Sometimes we take to the skies and travel miles to find what, to our eyes, is a wonder, yet places close to us exist that are ready to surprise us and reveal themselves. This is exactly the Italy portrayed by the provisional ranking of the 13th census “Places of the Heart” by FAI, which honours natural landscapes, abbeys, villages, churches, historic bridges, and emblematic sites of our local communities.
From the spectacular Lame di Puglia, currently at the top of the rankings, to Spirit de Milan, passing through rupestrian caves, mountain lighthouses and ancient religious complexes, emerges an alternative geography of the Bel Paese, made of treasures to be reassessed and protected. The census will remain open until December 15, 2026 and anyone can still contribute with their vote, while the final ranking will be announced in February 2027.
Preliminary ranking of the 20 FAI Places of the Heart with the most votes
Just over two months after the census opened, more than 350,000 votes have already been cast, a sign of the strong bond between local communities and their cultural and natural heritage. Here is the ranking as it stands today:
1. Lame di Puglia (Bari, Apulia) – 21,801 votes;
2. Grotte Rupestri di Verzino (Crotone, Calabria) – 11,915 votes;
3. Convento dei Frati Cappuccini di Renacavata, Camerino (Macerata, Marche) – 10,192 votes;
4. Villa San Leonardo al Palco (Prato, Tuscany) – 6,073 votes;
5. Santuario delle Sette Chiese (Monselice, Padua, Veneto) – 5,849 votes;
6. Ponte San Michele (Paderno d’Adda, Lecco, Lombardia) – 4,606 votes;
7. Cascina Monluè (Milan, Lombardy) – 4,443 votes;
8. Convento di San Domenico (Taggia, Imperia, Liguria) – 3,775 votes;
9. Chiesa di San Giovanni (Portogruaro, Venice, Veneto) – 3,756 votes;
10. Abbazia Benedettina dei Santi Nicola e Paolo VI (Rodengo Saiano, Brescia, Lombardy) – 3,605 votes;
11. Faro Voltiano (Brunate, Como, Lombardy) – 3,582 votes;
12. Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo di Pegazzano (La Spezia, Liguria) – 3,451 votes;
13. Antica Tipografia Masciangelo (Lanciano, Chieti, Abruzzo) – 3,302 votes;
14. Parco dei Rimbocchi (Perugia, Umbria) – 3,217 votes;
15. Villa Pignatelli di Montecalvo (San Giorgio a Cremano, Naples, Campania) – 3,103 votes;
16. Abbazia della Sacra di San Michele (Sant’Ambrogio di Torino, Piemonte) – 2,823 votes;
17. Villa Romana (Casignana, Reggio Calabria) – 2,815 votes;
18. Parco dell’Hangar Dirigibile (Augusta, Syracuse, Sicily) – 2,726 votes;
19. Badia San Lorenzo (Casamassima, Bari, Apulia) – 2,622 votes;
20. Spirit de Milan (Milan, Lombardy) – 2,615 votes.
Why this ranking tells a new Italy
What stands out are not only the numbers, but above all the variety of places chosen by Italians. At the top we find the Lame di Puglia, an extraordinary system of karst valleys linking the Murge plateau to the Adriatic Sea and safeguarding a heritage of farmhouses, rural churches, towers, and biodiversity that many local authorities now wish to protect.
Following are the Grotte Rupestri di Verzino, ancient prehistoric shelters nestled within the Regional Natural Reserve of the Vitravo River, and the Convento di Renacavata, regarded as the first seat of the Order of the Capuchin Friars and a stop on the increasingly frequented Cammino dei Cappuccini.
The ranking demonstrates that Italian heritage is not composed solely of grand art cities. Among the most voted sites are indeed a lighthouse built at almost a thousand meters above sea level, an old 19th-century printing shop, a cast-iron bridge emblematic of industrial engineering, medieval monasteries, historic villas, and even the Spirit de Milan, an example of the recovery of industrial archaeology that in recent years has become one of Bovisa’s main cultural reference points.
The FAI census also serves as a concrete tool for valorization: places that reach at least 3,000 votes can indeed propose recovery projects and compete for financial contributions intended for the conservation of cultural heritage.
