Wiki Loves Monuments: the photo-less Italian monuments to discover (and photograph)

Every September a curious thing happens: thousands of people head out with a camera to capture a castle, a country church or an archaeological site near where they live. It's **Wiki Loves Monuments**, the largest photography competition in the world, born in the Netherlands in 2010 and organised in Italy by Wikimedia Italia. The aim is not to win a prize (though there are prizes): it's to fill a gap. Thousands of protected Italian monuments still don't have a single free photograph, and this guide explains how to find them, how to contribute and which destinations on our site deserve your lens.

How it works

The mechanism is simple. During the month of September you upload your photos of authorised monuments to Wikimedia Commons, under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. The images may even have been taken earlier, as long as they've never been published online or in print. A national jury selects the best ten, which represent Italy in the international stage announced in December. In the 2025 edition more than 239,000 photos were collected worldwide, and in Italy alone 955 monuments never documented before finally received at least one image.

And this is where it gets interesting for lovers of overlooked destinations. Wikidata, the database that feeds Wikipedia, assigns each monument a record; the field for the photograph is called **P18**. Querying the Wikidata Query Service (query.wikidata.org) with a few lines of SPARQL, you discover that hundreds of protected Italian sites have their record filled in but the image field empty. They are exactly the ideal candidates for the competition.

Concrete cases

A few concrete cases, verified as of today. Among the castles without an image are the **Castello di Soligo** at Farra di Soligo, on the Prosecco hills of Treviso; the **Rocca Malatestiana of Pennabilli**, in the Romagna Montefeltro; the **Castello di Vallingegno** at the gateway to Gubbio, along the ancient Franciscan way; and the **Castello di Galbino** at Anghiari, in the Tuscan Valtiberina. Among the protected churches lacking a photo are the **church of San Pietro in Atri**, in Abruzzo, and the **basilica-sanctuary of the Madonna del Colle at Lenola**, in southern Lazio. None of these is an unreachable ruin: they are living places, often minutes from a provincial road, that simply never met anyone who photographed them with the intention of making them free.

How do you get started? You consult the interactive map of Wikimedia Italia, which shows which sites are in the running and how many images already exist for each; the "zero-photo" monuments are highlighted. You check that the site is among the authorised ones (some regions have specific agreements), you shoot with care — light, architectural details, inscriptions — and you upload by September. No professional equipment required: even a smartphone in good light produces very useful images.

Places to photograph

If you're looking for where to go in this spirit, our catalogue is full of monuments that reward a slow visit and a good lens. Among the archaeological sites, the Tavole Palatine of Metaponto offer a Doric colonnade isolated in the Lucanian countryside, while at Carsulae you walk the Via Flaminia among the ruins. Over the Ionian keeps watch Capo Colonna, and at Aquileia you can photograph the largest early-Christian mosaic floor in the West. At Otranto the Tree of Life is spread across the cathedral floor, an extraordinary photographic subject.

The castles are the heart of the competition. Rocca Calascio in Abruzzo, Sperlinga carved into the Sicilian rock, the Ricetto di Candelo in Piedmont and the fairy-tale Castello di Sammezzano in the Valdarno offer geometries, brickwork and perspectives that change completely with the hour of the day.

Churches to document

And then the churches, where the largest number of image-less records is often concentrated. The Saccargia with its black-and-white stripes in Sardinia, the Pieve di San Pietro di Feletto with its thousand years of frescoes, San Giorgio di Valpolicella overlooking the vineyards, the crypt of Anagni and the danse macabre of Pinzolo are subjects that deserve to be on Commons, available to everyone.

Taking part in Wiki Loves Monuments is the most direct way to turn an outing into a useful gesture: your shot may become the first — and for years the only — free image of a monument. Mark September in your diary, choose a photo-less destination and go and fill that gap.