Mornings
Before breakfast, the day begins with movement, meditation or singing. The morning continues with lectures, followed by facilitated small-group discussions.
One week a year that changes how people think
Since 1985, Cortona Week has brought scientists, artists, philosophers, and professionals together for one week to think beyond the boundaries of their disciplines.
What Cortona asks
Not what we know, but what knowing does to us
Most education asks what has been understood. Cortona Week asks what happens to the person who understands it.
Participants listen to lectures, discuss them in small groups, work with artists and live together for the week. The programme allows ideas to move between conversation, practice and everyday life.
Each day moves through three registers.
Afternoons
Each participant chooses practices and stays with them throughout the week, such as painting, drumming, stone carving, theatre, dance or meditation.
Evenings
Dinner has no formal agenda. Conversations from the day continue over meals, on the terrace and into the evening.
Between the sessions
A lecture opens the question; the week keeps it alive. In breakout groups, over coffee breaks and around shared tables, participants test ideas, challenge assumptions and discover how the same talk changes when heard through another discipline, generation or experience.
What makes the week work
Sustained time
Everyone stays for the full week, including speakers. That continuity gives conversations and relationships time to deepen.
A place apart
The week takes place away from ordinary routines, in a setting where participants live, work and eat together. The surroundings influence the pace and atmosphere of the programme.
More than one way of knowing
Lectures sit alongside artistic and contemplative practice. Participants move between examining the world and paying attention to their own experience.
A community across boundaries
Students, speakers, artists and researchers take part in the same conversations. Differences in discipline, age and experience are discussed openly rather than smoothed over.
Let the question lead.
What remains after the week
I recall a workshop leader telling me during a conversation: ‘This is not your voice’. To cut short a long story, my inner journey started in Cortona. After 12 years, my voice yes did change, and not only my voice!
My last Cortona experience has not completely ended yet. With some others from that year, we started a ‘Science Brunch’ with the aim to replicate the Cortona spirit every few weeks.
For me doing science and art all the time parallel it was like coming home, finding a place where this is normal and that will give me greater confidence every single day.
A method tested over time
Since 1985 · 36 editions · 3,000+ participants
Locations and institutions have changed. The form of the week has remained.
2023 · Drumming workshop in the garden 
1991 · Lecture and visual workshop 
2018 · Collective painting workshop 
1997 · The conversation continues beyond the lecture. 
2016 · Communication through drumming under the trees 
1992 · Painting together 
2018 · Calligraphy workshop in Todi 
1994 · Conversation around the table 
2016 - Outdoor workshop beside the monastery 
1994 · A lecture begins with an image 
2015 - Movement and attention workshop 
1992 · Outdoor workshop above the valley 
2007 · Movement in the afternoon light 
1994 · Inquiry on the steps 
1996 · Masks in the making 
1995 · A shared language through rhythm 
1996 - Morning lecture 
1999 · Carving together
1985
The first Cortona Week takes place at a former monastery in Cortona under the title Science and the Wholeness of Life.
1985–2017
Thirty editions take place with the support of ETH Zurich, bringing students and specialists together with scientists, artists, philosophers and contemplative practitioners.
2018–2024
After ETH Zurich ended its support, the community carried the week through six editions in seven years: in Todi, online as Cortona Pearls, at Pontignano and near Prato.
2026
The Cortona Week Association is founded to organise future editions independently, while maintaining its connection to ETH Zurich through alumni.
Why this still matters
As tools for analysis and information advance, judgment, attention, ethical reflection and the ability to understand another person’s perspective remain human work. Cortona Week gives people time to practise them together.
The next edition needs a wider base of support
Cortona Week has never sustained itself through participant fees alone. The Cortona Week Association is building the partnerships, membership and shared commitment needed for the next edition and for the years between editions.
Institutions and foundations
Help make the next edition possible and strengthen a proven educational model for the future.
The community
Join the Association that gives the week an independent and durable home.
Individual support
Help keep places open for people who could not otherwise afford to come.