A boundless passion, that of Italians, for the Peninsula's heritage. Even, and especially, for that which is in danger of fading into abandonment and oblivion. The 11th edition of the Fai Places of the Heart, which closed on December 15 last year, today reveals its winning sites. On the podium are Gallipoli in Puglia, Campobasso in Molise and Alessandria in Piedmont.

Chosen by as many as 1,500,638 lovers of beauty and slowness, who this year joined what is confirmed as the most important Italian campaign to raise public awareness of the value of heritage and the need to protect and enhance it. More than 38 thousand places have received at least one preference in a campaign that has among its other merits that of generating its candidates in an absolutely spontaneous way.

The census brings to light, also in the 2022 edition, small and large monuments, unpublished and sometimes surprising places and stories: remote churches, abandoned or degraded villas and palaces, but also forgotten railroads and historical paths, damaged or threatened natural or rural areas, great architecture as well as hidden frescoes or museum collections that hand down unmissable local traditions.

In the absolute national ranking, in first place is the Chiesetta di San Pietro dei Samari in Gallipoli (LE), a small medieval building nestled in the Salento countryside less than a kilometer from the sea, now at risk of collapse, voted by 51,443 people, more than twice the number of inhabitants of the Apulian town. Second, with 32,271 votes, is the Museum of the Mysteries in Campobasso, which brings Molise to the podium for the first time in the history of the census, and where the "ingegni" on which children dressed as sacred characters are hoisted during the annual Corpus Christi procession, still alive and heartfelt since the 18th century. The other step on the podium smiles on the Church of St. James of Victory, Alexandria, filled with votive offerings that testify to a historical affection of the community, but now officiated only occasionally and in need of restoration.

So there are three places of worship and popular devotion on the podium, and as many as 45 religious properties are in the top 100 positions, confirming the role of community fulcrums that churches still play in the Italy "of a thousand bell towers," but also a wake-up call for the protection of a heritage, large and widespread, of historical and artistic, as well as social, value.