An extended version of this video can be found on the Mission & History page of this website as well as on our Youtube Channel.
Civitella is a residency program for international writers, composers, and visual artists. Since 1995, Civitella has hosted more than 1,000 Fellows and Director’s Guests. The Center enables its Fellows to pursue their work and to exchange ideas in a unique and inspiring setting.
“Every once in a while, if you are lucky, you get to experience a place so beautiful that you get an overwhelming sense that the creativity of the universe, of nature, is more splendid than anything anyone could have imagined. This is home. A place in time, remembered with those with whom you shared it. Such is, and will be, Civitella, my Civitella.”
Civitella Ranieri is an international residency program bringing together visual artists, writers, and composers to work independently and communally without judgment or interruption.
Civitella offers a peaceful and welcoming sojourn in which its community can deepen connections to one another and to the world around them. The environment is one of concentrated self-directed work and honest exchange.
-Hospitable environment and welcoming culture
-Supportive and generous exchange of ideas
-Inclusion of all cultures, histories, and identities
-Authentic, healthy, regional food
The upper Tiber valley in Umbria is our setting. Civitella Ranieri is lodged in a beautiful thick-walled 15th century Castle – a fortress that provided protection, sustenance, and renewal to generations of the Ranieri family and its extended community. Our founder, Ursula Corning, continued that legacy by providing guests from around the world both solitude and community in a strikingly simple and beautiful environment.  The focus at Civitella is on work and conversation that transcend disciplines, cultures, and geography in an intimate and welcoming setting. A stay at Civitella fosters curiosity and connections.
Fellows are proposed through an international nomination and jury process, and, upon selection, are invited to spend six weeks between May and October at the castle. Travel, lodging, and meals are provided. Each artist joins 12-15 Fellows and Director’s Guests.
“Civitella Ranieri is an exquisite place to work. There is a grand feeling here of care-taking that is rare and stupendous and lucky. My weeks there were some of the most productive of my life. And also, some of the most pleasurable…”
Join us for Winter Session
Learn more about Winter Session and the opportunity for you to stay in the Castle each November through April.
Letter From the Director
Message of welcome from Dana Prescott, Executive Director of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation.
News/Events
We invite you to celebrate our Fellows by joining us at any of our events in 2021.
Each session at Civitella brings together accomplished international artists, writers, and composers at emerging and established moments in their careers.Â
“There is no place that takes such good care of its Guests and Fellows as Civitella Ranieri does; no place that offers so much and demands so little in return. There is no place that I know of where such a profound relief from the cares and distractions of daily life are possible and where work, even one’s best work, can be done, with pleasure and without interruption.”
Emerging talent, mid-career Fellows, and senior, established professionals are all sought to round out the community of any given group. Below is a representative sampling of past Fellows.
Civitella Ranieri Fellowships are awarded through a careful nomination and jury process by a rotating group of distinguished artists, academics, and critics that ensures access to a highly diverse group of emerging and accomplished candidates from around the world.
“At Civitella I worked hard, laughed hard, and was consistently amazed- by the beauty of the landscape in which we lived, the food we ate, and the art we visited, by the talent and intelligence of my fellow residents, and the effort and care that the Civitella staff exerted to feed me, teach me, and think of everything I might need so I could think only of my work.”
Located just outside the small city of Umbertide, the Ranieri castle is one of the best-preserved castles in Umbria.
“Civitella is geographically rich, and this asset cannot be overemphasized. The regular forays into the Renaissance landscape are stimulating, of course, but also soothing… to seamlessly blend work and play.”
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