Think Nothing Happens in Italy in November? Think Again.

Who says November is a dead month? There are plenty of events in Italy in November 2026. Music, cinema, art exhibitions, dance and theatre: there really is something for every taste. Not to mention the autumn food festivals with gastronomic specialities, market stalls, exhibitions and activities for the whole family. There is so much going on that a vademecum is needed to find your way around.

This curated guide to things to do in November travels through Italy from north to south, focusing on the best events in the most visited cities of the Boot: Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. With autumn arriving and winter in sight, there are certainly fewer people in the streets, but far more going on in cinemas, clubs, theatres, arenas, art venues and village streets.

Between major exhibitions, unmissable concerts and new gems, here is a varied map for last-minute vacations, alternative evenings or autumn escapes to plan in the penultimate month of the year. Once Halloween is over, the list of things to feed body and soul is in fact long and varied. The events are mostly in the cities, but there are also forays into the provinces in search of food festivals and village fairs.

Before we begin, one clarification is in order. Missing from the list are the three Italian concerts by Bob Dylan in Milan, Rome and Bologna and the two dates by Kneecap, back in Milan and Florence to present their second album Fenian. The reason is easily explained: tickets sold out immediately, even though prices for Dylan ranged between €60 and €450. With that said, on to the selection.

Wunder Mrkt: Milan's market of wonders takes place on the first Sunday of every month. The November edition is on 1 November, with vintage, design, crafts, food and independent creativity. The new venue (free admission) is Spazio Profumo, the former perfume factory on via Binda.

Avantgarde by NoGravity Theatre: also on Sunday 1 November, the Teatro Menotti hosts the celebration of NoGravity Theatre's twentieth anniversary with a show combining dance, illusion and stage geometry. The creation is by Emiliano Pellisari, with musical design by Mariana/P. A stalls ticket costs €34.

The Fleshtones: the legendary American garage rock band returns to Italy for a seven-date tour celebrating fifty years of their career. Peter Zaremba, Keith Streng and co. take the stage at Arci Bellezza on Sunday 1 November: admission with an Arci membership card is €20.

Ibrahim Maalouf: on Wednesday 4 November the Lebanese trumpet virtuoso brings his project Trumpets of Michel-Ange to the Teatro degli Arcimboldi, the sixteenth album of his career, on which musicians of the calibre of Trombone Shorty, Endea Owens, Toumani and Sidiki Diabaté, Matthieu Chedid and Golshifteh Farahani played. Tickets from €34.50.

Imarhan: African desert rock and traditional Tuareg music arrive on Thursday 5 November at Arci Bellezza with the concert by Imarhan, an Algerian quartet that blends rock, jazz, funk, blues, electronica and frontier psychedelia. Ticket €20, again with an Arci membership card.

Lubiana: Volvo Studio Milano is one of the main stages of the eleventh edition of Jazzmi. The venue on viale della Liberazione hosts four special events, including the live show on Thursday 5 November starring the Belgian-Cameroonian singer-songwriter, one of the few women in the world who play the kora. Admission is free with online booking and a minimum drink purchase.

Metadietro by Antonio Rezza and Flavia Mastrella: from 5 to 8 November Antonio Rezza and Daniele Cavaioli bring to the stage at Teatro Elfo Puccini the duo's latest show "never written." A space voyage and a social shipwreck amid technological cruelty and the dissolution of humanity. Tickets from €16 to €38.

Bill Frisell Trio: one of the most influential jazz musicians of his generation is the absolute star of the Jazzmi programme. Frisell gives a double concert on Saturday 7 November: at 8 pm and 10 pm, again at Triennale Milano Teatro. The guitarist is joined by Luke Bergman on bass and Tim Angulo on drums. Tickets from €35.

Ibibio Sound Machine: one of the most anticipated Jazzmi events at Volvo Studio Milano takes place on Saturday 7 November with the London collective led by the singer Eno Williams, of Nigerian descent. The band presents their latest work, Chopping Mountain, a musical journey through afrobeat, highlife, electronica, soul and psychedelia. Admission is free with online booking and a minimum drink purchase.

Antica Fiera di San Martino: from 13 to 16 November the historic regional fair, held since as far back as 1607, returns to Inveruno. The streets of the town near Milan offer a bit of everything: agri-food exhibitions, equipment for farming and crafts, livestock shows, hobbyist markets, stands from the Ticino Park and typical local short-supply-chain products. Admission is free.

Monolord: active since 2013, the Swedish doom psych trio play the Legend Club on Friday 13 November to present their sixth and latest album, Neverending, released last May on Relapse Records. A night for lovers of hypnotic riffs, overwhelming volume and heaviness. Ticket €25.30.

Filmmaker Festival: the 46th edition of the international festival of documentary, experimental and research cinema runs from 14 to 22 November at Cinema Arcobaleno and Cineteca Milano Arlecchino. The programme is as rich as ever: among the gems announced is Wax & Gold, Ruth Beckermann's new essay film.

Steve Wynn: the former frontman of the Dream Syndicate returns to Italy with a tour called Plays 'Em All. The live show draws on material from his entire long career, from Miracle Three and Dream Syndicate to Baseball Project, Gutterball, Danny & Dusty and Hazel Motes. The Milan date is Sunday 15 November at Arci Bellezza: admission €20 with an Arci membership card.

The Molotovs: Matthew and Issey Cartlidge, brother and sister aged 17 and 19, are one of today's new rock sensations. The London duo comes to Milan on the official tour supporting their debut album Wasted on Youth: the date is Monday 16 November at Santeria Toscana 31. Tickets cost €23.

Girls in Hawaii: the Belgian indie rock band led by Lio Vancauwenberge and Antoine Wielemans is at Arci Bellezza on Monday 16 November to perform live their new album Eldorado, released on 25 September on Capitane Records. Ticket price €20.

Omasta: the Kraków quintet blends jazz and hip-hop, fusing improvisation with the spirit of street culture. The Milan concert, presenting their latest work Hits Different, is on Thursday 19 November at Biko Club: admission €19.

Loud and Proud Fest: on Sunday 22 November the Slaughter Club in Paderno Dugnano celebrates old-school metal. Five bands are on the bill, ranging from NWOBHM to cult Italian metal: Praying Mantis, Sabotage, Crying Steel, Entropy and Konquest. Ticket €32.20.

Arte Laguna Prize: from 6 to 29 November the Arsenale Nord hosts one of the most anticipated events in international contemporary art. The finalists' exhibition includes works by 240 young emerging artists from around the world. The awards ceremony takes place at the opening on 6 November at 7 pm.

Festa del baccalà a Borgoricco: Marcon, about twenty kilometres from Venice, hosts one of the most anticipated events of the Veneto autumn. From 6 to 15 November, visitors can enjoy dishes of every kind based on salt cod, one of the noblest and most versatile ingredients of the region's culinary tradition.

Pink Floyd Immersion: the immersive show dedicated to the legendary English band stops at Teatro Corso in Mestre on Saturday 7 November. The tribute show, the first chapter of the Beyond the Moon phase, features a line-up performing the band's classics live in quadraphonic sound, against the backdrop of a light show that reproduces the British group's visual imagery. Tickets from €35.

Venezia Jazz Festival: the autumn edition of the ninth edition of the Venetian jazz festival continues with a series of concerts from 7 to 28 November. On Saturday 7 it kicks off at 5 pm at the Auditorium Lo Squero on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore with Duo in Uno, a live show in which saxophonist Giulia Tamanini and guitarist José Ferreira pay tribute to Brazilian music. The calendar continues in different venues with concerts by Danilo Rea, Mehmet Polat Quartet, Sherman Irby, VMV Trio and Simone Baron and Federico Calcagno, María Esteban & Daniele Gorgone Trio, Zsigmond Gerlóczy, Johnny O'Neal and Chandana - From India to the Maghreb. Tickets from €26.

Incendies: the play by Wajdi Mouawad, brought to the cinema by Denis Villeneuve in 2010, arrives at the Teatro Goldoni from 12 to 15 November. The contemporary tragedy by the Lebanese-born, naturalised-Canadian playwright stars Frédérique Loliée and Filippo Dini. It is directed by Marco Lorenzi. Tickets range from €5 to €39.

Fedora: from 13 to 22 November Umberto Giordano's opera opens the 2026-2027 opera season of the Fondazione Teatro La Fenice. Absent from the Venetian stage since 1968, the show is presented in a new production with direction, sets and costumes by Hugo de Ana, with the orchestra conducted by Donato Renzetti and Maria Agresta, Vincenzo Costanzo, Ekaterina Bakanova and Simone Piazzola in the leading roles. Tickets are available for performances from 15 November: prices range from €77 to €210.

Fucina degli Angeli. Peggy Guggenheim e il vetro artistico del Novecento: on Saturday 14 November the exhibition opens at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, reinterpreting one of the most visionary chapters in the story of Murano glass in the post-war period. A journey through art, craftsmanship, experimentation and creativity that retraces the adventure of the Fucina degli Angeli, a workshop born from the intuition of Egidio Costantini in the mid-1950s. The ticket to visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (both the permanent collection and the temporary exhibition) costs €17.

Festival dei Popoli: the 67th edition of Italy's most important international documentary film festival, and the oldest in Europe, runs from 31 October to 8 November. The circuit of venues includes La Compagnia, Cinema Astra, Mad - Murate Art District and other locations around the city. The programme is dense : among the announced guests is the legendary director Barbara Kopple, at Popoli to present her trilogy on the struggles and rights of workers.

Fiera di Ognissanti: on Sunday 1 November the big market organised by Fivag Cisl Firenze/Prato takes place in the Parco delle Cascine. From 8 am to 8 pm, viale Lincoln and piazzale Kennedy, as far as the heart of the large green area of the Cascine, host three hundred stalls with goods of every kind: crafts, locally sourced products, homeware and plenty of food, from sweets to the characteristic brigidini (thin aniseed wafers). Admission is free.

Il berretto a sonagli: Luigi Pirandello's comedy is on stage from 3 to 8 November at the Teatro della Pergola with Silvio Orlando in the role of the protagonist, Ciampa. The production is by Cardellino, Teatro Stabile dell'Umbria and Teatro Stabile di Bolzano, directed by Andrea Baracco with sets by Roberto Crea. Tickets from €21 to €37.

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: loosely based on Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, Federico Bellini's show, directed by Fabio Condemi, is "a hypnotic journey into the obsessions of the present". The only actor on stage is Christian La Rosa, a two-time winner of the Ubu Prize. The date is Friday 6 November at Teatro Cantiere Florida: ticket €18.

The Molotovs: the very young Matthew and Issey Cartlidge, accompanied by drummer Noah Riley, stop at Tenax on Tuesday 10 November. A tasty opportunity to hear live the songs of their blistering debut Wasted on Youth, somewhere between rock'n'roll and mod revival. Ticket €23.

Simon Boccanegra: from 15 to 24 November Giuseppe Verdi's opera comes to life again at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. The new production, co-produced with the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia, stars George Petean. The conductor is James Conlon, and the staging is by Àlex Ollé, one of the six artistic directors of La Fura dels Baus. Tickets range from €15 to €130.

Notre Dame de Paris: from 18 to 24 November the record-breaking musical returns to the Nelson Mandela Forum, with music by Riccardo Cocciante, lyrics by Luc Plamondon, Italian adaptation by Pasquale Panella and part of the original cast. Tickets range from €35 to €100.

Lucio Corsi: the Tuscan singer-songwriter, originally from Val di Campo di Vetulonia in the Maremma of Grosseto, plays at home for his debut in the big arenas. His tour of Italian sports arenas begins on 27 November right at the Nelson Mandela Forum and sets the stage for a dream 2027, which will open with his first European club tour. Tickets range from €39 to €65.

Magnifico 1492: on 30 November the Uffizi Galleries open their exhibition dedicated to Lorenzo the Magnificent. The exhibition itinerary, set up in the Tesoro dei Granduchi at Palazzo Pitti, is a reconstruction of the extraordinary Medici art collection: paintings, sculptures and objects of various kinds, from vases, gems and cameos to coins, illuminated codices and maps. The visit costs €26.

Roma Jazz Festival: the fiftieth edition of the capital's jazz festival runs from 1 to 24 November. There are three venues: the Alcazar, the Auditorium Parco della Musica and the Casa del Jazz. The programme is dense: it opens and closes with tributes to Miles Davis by Paolo Fresu (on the 1st at the Auditorium) and Jason Miles (on the 24th, again at the Auditorium), and in between it ranges from Kurt Elling & Yellowjackets to Omasta, from Steve Coleman to Jeremy Pelt. Ticket prices vary.

Maki Namekawa and Thomas Enhco: Romaeuropa Festival's November programme opens on Monday 2 in the Sala Santa Cecilia of the Auditorium Parco della Musica with the event The Köln Concert, a reinterpretation of Keith Jarrett's historic solo improvisation performed at the Cologne opera house on 24 January 1975. Tickets from €40 to €60.

Imarhan: the Tuareg quintet from Tamanrasset brings its musical blend to Monk on Wednesday 4 November. The tour supports their fourth album, Essam, released last January on the Berlin label City Slang. Concert ticket €20.

MedFilm Festival: the 32nd edition of the Mediterranean film festival runs from 5 to 15 November between The Space Cinema - Moderno and Teatro Palladium. Many guests and numerous previews enrich the programme: the opening film is Only Rebels Win by the French-Lebanese director Danielle Arbid, starring Hiam Abbass. The career award goes to the Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, while a special retrospective pays tribute to Mohammad Bakri, the actor and director who died in December 2025 aged 72.

Il potere del ritratto. Egitto e Roma. I volti del Fayum: on Friday 6 November the exhibition opens at the Museo dell'Ara Pacis, telling the story of one of the most fascinating artistic expressions of antiquity. On display are more than one hundred works, including panels, shrouds, funerary masks, marbles, plaster casts and ancient goldsmith work. The full-price open ticket costs €17.

How Romantic: on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November Teatro Vascello hosts, for Romaeuropa Festival, the show by the Greek choreographer Katerina Andreou with Carte Blanche, Norway's national dance company. Inspired by the dance marathons of the Great Depression, the show features fourteen dancers on stage, in constant motion, in search of contact, connection and intimacy. Ticket €30.

Sagra della polenta di Nerola: there is no more autumnal food than polenta. The medieval Sabine village, about fifty kilometres from Rome, allows visitors to immerse themselves in the authenticity of Lazio's traditions with this humble-kitchen dish, served steaming hot and accompanied by sauces of all kinds. The dates are Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November: free admission.

Blade Runner – Cine-concert: on Sunday 8 November The Avex Ensemble brings to the Auditorium Parco della Musica a synchronised performance combining the screening of Ridley Scott's cult film, based on the novel by Philip K. Dick (on a large HD screen), with the soundtrack composed by Vangelis and performed live by the London collective. The event is a double bill (at 5 pm and 9 pm) with tickets from €50 to €60.

CiakPolska Film Festival: from 10 to 22 November the festival dedicated to Polish cinema returns for its fourteenth edition. Conceived and organised by the Polish Institute of Rome, the event is spread over various venues and is free of charge. The selection ranges from classic to contemporary films, with feature films, documentaries, experimental works and animation.

The Molotovs: the British power trio, with just one album but over six hundred concerts behind them, also passes through the capital on their five-date Italian tour. The Rome show is on Wednesday 11 November at Hacienda for Invincible Fest: the ticket costs €22.30.

Jarboe + Zu: same night as the Molotovs, 11 November, at Monk the live show brings together on stage the legendary former Swans singer and the cult Roman trio. Between metal, noise, free jazz and experimentation, there is fun to be had. Admission €18.

Third Coast Percussion: Romaeuropa Festival closes its forty-first edition by anticipating the celebrations for Philip Glass's 90th birthday. In the Philip Glass Afternoon Sessions, the Chicago percussion quartet performs Aguas da Amazonia, a reinterpretation of one of Glass's most hypnotic and visionary scores. The date is at 6 pm at the Auditorium Parco della Musica: tickets from €20 to €25.

Girls in Hawaii: nocturnal, bucolic and melancholic, Girls in Hawaii bring their emotional indie rock, shaded with psychedelic dream pop, to Teatro Orione. The date to mark in your calendar is Tuesday 17 November: admission from €20.50.

Marina Abramović: Historical Works and Transforming Energy: on Thursday 19 November the expanded version of the exhibition by one of the most significant artists of our time opens at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art. The exhibition brings together Transforming Energy, presented at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice on the occasion of the Biennale, and a selection of historical works spanning different phases of Abramović's career. Tickets from €15.

Life of Wine: the fifteenth edition of the event dedicated to the world of wine takes place on 22 November at the Hotel Villa Pamphili. The event brings together producers from all over Italy, who offer for tasting at the sampling stands their latest vintage and at least two historic vintages of their most representative labels. Full-price admission for the public costs €35.

Monet. Una vita a colori: a special event for the centenary of Claude Monet's death, Marco Goldin brings to Teatro Brancaccio a show dedicated to the life of the master of Impressionism. On stage with Goldin are Remo Anzovino on piano and Daniela Savoldi on cello and vocals. Video animations and editing are by Luca Attili. The date is 23 November: tickets from €28 to €46.

Che dolore terribile è l'amore: based on Han Kang's novel We Do Not Part, the adaptation by Daria Deflorian debuts on 26 November at Teatro Valle. At the heart of the work is one of the most painful pages in South Korea's history: the repression of the 1948 uprising on the island of Jeju, which led to the massacre of thousands of civilians. Tickets from €22 to €48.

Funzilla – Rome Photozine Festival: from 27 to 29 November at Città dell'Altra Economia, visitors can discover the most interesting photographic fanzines around. The event, free of charge, hosts dozens of exhibitors, authors and publishers, who take part in presentations, meetings, debates and workshops.

Il cinema esteso. Venezia a Napoli: from 3 to 8 November the festival returns for its sixteenth edition, bringing to the cinemas of Naples and Campania the films of the latest Venice Film Festival and more. The event in fact broadens its gaze "to imagine new opportunities all year round for encounters with contemporary cinema, also open to forays from other international festivals, from Cannes to Locarno, from the Berlinale to Il Cinema Ritrovato and other places of cinema". The full programme is on the official website.

Restituta: on Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 November the play by Maria Verde, with Carla Schiavone and Antonio De Rosa, is staged at the Politeama. The show "interrogates the boundary between memory and identity, between authenticity and survival, between the courage to be and the dark grace of forgetting". The single-price ticket costs €13.

Napoli Creattiva: from 5 to 8 November the Mostra d'Oltremare hosts the fair and exhibition-market dedicated to hobbies, creativity and handmade crafts. The fair focuses on pavilions 5 and 6, devoted to embroidery and creative sewing. In between, there is a commercial exhibition area and a space for workshops and courses. The full-price ticket costs €10.

Boléro: from 5 to 10 November a dance and music event at the Teatro San Carlo with Maurice Ravel's composition in Maurice Béjart's choreography. On stage are the orchestra, étoiles, soloists and corps de ballet of the San Carlo, conducted by Jonathan Darlington, with ballet direction by Renato Zanella. Tickets from €15 to €35.

Angelica e Élisabeth. L'età delle donne pittrici: on 6 November the exhibition dedicated to the talent of two significant women painters who lived between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries begins at the Gallerie d'Italia. The itinerary sets the works and careers of Angelica Kauffmann and Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun in dialogue. Full-price admission costs €8.

Dee Dee Bridgewater: the singer performs at the Politeama on Saturday 7 November with We Exist, a tribute to Abbey Lincoln, one of the most courageous and visionary voices in the history of jazz. On stage is a selection of famous and lesser-known songs from the repertoire of the artist, a spokesperson for civil rights in the 1960s, reinterpreted by Bridgewater poised between jazz, blues and spoken word.

Arwen. Dna: from 7 to 17 November the Chiesa di Santa Maria di Porto Salvo hosts the new solo exhibition by Beatrice Zarvas, the German artist better known as Arwen. The exhibition brings to Naples for the first time a visual exploration of female figures that interweaves psychology, experimentation, myth and technology through a contemporary language. Admission is free.

Manifesti per un cinema libero: the second edition of the film series on Third Cinema holds its last two events. On Monday 9 and Friday 13 November the Argentine director Laura Citarella presents at Multicinema Modernissimo the two parts of her daring, sprawling thriller Trenque Lauquen, while from 10 to 13, together with the producer, director and actor Ezequiel Pierri, she leads a free four-day workshop for twelve filmmakers under 35.

Natale piccirill: the "little Christmas" of Sirignano, a town in the province of Avellino about forty kilometres from Naples, lights up from 13 to 15 November. The streets of the Irpinian village come alive with the authentic aromas and flavours of Campanian tradition, from rich pasta dishes and local cured meats to traditional sweets, above all struffoli (honey-glazed dough balls) and roccocò (spiced biscuits). Admission is, of course, free.

Duel Harmonia: on Friday 20 November the season of the electronic music format continues at the Duel Club in Pozzuoli. The night is all house, tech house and techno sounds. The ticket costs €17.25, but be warned: the management reserves the right to select who is admitted at the door.

Ennio Morricone and Other Soundtracks: on Friday 20 November at 5:30 pm, the Christ Church Naples, the Anglican church in the heart of the Chiaia district, hosts the Candlelight series concert dedicated to film music. The star is Morricone and his soundtracks, from Sergio Leone's films to Sacco and Vanzetti, The Untouchables, The Mission and Cinema Paradiso. The music is performed by an ensemble led by Laura Cozzolino and Flavio Belardo. Tickets from €22 to €35.