May 2026
Meeting 2026 kicks off with “Anteprima Meeting”, the event held on Monday, May 11, at the Teatro Galli in Rimini, which offered the public a first look at this year’s edition, scheduled from August 21 to 26, 2026, at the Rimini Expo Centre under the title “The love which moves the sun and the other stars”.
The contents of the exhibitions, shows, and the Children’s Village, as well as sports and catering for Meeting 2026, have been published on the website meetingrimini.org. This edition promises to be particularly rich in content, meetings, and exhibition paths, and will be marked by the extraordinary presence of Pope Leo XIV, who will visit the Meeting on the afternoon of Saturday, August 22, and deliver a speech.
Starting Tuesday, May 12, the pre-sale of tickets for paid shows also began on the vivaticket.it platform, and the season of “Meet the Meeting” opened—a journey of anticipation for the contents of Meeting 2026 and support for its realization, taking place in dozens of Italian cities and abroad. Meet the Meeting will continue until July 31 with events, meetings, and in-depth sessions.
Alessandro Preziosi becomes Galileo Galilei for one evening
The protagonist of the evening at the Teatro Galli was the actor Alessandro Preziosi, who presented a dramatic reading of “Celeste Galileo” by Giampiero Pizzol, accompanied by the cello of Veronica Conti. It was an intense moment, capable of creating a dialogue between science, art, and the search for meaning through the figure of Galileo Galilei. Marco Bersanelli, Professor of Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Milan, then offered a reflection on the relationship between scientific knowledge and human experience, accompanied by spectacular astronomical images from the Hubble and James Webb telescopes.
The evening concluded, following greetings from Mayor Jamil Sadegholvaad and the Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Emilia-Romagna Region Manuela Rontini, with a speech by the President of the Meeting Bernhard Scholz, who previewed the main themes of the event.
On the structural, logistical, and service side, Meeting 2026 will feature many unique characteristics. Exhibition spaces will amount to over 10,000 square meters, catering seating will exceed 6,000, and there will be 170 partner companies, including Main Partners Intesa Sanpaolo and Generali Cattolica, and Official Partners Autostrade per l’Italia, ACI, Confagricoltura, Enel, isybank, Ferrovie dello Stato, Fondazione Ania, Gruppo La Cascina, Montello, Drivalia, and Novo Nordisk.
The Meeting, which will remain open every day until midnight, confirms its status as the only major Italian event with free admission and parking; it is made even more unique by the contribution of three thousand volunteers from Italy and abroad.
The statements of Bernhard Scholz and Marco Bersanelli
«The anticipation of Pope Leo XIV makes us even more aware of the gift of being at the service of a dialogue open to all and a friendship that reflects that love of which Dante speaks in the last verse of the Divine Comedy», stated President Scholz. «Through the exhibitions, shows, and the Children’s Village, we want to present experiences, initiatives, reflections, and works of art that have allowed themselves to be moved by this love and which, in turn, have moved the world around them toward a growth of goodness and freedom. If the principle that moves the universe, down to subatomic particles, is a principle of love that desires to involve our existence as well, then we can only be grateful for the testimonies and examples of people who have welcomed this love into their lives, their relationships, and their professional, artistic, and cultural endeavors.»
«The Dantean verse that provides the title for the Meeting invites us to lift our gaze and let ourselves be questioned by the vastness of the universe, whose movement is sustained by a wonderful order that science reveals to us with increasing depth», commented Professor Bersanelli. «At the Meeting, astronomical images will be proposed which, as Pope Leo XIV commented, “fill us [...] with wonder and, in fact, with a mysterious joy as we contemplate their sublime beauty.” It will be an opportunity to open our eyes to a vast world of which we are an infinitesimal part, but one traversed by a meaning that includes and surpasses us.»
The full program of Meeting 2026, including the conferences, will be presented on Wednesday, July 8, in Rome at Palazzo Borromeo, thanks to the hospitality of the Italian Embassy to the Holy See.
