imagine a living village once again.
The restoration project initiated by Antonio Meneghetti did not conceive of Lizori merely as a place to be saved, nor as a setting intended exclusively for artistic contemplation or tourism, as often happens with similar villages. Lizori could also become a place of learning, where beauty, work, research and community formed part of the same process.
“Climbing up to the village does not mean withdrawing from the world,” Pamela Bernabei recalled. “It means gaining height in order to see more clearly, and then returning to the valley with a different quality of action.”
Over the years, this insight has been developed through collaboration with the university. Research conducted in Lizori has made it possible to understand its restoration not only as a successful experience, but as a method to be studied, formalised and transmitted: a possible “Lizori code” for enhancing other rural villages without altering their character.
The discussion continued with presentations by Fabio Fabiani, Engravings for Possible Landscapes; Fabio Bianconi, The Real and Measurable Space; Ruggero Lenci, Lizori Furor Haermeticus; Alessandro Bruni, Landscape for the Quality of Living; Benedetta Terenzi, Cultural Heritage Design; and Marco Filippucci, Journey to Lizori: Landscape, Perception, Drawings.
The event also included the presentation of Viaggio a Lizori. Paesaggio, percezione, disegni (Journey to Lizori. Landscape, Perception, Drawings), a boxed set comprising two accordion-fold volumes by Fabio Bianconi and Marco Filippucci, illustrated by Claudio Patanè and published by Fiorina Edizioni: an invitation to discover the village through observation, drawing and landscape.
The large and engaged audience confirmed the value of an event that brought research beyond academic settings and placed it in direct dialogue with institutions, professional communities and members of the public. Within the cultural atmosphere of the Festival, Lizori thus returned to Spoleto fifty years after Antonio Meneghetti’s first encounter with the village.
Pamela Bernabei concluded her address by looking at the people gathered in the room: “I see a place that, fifty years ago, someone chose to love. I see many people who, after him, continued to choose it. And I see a village that has never ceased to reciprocate. Lizori does not give thanks with words. It gives thanks by remaining. And by continuing.”
