On Saturday, February 21, 2026, starting at 11:00 am, the inauguration of the new exhibitions at Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto is scheduled. The cycle, which will last until the beginning of June 2026, covering the spring period, includes four new exhibition projects: Minor Life. St. Francis and the sanctity of contemporary art, a collective exhibition curated by Gianni and Giuseppe Garrera; Agrarian, a solo exhibition by Franco Troiani curated by Saverio Verini; Sculpture speaks louder than words, a solo exhibition by Barry Flanagan curated by Jo Melvin; Experimental Lyric. Author's Posters, an exhibition that includes a selection of original sketches of the posters from the Experimental Lyric Theater of Spoleto "A.Belli" curated by Raffaella Clerici and Saverio Verini.

With this series of events, Palazzo Collicola offers the public a path that intertwines historical memory and contemporary sensibility, strengthening the dialogue between art and territory.

On the ground floor of the museum, the collective exhibition Minor Life. St. Francis and the sanctity of contemporary art will be set up, created on the occasion of the eighth centenary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi. Curated by Gianni and Giuseppe Garrera, the project proposes a contemporary reinterpretation of the figure of the Saint, deeply connected to the Umbrian and Spoletan territory: Francesco chose Monteluco, the mountain that rises in front of Spoleto, as a place of prayer and contemplation and, according to tradition, uttered the famous phrase "Nihil jucundius vidi valle mea spoletana" - "I have never seen anything more joyful than my Spoletan valley" - which still today testifies to his privileged relationship with the context.

The exhibition retraces the radical and impracticable example of St. Francis - of the adventure and parable of the Saint - through luminous fragments found in contemporary works of art. Imagining the impossibility of actually having direct contact with St. Francis, only the splinters are found, like those of a broken vase to be reassembled, embedded in special and authentic moments of contemporary research. The exhibition path, conceived as an exchange of signs between historical memory and contemporary sensibility, is based on loans from the private collections of the curators, the result of careful collection and selection over the past twenty years, enriched by national and international loans and by site-specific works created for the historical spaces of the palace.

Starting from the concept of "minority," understood as a challenge to society and a rejection of all its principles to "become smaller" and serve others, the exhibition attempts to evoke and reinterpret the fundamental values of St. Francis - absolute poverty, becoming smaller, corporeality and nudity, abdication of the human in front of animals, love for creatures - not through traditional images, but through the "example" of contemporary artistic practices articulated in sections dedicated to different themes: the exclusive presence of the Gospel; the radical condemnation of every aspect of wealth; language as a tool of control and power to be demolished; submission to nature and creation up to the glory of fraternity with death. The path also focuses with particular dedication on active sanctity, founded on miracles, and on female privilege, with references to Saint Clare and to enclosure as a choice of introspection and resistance.

Historic artists such as Alberto Burri, Gino De Dominicis, Jimmie Durham, Leoncillo, Yoko Ono, Giulio Paolini, Salvo, Anna Torelli, together with others from subsequent generations such as Luca Bertolo, Matteo Fato, Flavio Favelli, Cesare Pietroiusti, Tomas Saraceno, Luca Vitone, to name just a few, offer visitors new and suggestive interpretations of Franciscan thought, transforming Palazzo Collicola into a space where history interacts with the contemporary.
Each room thus becomes a place of spiritual exercise, meditation, contemplation, and wonder, where the aesthetic heritage of St. Francis intertwines with contemporary artistic sensibility, offering an experience that renews the perception of the sacred and of living in the world against the world itself.