Tracce di Parole: Anita Pittoni and Giani Stuparich in Trieste

“Where places meet stories”

Mini Photo-Literary Festival

Trieste, February 7-8, 2026
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Exhibit Around APS, together with the LETS Letteratura Trieste Museum and the Municipality of Trieste/Comune di Trieste, organises Tracce di Parole, a mini photo-literary festival dedicated to Anita Pittoni and Giani Stuparich. The festival invites participants to rediscover, through words and images, two figures who left a lasting imprint on Trieste’s cultural and intellectual life in the 20th century.

On February 7 and 8, literature, photography, and cultural tourism will come together in an immersive experience that connects places, memories, and stories.

Tracce di Parole is part of the call within the DANTE project, co-financed by the European Union under the Interreg VI-A Italy-Slovenia Programme.

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A festival in the places of the authors

The festival stems from the desire to highlight Trieste’s cultural heritage, offering two days of talks and urban walks through the locations frequented and described by Pittoni and Stuparich.

The itineraries dedicated to Anita Pittoni and Giani Stuparich intersect and mirror each other, portraying a city experienced through two different yet deeply aligned perspectives. Their human and intellectual connection emerges along routes that go beyond biographical stops, including historic cafés, libraries, archives, and museums as nodes of a narrative network linking memory and the present.

Saturday, October 7 – Giani Stuparich (1891-1961)
Writer and intellectual, and founder in 1946 of the Circolo della Cultura e delle Arti di Trieste, Stuparich’s day will follow an itinerary including Caffè alla Stazione, the former Dante High School, and Caffè Tommaseo. Readings from Guerra del ’15 and Un anno di scuola will bring his literary and moral vision back to life in the very places that inspired his writing.

Sunday, October 8 – Anita Pittoni (1901-1982)
Writer, editor, and founder of the Lo Zibaldone publishing house, Pittoni’s day will explore key places of her life and work: from Piazza Unità d’Italia and the city’s literary cafés, to via San Nicolò, her home-salon on via della Cassa di Risparmio, and the Hortis Library. Readings from Passeggiata armata and Diario 1944-1945 will bring to life the intimate and original voice of one of Trieste’s most important female figures of the 20th century.

Daily programme

• Mornings – Sessions with scholars, archivists, and photographers, accompanied by visual and archival materials, reconstructing the cultural and historical context and the spaces frequented by the authors (for example, Anita Pittoni’s studio, a hub for writers of the time, documented by Marion Wulz of the renowned Triestine photography family). The talks with Riccardo Cepach, Head of the LETS Museum, Claudia Colecchia, Head of the Phototheque and Library of the Civic Museums of History and Art of the Municipality of Trieste, and photographer Emiliano Cribari will take place on Saturday, February 7 at Sala Selva-Palazzo Gopcevich and on Sunday, February 8 at the LETS Museum.
• Afternoons – Photo-literary walks led by a literature expert, accompanied by Emiliano Cribari, poet, photographer, and “seeker of lost places.” Along the route, participants will enjoy anecdotes and readings while being guided in taking evocative photographs inspired by the texts, transforming the walk into a personal and creative exploration of the city.

Participants will receive at the beginning of the day the Traveller’s Notebook, a pocket guide with space for personal notes, sketches, and stamps of the completed stops, to collect during the meetings and walks.

With Tracce di Parole, Exhibit Around renews its commitment to telling the story of the territory through images, narratives, and community. The festival opens a new, participatory form of literary tourism, inviting citizens, students, and visitors to rediscover the city creatively and sustainably. This laboratory of experience may expand across the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, highlighting it as a land of authors, living memories, and creativity.

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Tracce di Parole is part of the DANTE project, co-funded by the European Union under the Interreg VI-A Italy-Slovenia Programme.

Exhibit Around APS organises the event in collaboration with the LETS Museum – Literature Trieste and the Municipality of Trieste, with contributions from Riccardo Cepach (LETS Museum) and Claudia Colecchia (Fototeca, Civic Museums of History and Art), and Emiliano Cribari, writer, poet, photographer, and environmental guide, and expert literature guide Paolo Stenese.

www.ita-slo.eu/dante
Read this article in Slovenian (PDF)
Participation / registration form