The conference “Renaissance Equestrian Art and Orders of Chivalry in Southern Italy,” scheduled for September 6, 2025, in Mussumeli, marks the first international event dedicated to exploring the historical, symbolic, and emotional dimensions of equestrian art and chivalric traditions, particularly in Southern Italy. It aims to highlight the region’s schools and academies as custodians of this heritage through a multidisciplinary approach involving history, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and regional studies. The event will examine equestrian art not merely as riding techniques but as a profound cultural knowledge that shaped European elite ethics, aesthetics, and pedagogy during the Renaissance, emphasizing the horse as a symbol of connection, discipline, beauty, and transcendence.

Organized by I Gattopardi Sicilia with institutional support, the conference features presentations tracing the evolution of equestrian art from early Italian schools to European academies, incorporating perspectives from classical mythology to Jungian psychoanalysis. Speakers will discuss topics such as the historical role of chivalric orders, the philosophical roots and revival of academic equestrianism, and the horse as an archetype and ethical guide. The event seeks to revive chivalric values—moderation, discipline, beauty, respect—not as nostalgia but as relevant cultural and spiritual principles, while promoting the unique equestrian traditions of Southern Italy, especially the Sicilian horse, as a living heritage and identity.