To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the survey, a renewed communication campaign, simplified ways to participate and increased financial rewards for the winners. Until 10 April 2025 vote for your favorite places. It takes very little to save them!

FAI, in cooperation with Intesa Sanpaolo, is launching the twelfth edition of the “I Luoghi del Cuore” (Italian Places I Love)* survey and is calling on everyone to take part from 17 September to 10 April 2025 in the largest spontaneous mapping of Italy’s cultural and natural heritage, which for twenty years has been collecting reports of the places that Italians love most and that therefore deserve a future.

Through the survey – which to date has recorded over 11 million votes cast in favor of more than 39,000 places voted for in 6,508 municipalities (83% of the total) – FAI is helping to enhance the places that are dear to citizens, triggering a participation that extends from the communities to the institutions, both local and national, in a virtuous competition of energies and resources that unites and strengthens civil society. And the survey is just one part of the program: “I Luoghi del Cuore” is also the means to directly intervene in the recovery of some of the places voted for. The winners, in fact, receive economic prizes – this year up to 70,000 euro for the first place winner – to carry out restoration or enhancement work; and even places that have not won, but have reached the minimum threshold of 2,500 votes, can aspire to the contribution by submitting, after the survey, a project to the specific Call for Proposals*.

Since the first edition, 163 protection, restoration and valorization measures* have been supported in all regions.*

Thanks to these results, ‘I Luoghi del Cuore’ is now the most important awareness-raising tool on the value of culture at national level: not a project, but rather a long-term program dedicated to the care and enhancement of cultural heritage, unique also in Europe.

Santagata Foundation research on the impact of the Italian Places I Love

A result that emerges from the research that FAI and Intesa Sanpaolo commissioned from Fondazione Santagata per l’Economia della Cultura* in order to assess the impact of “I Luoghi del Cuore” over twenty years. The research, which measured the cultural, social, environmental and economic effects, draws a useful scenario for the country and for FAI. It recognizes, in fact, the leading role of communities, especially in small towns, as activators of virtuous processes that, starting with cultural heritage, trigger a decisive development of social policies and local economies, bringing innovation and new knowledge. A process that fully responds to FAI’s educational spirit, and to its subsidiary mission of caring for Italy’s cultural heritage, which is carried out alongside the institutions and with the full participation of citizens, starting with FAI’s volunteers and members.

A programme that is evolving and relaunching its 12th survey with important new features related to a new communication campaign, new ways of participating and a significant increase in financial rewards for winners and supported venues.

“The result that is most dear to me of these twenty years of Luoghi del Cuore is having touched with my own hands how optimistically many small and very small communities have put themselves on the line to ‘make themselves heard’, finding the courage to shout out to the world that even their small history is a living part of Italy’s Great History. Hundreds of committees, thousands of votes, many small and unknown monuments of art and nature saved to stitch together a canvas where every stitch has the right to look to the future,” says FAI President Marco Magnifico

“Intesa Sanpaolo’s presence at such an important milestone as the twentieth anniversary of “I Luoghi del Cuore” (Italian Italian Places I Love) confirms the Bank’s conviction in supporting a project that has become traditional and identifiable for Italians: an unmissable appointment with beauty and with the sense of belonging to one’s own land, and a concrete commitment to protecting the places that are part of our memory. A support that has continued since its inception in 2004 and which today brings us to celebrate together with FAI and all Italians,” says Fabrizio Paschina, Executive Director Communications and Image Intesa Sanpaolo.

Community involvement

The constant that emerged from the research – despite the diversity of local situations, the projects implemented and the effects elicited – is the trigger function that the FAI program is able to exert in the territories, becoming one of the activators of the new model of interpretation and management of cultural heritage, which sees the community as one of the central players: among the most involved, there has been a growth in awareness, an increase in volunteering and new widespread knowledge. This is a fundamental educational role, achieved at national level: an example of this is the rock church of the Crocifisso in Lentini (SR)*, where the program’s support has led to the attraction of other contributions, which have enabled new restoration work and the renovation of the scenic access path; in addition, the church is now periodically opened by a group of volunteers.

The triggering capacity is even more evident in inland areas, which are more fragile territories with fewer resources available than central areas. Of 141 municipalities in which the 163 projects supported fall, as many as 58 are classified as inland areas (41%). Here, ‘I Luoghi del Cuore’ best expresses the subsidiary role sanctioned by Article 118 of the Constitution, which – in anticipation of the Faro Convention, the Council of Europe’s framework convention on the value of cultural heritage for society, defined in 2005 and finally ratified by Italy in 2020 – mobilizes virtuous mechanisms of ‘participation from below’, in which citizens themselves are actively involved in heritage management practices.

Inland areas

It is especially in these areas – particularly in small municipalities with less than one thousand inhabitants – that the program’s support has generated a direct economic return, with an increase in the activities of tourism operators in the financed locations and long-term benefits in the areas of sustainable development, transport and town planning.

In fact, the program proves to be an effective tool for attracting economic contributions thanks to the visibility acquired during the survey and the funding flywheel generated by the “I Luoghi del Cuore” contribution: as many as one fifth of the places supported by the program have the capacity to multiply the initial contribution allocated by twenty times. in some cases, the resources collected even exceeded 1 million euros.

These figures confirm that participation in the program significantly raises the visibility of the place, allowing links to be forged with local players willing to invest large sums of money, but also with active collaboration on the part of the institutions, for a deeper appreciation of the local heritage. This is what happened at the Complesso di Santa Croce in Bosco Marengo (AL)*, where a place that was neglected for years is now enhanced and can be visited: it is the remarkable Vasari Museum, where I Luoghi del Cuore has been joined by institutions – from the Municipality to the Superintendency to the Ministry of the Interior – and public and private financiers, with an otherwise unthinkable result.

Attention to the environment and the culture of value

Two interesting observations concern the environmental sphere: on the one hand, the high number of places voted for – as many as 12,000, but only 2,300 of which fall within natural SCI or SPA areas – highlights a need on the part of local communities to safeguard propertys that are not yet protected and safeguarded by specific regulations or are at risk, a need expressed precisely through participation in the survey, identified as an effective tool. On the other hand, “I Luoghi del Cuore” generates through project support a series of direct effects, of different types: in some cases, more broadly landscape-related, with the redevelopment of degraded green areas or with projects marked by eco-sustainability; in others, the intervention has served to foil actions damaging the landscape. In still other cases, these were strictly environmental initiatives, such as the innovative pilot project devised by the CNR IRSA of Verbania Pallanza for Lake Orta and its ecosystem*, which tested, with positive results, the possibility of restoring coastal sediments through the use of freshwater mussels, which also act as bio sentinels, signaling pollutant spills with their closure. Moreover, the great visibility brought by participation in the survey led to the signing, among over 70 public and private subjects of a Lake Contract, an important governance tool for local development processes, thus adding an important social effect in addition to the environmental one.

“I Luoghi del Cuore” generates, in short, impacts of a transversal type, concerning both the care of places and the growth of civic commitment and the attraction of economic resources and professionalism; it contributes, therefore, to the dissemination of the so-called ‘culture of value’, a decisive element to trigger innovation processes.

Student involvement

An important social element participating in and benefiting from the program is schools. In fact, in more than half of the places supported, students, particularly from primary and secondary schools, were involved in the survey. In addition, several places restored or enhanced thanks to the program have seen an increase in school audiences and educational visits, further highlighting the growing attention of educational institutions to this issue.

What’s new in the 2024 edition

On its 20th anniversary, the survey sees important changes:

– A revamped online participation system that is quick and easy. From 17 September to 10 April 2025, you can vote at www.iluoghidelcuore.it* or through downloadable paper forms available for each place. You can vote for as many Italian Places I Love as you wish, with no numerical limit. If your favorite place is not already on the site, you can enter it at any time. Anyone can vote adults and minors, Italians and foreigners. You can form a group – and register it through the “promote”* section of the site – in favor of a place of the heart, on which to focus a collection of votes, using the materials available in each place card.

– New financial prizes for the winners. The contributions made available to support the projects rise to 600,000 euros in total, i.e. 200,000 euros more than in previous editions: specifically, the first-place winner will be awarded 70,000 euros, the second 60,000 euros, the third 50,000 euros, with 20,000 more for each of the winners. The budget for the post-survey calls for entries, which will be opened in 2025, after the announcement of the results and in which places that have reached a minimum threshold of 2,500 votes will be able to participate, will also see a consequent increase: It will indeed be possible to apply for contributions of up to 50,000 euros (instead of up to 30,000).

– A new logo and communication campaign, aimed at involving more and more people, were designed by the Milan-based agency GB22.

*articles in Italian.