With 1,500,638 votes collected in 2022 for more than 38,800 places, the “Italian Places I Love” (I Luoghi del Cuore) survey confirms itself as the most important Italian campaign to raise people’s awareness of the value of heritage and the need to protect and enhance it, as is FAI’s mission. Discover the final ranking!

THE PODIUM

1) Chiesa di San Pietro dei Samari nel Parco di Gallipoli

2) Museo dei Misteri, Campobasso

3) Chiesa di San Giacomo della Vittoria

The ranking of the best-rated “Italian Places I Love” was announced at a press conference, in the presence of Marco Magnifico, FAI President, and Gian Maria Gros-Pietro, Intesa Sanpaolo President, and with the participation of the representatives of the three winning properties, which will receive, in return for a project, a contribution for restoration and enhancement.

To discover the final ranking of the winners click here.

ITALIAN PLACES I LOVE 2022
The spontaneous drive of the survey brings to light small and large monuments, unpublished and sometimes surprising places and stories. Small lost churches, abandoned or degraded villas and palaces, but also forgotten railways and historical paths, damaged or threatened natural or rural areas, great architecture, as well as hidden frescoes or museum collections that hand down unmissable local traditions.

The first places in the national ranking are as follows: first, is the Chiesetta di San Pietro dei Samari in Gallipoli (LE), a small medieval building immersed in the Salento countryside less than a kilometre from the sea, now at risk of collapse, voted by 51,443 people, more than twice the number of inhabitants of the Apulian town. Second place, with 32,271 votes, goes to the Museo dei Misteri in Campobasso, which for the first time in the history of the census brings Molise to the podium with 32.271 votes, and where the “ingegni” on which children dressed as sacred characters are hoisted during the annual Corpus Domini procession, still alive and heartfelt since the eighteenth century, are preserved. In third place is the Church of San Giacomo della Vittoria in Alessandria, full of ex-votos testifying to the community’s historical affection, but now only occasionally officiated and in need of restoration. There are thus three places of worship, and popular devotion on the podium, and no less than 45 religious properties are in the top 100 positions, confirming the role of community fulcrum that churches still play in Italy “of a thousand bell towers”, but also a wake-up call for the protection of heritage, large and widespread, of historical and artistic, as well as social, value.

Continuing to scroll through the top ten positions, at fourth place, we find the Via Vandelli, between Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, one of the first carriage roads built in Europe in the 18th century, parts of which are still intact in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, voted by 26,261 people to be upgraded as a Way, followed at fifth place by the Casa del Mutilato in Alessandria, with 25,350 votes, a significant abandoned building from the 1940s that is however destined to become the headquarters of the local Confindustria section. And again, at 6th place, with 22,890 votes, is the Basilica dei Fieschi in Cogorno (GE), one of the best-preserved monuments between Romanesque and Gothic in Liguria; in 7th place is the Chiesa Di Santa Maria di Castello, also in Alessandria, which garnered 22,574 votes thanks to a mobilisation that began last November after a collapse that damaged it, while in 8th place is, with 20.194 votes, the winner of the special ranking dedicated in 2022 to The Villages and their places: the medieval village of Cremolino, in upper Monferrato, on top of a hill surrounded by vineyards and overlooking the Alps, in search of revitalisation and enhancement. At the bottom of the list, in 9th place with 19,001 mentions, is the Villaggio operaio di Crespi d’Adda in Capriate San Gervasio (BG), built in 1878 and included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995 for its exceptional integrity, but in need of conservation work, and in 10th place is Villa Mirabellino in the Parco della Reggia di Monza, built in 1776 by architect Giulio Galliori for Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini, which has been in a state of total abandonment for decades and was voted by 17.933 people to urge its restoration.