This year the ‘Festa della Toscana’ is dedicated to the large network of volunteers who offer various forms of social assistance, every day lending a helping hand to the region’s disadvantaged. The official title of this year’s festival, which runs throughout the region for the month of November until early December, is ‘Voluntariato: Percorsi di Libertà.’ Several Tuscan towns have organized theatrical performances, initiatives and demonstrations, in honor of the 3,500 volunteer associations devoted to assisting the physi-cally disabled and mentally ill, the marginalized and poor, the abandoned youth and elderly populations, present in Tuscan society.
Festival events have been organized with the help of these associations, which confirm Tuscany’s deep-rooted adherence to the uni-versal principles of peace, justice and social solidarity. Voluntarism is of vital importance in a democratic society; it fuels a commu-nity’s sense of civic responsibility and general goodwill towards others. It is thus an important factor in the maintenance and celebra-tion of the uniqueness of the Tuscan identity, which has for centuries upheld solidarity, human rights and freedom, liberalism and de-mocracy.
Festivities will revisit the region’s civic and cultural heritage and celebrate Tuscany’s centuries-long democratic past. In fact, in ac-cordance with a legal decree passed in 2001, each year the Festa della Toscana officially commemorates the anniversary of this region’s abolition of the death penalty by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. On Nov. 30, 1786, Pietro Leopoldo di Lorena instituted a significant penal reform by ordering the destruction of all torture and death machines, in addition to the abolishment of capital punishment in the territories governed by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany (1569-1859), thus becoming the world’s first sovereign state to put an end to the death penalty.
This ground-breaking decision was a result of philosophical and theoretical changes brought about during the Age of Reason, an era in which the concepts of reason, logic and ethics where actively applied to all types of human activity, especially in the areas of gov-ernment, politics and the law. In the 18th century, man was believed to have evolved significantly since the Dark Ages, and a break with the cruel penal tradition was seen as a necessary step toward the adoption of human rights, democracy and civil society. In celebrating this landmark moment in Tuscan history, organizers plan to educate the public on the practice and current uses of the death penalty (some 76 countries still utilize capital punishment as a viable response to crime), with the hope that future generations will continue to uphold Tuscany’s deeply-rooted values—of peace, justice, and civic responsibility.
