Testo, the book and publishing fair in Florence
From 28 February to 2 March, the Stazione Leopolda hosts 176 publishing houses and a rich programme of events, presentations and guests
“Since 2022 Testo has been recounting the journey that books take, from conception in the publishing house to the eyes of readers,” says Agostino Poletto, general director of Pitti Immagine. ”Now in its fourth edition, TESTO confirms itself as a sensitive observatory on contemporary and international publishing.”
The event, scheduled from Feb. 28 to March 2 at the Stazione Leopolda in Florence, is developed around a unique format: seven thematic stations that guide visitors through the world of books, involving publishers, authors, translators, illustrators and readers in three days of meetings, presentations, workshops and original productions.
Testo 2024How the Fair is organized
Publishers: in the two aisles of the Stazione Leopolda, in the layout curated by Alessandro Moradei, each publisher offers a selection of titles, chosen from its own catalog and from new releases, organized on large tables and bookcases. Through discussions with editors, writers and press offices and guided tours by booksellers, readers can immerse themselves in the spirit of the proposals as if exploring a large and varied bookstore.
The Seven Stations: the life cycle of the book is recreated at the Leopolda through a seven-station tour: The manuscript, The flap, The translation, The sign, The story, The bookstore, The reader. The program is put together by the team of Stationmasters consisting of Luca Briasco, foreign fiction editor, literary agent, translator and publisher of minimum fax; Andrea Gessner, publisher of nottetempo; Beatrice Masini translator, writer and division director of Bompiani; Chiara Carpenter and Giovanna Silva, editor and photographer respectively, souls of Humboldt Books; Leonardo G. Luccone, writer and director of Oblique Studio; Maddalena Fossombroni and Pietro Torrigiani, founders of the Todo Modo bookstore; Riccardo Ventrella, international relations manager of the Fondazione Teatro della Toscana
Stare: the Manifesto of Text 2025
The 2025 edition has Stare as its leitmotif, a statement of intent that invites us to stay and listen, stay and read, stay and think. A call for awareness, slowness and depth in order to contribute more meaningfully to the contemporary cultural debate.
Building on this concept, the festival offers a series of encounters and immersive experiences:
Deep Listening: an exploration of deep listening theorized by Pauline Oliveros, to reconnect with one's senses.
Lucretius Unhurried: a journey through De Rerum Natura thanks to Milo De Angelis' translation.
Poetry and Spirituality: an anthology with the most beautiful verses dedicated to God, edited by Davide Brullo, Nicola Crocetti and Antonio Spadaro.
Literary meditation: a session led by Ubiliber.
Homage to Tanizaki Jun'ichirō: with Luisa Bienati and Chiara Valerio, an immersion in the work of the great Japanese writer.
Nature Time: a special meeting with Fabio Genovesi and Malachy Tallack on books and fishing, and a reflection on “being like a leaf” with neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso.
Program and events at Stazione Leopolda
Testofficina, Pitti Immagine's new project within Testo, which from 2025 becomes part of the show's program and which, through seminars and workshops led by protagonists of the Italian and international publishing world-from Luciano Perondi to the Maximage studio, from Sebastian Budgen of Verso Books to Saverio Raimondo and Lorenzo Mattotti-targets those interested in learning more about specific aspects of the publishing and artistic professions. More information here.
Saverio RaimondoFor the first time, the Region of Tuscany will also be present at TESTO with its own space dedicated to the remembrance of Oliviero Toscani and his commitment to Toscana delle Donne, the regional project that also pursues gender equality by mobilizing protagonists and leading figures in the cultural world. The space will host meetings dedicated to the various regional projects devoted to the promotion of reading, libraries, publishing initiatives of the Region of Tuscany, and the activities of the Stamperia Braille.
The now classic appointment with a great writer retracing his beginnings is back. After Marco Missiroli, Simona Vinci, Niccolò Ammaniti and Emanuele Trevi, it is the turn of Diego De Silva, whose first novel, La donna di scorta, was published in 1999 by Pequod (and then republished by Einaudi in 2001). I titoli di coda di una vita insieme (Einaudi, 2024) is his most recent novel and seems to recall his very debut: why De Silva will tell in dialogue with Luca Briasco, retracing his 25-year career.
Space in this station will also be given to writing schools to reflect on their increasingly evident role as a trait d'union between debut writers and publishers willing to publish them: Bottega di narrazione, Fenysia - School of Cultural Languages and Belleville School of Writing will participate. They will also talk with Calvino Prize President Mario Marchetti, who over the years has launched numerous first-time writers thanks to a well-tested selection mechanism and quality.
In Testo we celebrate Jane Austen, whose 250th anniversary of her birth falls: the English author will be the protagonist of a workshop (actually a real competition!) curated by Liliana Rampello, Stella Sacchini and Beatrice Masini dedicated to the incipit and ending of Pride and Prejudice and the history of its many translations. Another celebrated author is F. Scott Fitzgerald: Mario Fortunato will speak about The Great Gatsby. And again, Milo De Angelis will recount his Lucretius with readings by Viviana Nicodemo.
In the sign station, dedicated to reflecting on editorial graphics, we will find Francesco Franchi, graphic designer and editor-in-chief of Repubblica, with whom the relationship between design and editorial product will be explored with particular reference on the design of an editorial experience able to respond and adapt to new information consumption. Matteo Codignola, writer and translator, will dialogue with Ferdinando Scianna around the relationship between photography and writing.
Testo 2025 will also be an opportunity to deal with comics and to meet, together again after forty years, Igort, Lorenzo Mattotti, Giorgio Carpinteri, Marcello Jori, Daniele Brolli and Jerry Kramsky, namely the members of Valvoline, the collective that revolutionized Italian comics. A meeting with the Bao publishing house will discuss how that of comics can be a rebellious language, while graphic novels will be discussed with Spanish illustrator Ilu Ros, who dedicated her latest work to Federico García Lorca (Ventanas).
A Testo will also have a space dedicated to the short form with the Speedy Bookclub formula: some short stories will be read live and will be hotly discussed. No prior preparation is required: we will read and comment together!
At TEXT 2025 many international guests bring their voices. Tracy Chevalier, author of the international hit The Girl with the Pearl Earring (Neri Pozza, 2000). Also coming to Florence will be British writer Max Porter, who will release Shy (Sellerio) on Feb. 18. From Ireland comes Paul Murray with The Day of the Bee (forthcoming from Einaudi with a translation by Tommaso Pincio). From Hungary will come László Krasznahorkai, one of the most relevant contemporary writers. Mokhtar Amoudi, a French author who made his debut in 2023 with The Ideal Conditions (forthcoming from Gramma Feltrinelli), will be in Italy for the first time. Mazen Maarouf, writer, poet, journalist and translator was born in Lebanon to a Palestinian refugee family: today he lives between Beirut and Reykjavík, where he was welcomed in 2011 by the organization ICORN (International Cities of Refuge Network).
Testo 2024Events outside Stazione Leopolda:
On Thursday, Feb. 27 at 6 p.m., the Zubin Mehta Auditorium of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino will host the Alessandro Barbero STA meeting. The writer will be in dialogue with journalist and writer Caterina Soffici around his latest book Russian Novel (Sellerio).
Alessandro Barbero Friday, Feb. 28, opens with special tours of the Bonsanti Contemporary Archive. In two shifts, at 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., the visit will include the rooms of Pratolini, Dallapiccola, Pasolini and Arbasino, the Restoration Laboratory, as well as the exhibition on the typewriters of the great authors of the 20th century and the exhibition dedicated to Pavese. With reservations required at archivio@vieusseux.it. At 5 p.m., the tribute to Mario Luzi 20 years after his death with speeches by Antonio Prete, Marco Marchi and Stefano Verdino, with readings from Buio Sangue, by Fulvio Cauteruccio and background music from Richard Strauss's Metamorphoses.
Saturday, March 1 many meetings also at the Museo del Novecento. At 2 p.m. Veronica Galletta will converse with Ilaria Giannini around her Malotempo (Minimum Fax, 2025); at 3 p.m. a meeting dedicated to the Biblioteca di Letteratura Inutile series published by Italo Svevo publishing house, editorial design between fiction, reportage and literary criticism will be discussed with Dario De Cristofaro, Matteo Moca, Michele Neri. At 4 p.m. Malcomune, the Administrative Whirlpool. Inclusion and Resilience in Politics Today with Simone Lenzi and Federico Maria Sardelli curated by Linkiesta; at 5 p.m. Narrating Cultural Heritage, a meeting with Giovanni Carrada who will present, together with James M. Bradburne, his Why Don't You Speak? (Johan &
Levi, 2025). At 6 p.m. Pietro Grossi will talk about his latest novel Qualcuno di noi (Mondadori, 2025) together with Alberto Rollo and Caterina Soffici.For the first time, the Testo program will be enriched by collaboration with the Fondazione per l'Artigianato Istituto de' Bardi, at which four meetings will be held, in addition to the one with writer Tim Ingold, author of The Future Behind. Rethinking Generations (Meltemi, 2024) scheduled in Leopolda. The program in detail:
Friday, Feb. 28 10 a.m.-1 p.m. - Visit to the paper restoration workshop;
Saturday, March 1 10 a.m.-1 p.m. - Making the Party. Techniques, practices and policies (from a text) -
3-6 p.m. - Basketry workshop;
Sunday, March 2 3-6 p.m. - Paper from beached seagrass.On Friday, February 28, at 6 p.m., the La Specola Museum of Natural History will host lida Turpeinen
who, in dialogue with Dente, will present his L'ultima sirena (Neri Pozza, 2024). This will be followed by a
guided tour of the museum.The Opera di Santa Croce, which has hosted writer Colum McCann in recent weeks on the
occasion of Context, opens the Oratory on Saturday, March 1 at 6 p.m. for a lectio by Stefano
Mancuso titled Sto come una foglia, one of the “declinations” of the TESTO 2025 theme dedicated
to Being. At 7 p.m. another of this edition's tributes with Dante FA TESTO with
Giuseppe Patota, author of Sto a tu per tu con Dante (Laterza, 2025).A rich program of screenings and meetings opens at Cinema La Compagnia (Via Cavour 50r) on Testo days. It begins on Friday, February 28 at 7 p.m. with Oh, Canada - Paul Schrader's Betrayals starring Richard Gere and Uma Thurman. On Saturday, March 1 at 3 p.m. The Famous Invasion of the Bears in Sicily, a 2019 animated film directed by Lorenzo Mattotti, also the host of one of Testofficina's workshops. Finally on Sunday, March 2 at 6:30 and 9 p.m. scheduled the first two episodes of L'arte della gioia, the TV miniseries to be released on Feb. 28 by Sky Atlantic, directed by Valeria Golino, and based on the novel of the same name by Goliarda Sapienza (Einaudi). Tickets: 6 euros full, 5 euros reduced, 3 euros reduced by presenting the TESTO 2025 ticket at the box office.
