On October 20th at 6:30 pm at the Giuseppe Toniolo Auditorium of the Opera della Primaziale Pisana, Davide Rondoni, poet and president of the National Committee for the celebration of the eighth centenary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi, will propose an open meeting for the city to reflect on the figure of Francis eight hundred years after his death.
Not the saint tamed by habit, but a restless, radical, wounded man capable of joy. On Tuesday, October 20, at 6:30 pm, the Giuseppe Toniolo Auditorium of the Opera della Primaziale Pisana, in Piazza Arcivescovado in Pisa, will host Davide Rondoni for the meeting “The Wound, the Joy”, the title of the volume published by Fazi in 2025 and dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi. The event, promoted by the Opera della Primaziale Pisana in the eighth centenary of the saint's death, is open to all, with free admission and no reservations required.
A poet and writer, Rondoni is president of the National Committee for the Celebration of the Eighth Centenary of the Death of Saint Francis of Assisi, established to accompany 2026 with a cultural program dedicated to Franciscan life, work, and places.
The title of the meeting, organized by the Opera della Primaziale Pisana, already contains the key to reflection. “The wound” and “the joy” are not two extremes to be separated, but two dimensions that in the Francis recounted by Rondoni can be together. The book, in fact, chooses the form of an imaginary dialogue, a face-to-face that removes the saint from the reassuring and somewhat’ distant image of conventional devotion in order to restore him as a living, impetuous man, capable of conflict, poverty, amazement and a joy that does not coincide with the absence of pain.
This is precisely one of the most topical reasons for the Franciscan figure: the possibility of questioning the present without reducing Francis to an icon. Rondoni's story explores the relationship between love and possession, the connection to creation, peace, brotherhood, and the question of what truly makes a life happy. “Life itself can become fertile even in the harshest and most adverse situations”, Rondoni observed when speaking of the Franciscan meaning of joy: not escape from reality, therefore, but a radical way of crossing it.
The meeting is part of a journey of attention to Saint Francis that the Opera della Primaziale Pisana has developed throughout 2026, also through music and culture. In the year of its eighth centenary, the Canticle of the Creatures was chosen as the text of the 18th edition of the Anima Mundi International Sacred Composition Competition, while the Organ Vespers program welcomed musical tributes to the figure of the saint. On October 20, the reflection shifts to words and poetry, relying on one of the voices that are most directly accompanying the national celebrations.
Davide Rondoni
Davide Rondoni (Forlì, 1964) is a poet, writer, playwright and translator. He founded the Center for Contemporary Poetry at the University of Bologna and the magazine “clanDestino”; he is president of MUNAF - National Museum of Photography. In 2025 he published for Fazi “La ferita, la letizia” and is president of the National Committee for the celebration of the eighth centenary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Information
Martedì 20 ottobre 2026, ore 18:30
Auditorium Giuseppe Toniolo - Opera della Primaziale Pisana
Piazza Arcivescovado, Pisa
Free entry without reservation
