Events

Many are the occasions all year round for visiting the city and its territory. For all twelve months the visitor can enjoy its monuments and historical sites, but undoubtedly it is spring, summer and autumn that are the three important seasons in San Miniato. Each is different from the other, the colours in the countryside and on the hillsides change, and each can provoke different emotions.  In spring and summer it is the City of Theatre and plays that are the protagonist. From September on, starting with grape harvesting, it is the City of Flavours that triumphs, and as the months of October, November and December draw near, it is the White Truffles of San Miniato.CLICK HERE FOR EVENTS CALENDAR

A City of Theatre  La città del Teatro

Theatre, plays, and all types of performance have very old roots in San Miniato and are continually renewed. Many centuries ago the people of San Miniato chose as their Patron Saint St. Genesio, an actor, martyred because he portrayed the passion of Christ on stage. Was this a fluke? A coincidence? When the second world war came to San Miniato, its symbols were destroyed: Frederick II of Swabia's Rocca, many monuments and homes, and also the theatre that staged dramatic and melodramatic plays. But can these symbols really and truly be demolished? The theatre in San Miniato has been revived in its wonderfully scenic squares, and for over fifty years now, it is an extraordinary workshop of plays and performances. Since 1947, the Istituto del Dramma Popolare (Institute of Folk Drama) founded in collaboration with the Accademia di Arte Drammatica (Academy of Dramatic Art) in Rome has had its headquarters in San Miniato. Through it, San Miniato became a workshop with the objective of reacquainting a community ravaged by the war to plays. Each year the Institute stages a new dramatic play with a religious subject. It is a unique event of its kind and the most important international playright as well    as the most famous Italian theatre directors and actors flock here. For ten years San Miniato has also hosted the "Prima del Teatro"  the Scuola Europea per l'Arte dell'Attore's (European School for the Art of Acting) season events conducted by the Theatre of Pisa and the Academy of Dramatic Art Silvio D'Amico in collaboration with the European Association Training Centres for young Opera Singers. They gather together in San Miniato the finest teacher and most promising young talents in Europe during the months of June and July. Kenneth Branagh, the lead in "Shakespeare in Love" received his diploma by this school.

White truffles of San Miniato and the City of Flavours

Culture and the quality of life interwine in San Miniato: both in the urban context of the city centre and the uncontamined rural hinterland. A meeting point for the city and the countryside is the material culture of food that, in San Miniato, has deep roots in their ancient agricultural economy. San Miniato is a truffle-rich area that is one of the most ample and fruitful in Europe. The White Truffle grown in the San Miniato Hills, the tuber Magnatum Pico, is the most valuable kind of truffle.  If the San Miniato Truffles is unique, there are numerous other agricultural products that create a matchless constellation of taste and flavours. Their story is interwined with that of the people of San Miniato, who, being of a jealous nature, have always preferred to cultivate their products for their own use more than selling them to others. The wines and olive oils are the fruit of a territory that is very suited for it, especially the production of vinsanto (sweet raisin wine), made from the white grapes of San Colombano. The artichoke from San Miniato, one of the most abundant and flavourful of the varieties was well-known even in Medicean times. The Kentucky variety of tobacco has been imported for two centuries from North America and from it the "Sigaro Toscano" or Tuscan Cigar is produced. The quasi Romanesque shape of the tobacco drying structures, where the tobacco is dried, punctuates the San Miniato landscape and maintains its artisan traditions. CLICK HERE FOR WHITE TRUFFLES OF SAN MINIATO OFFICIAL SITE