Agrigento 2025 is a disaster for now: the Italian capital of culture still in chaos

The general director of the Agrigento 2025 Foundation, Roberto Albergoni, resigned on March 25. He announced this through Repubblica, the newspaper that a few weeks earlier had broken the news that some of the planned events would be skipped-the foundation still had to approve the budget. “I am leaving my post with the knowledge that I have guaranteed the conditions for the implementation of the program and the extraordinary work of the artists involved,” said Albergoni, who spoke of a decision made some time ago (well-informed people in fact speak of a resignation ventilated several times).

This is the latest episode in a media, before organizational, ooze that has been affecting Agrigento 2025 basically since the proclamation. On Jan. 25, foundation president Giacomo Minio had resigned, with a decidedly less sweetened message. He was leaving at the mayor’s request, he had said, “to favor an exquisitely political turnover.” Minio, a Confindustriale profile and professor of cultural heritage economics, was replaced by Maria Teresa Cucinotta, a retired former prefect, to whom Regional President Renato Schifani renewed confidence, throwing rather obvious stylistics at the resigning officials. “I wish to express my full confidence in the president of the Agrigento Capital of Culture 2025 Foundation, former prefect Maria Teresa Cucinotta. Since her inauguration, she has worked with determination to put on track a structure that, until now, has lagged behind in program implementation,” he said after Albergoni’s resignation.

Those who hoped-as did Albergoni himself, publicly-that last January’s inauguration would silence the controversy were disappointed: in just a few weeks there have been manhole covers plugged, executive resignations, events postponed, budgets approved late, and a board member (dermatologist) responding to critics with a vitriolic social media video. Even before the organizational point-with an organization still to be evaluated, and we are in March-Agrigento 2025 is representing a political-media disaster. How did this happen, and what should we expect from the future?

Anatomy of a partition gone wrong

Albergoni was no ordinary technician, despite the ongoing attempt to downsize his role. In office before the foundation was even up and running, he came from the Ecua university consortium, which had edited the candidacy dossier. But-as is usual in all Italian capitals of culture-once victory came in March 2023, the first for a city administered by the center-right, it was local politics that took over the ballgame, as AgrigentoNotizie has well recounted over the months. Only that in this case the region, led by Forza Italia, wanted its share, the municipality (where Fratelli d’Italia has a relative majority) its own, the municipality of Lampedusa (central in the candidacy dossier), too, and a theater worthy of Pirandello was staged: a foundation created and financed late, a board full of technicians (not from the cultural sector) close to parties and economic groups in the area, events and calls, meanwhile, taken care of by the Archaeological Park of the Valley of the Temples, which is regionally managed.

The pre-opening slips are not counted: the logo presented in mid-2023 and modified in late 2024, because the first one was not owned by the municipality; the vertical lifting of the Telamon of the Valley of the Temples that aroused web ironies; the main event promoting the place (the Christmas concert of Il Volo recorded on August 31) that aroused hilarity as well as visibility. The event’s website a few days before the inauguration was still not online, the streets of Agrigento still to be bitumed for the arrival of institutional delegations (hence the now topical closing of manholes, resulting in a metal detector stombinamento), the president of the Region Renato Schifani not even present at the presentation of the program in Rome, January 15

In fact, however, the event is now increasingly managed on the regional level: there is a control room in operation, since March 2024, the contracts as mentioned managed mainly by the Valley of the Temples Park, a foundation that is only now coming into operation, with the budget approved, and led by a woman who has long experience of commissioner management. And she unloads no small boulders on her predecessors. “This step back by her has taken the board out of embarrassment from taking a more painful act,” he said after Albergoni’s resignation. “There is no doubt that despite Dr. Albergoni’s efforts, it is imperative to make up for the serious delays that have accumulated in project implementation.” The Sicilian city has plenty of time to have at least a late spring and summer dense with culture.

Agrigento’s uniqueness

It must be said that Agrigento 2025 is dealing with a unique situation: it is the first Italian capital of culture to coexist (probably for the last time) with a European capital of culture (a much more structured and well-known title that has been around since 1985) located in the same national territory.

In fact, when it was Matera’s turn in 2019, the Italian title invented by Dario Franceschini was not awarded. For some reason, however, in 2025, despite the fact that Gorizia is European capital together with Nova Gorica (by choice of the Slovenian government) the Italian title was equally awarded. In Gorizia there is no foundation to manage the event, a completely local specificity. Who knows, perhaps the case of Agrigento will set the standard.

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