Since 2015, Alessandro Ghinelli has led Arezzo, a city of 100,000 in the heart of Tuscany, with a philosophy that connects culture, peace and European collaboration into a single vision of what a city can be. As his mandate draws to a close, he reflects on eleven years of work that has taken Arezzo far beyond its walls.

A city that opens its walls

Arezzo is a place of deep history and cultural significance, shaped by Etruscan, Roman and Renaissance civilisations. It is also the birthplace of Guido d’Arezzo, the medieval monk who invented musical notation.

“Music is an international, worldwide language,” says Alessandro. “You give a written part of music to a person in China and in the United States, and they play the same music. That is very important and it started here in Arezzo.”

Alessandro arrived at the mayor’s office in 2015 with a background in engineering and academia and a practical mindset. For him, culture is heritage to be preserved and a vehicle for connection.

“Culture has to be the path through which you are able to make connections,” he says. “History, heritage, arts, music, these are things other cities recognise and respond to.” Alongside culture, two convictions have defined his time in office: that cities must make their voices heard on the global stage, and the importance of solidarity between cities.

Eleven years on, Arezzo is still evolving. What Alessandro leaves behind is a city that has learned the value of looking beyond its own walls.

“A second economic engine”

When Alessandro took office in 2015, Arezzo was facing an economic crisis. The city’s most important local bank had just collapsed, leaving the already struggling manufacturing sector without a key financial pillar.

“I asked myself how we could create more economic resilience,” he says. “We needed to give Arezzo a second economic engine.”

His answer was found in culture and tourism. Arezzo had a rich history and thriving city centre, but it was largely unknown outside the region. Through Eurocities, Alessandro began building connections with other mayors, exchanging ideas on sustainability, resilience and culture.

“We worked with other cities on how to make Arezzo more resilient and sustainable through culture.”

What began as an economic strategy became a conviction that a city cannot thrive by looking only inward.

“Before, if you asked people about Arezzo, they would say it’s a city close to Florence,” he says. “Now, Arezzo is known for its own identity.” Today, between 15% and 20% of the city’s income comes from tourism and culture, a significant increase from a decade ago.

City-to-city solidarity

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Arezzo acted quickly. The city’s sister city relationship with Oswiecim, the Polish city better known as Auschwitz, provided an unexpected bridge.

Through that connection, he reached the mayor of a small Ukrainian city in the Lviv region called Sambir. “I called and asked: what can I do for you?” Within hours, he had a list: medical supplies, insulin, and if possible, an ambulance. “Arezzo is a generous city,” he says simply. Two ambulances left Arezzo, identical in colour and markings. Alessandro drove one himself beyond the Polish border. They left one behind and came back with the other.

That first act of solidarity grew into something larger. Through the Generators of Hope campaign, launched jointly by the European Parliament and Eurocities, Arezzo joined a network of cities donating power generators and transformers to keep Ukrainian hospitals, schools, water facilities and shelters running through the winter. “We opened the road,” he says. “And others followed.”

The same instinct for solidarity brought him to Turkey earlier this year, as part of a Eurocities delegation of mayors travelling to advocate for Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who has been jailed on politically motivated charges. The delegation included the mayors of Paris, Ghent, Zagreb and Oslo.

“I was the smallest mayor among all those big cities,” he says, “but it doesn’t matter. I was there to witness and offer solidarity. I hope he will have his freedom again soon, but in the meantime I, along with my fellow Eurocities colleagues, am there to support him.”

Working for peace – daily

Alessandro has kept a simple daily goal throughout his time in office. “I commit to working at least one hour out of every single day for peace.”

It is a goal that feels increasingly urgent. Europe is navigating one of its most difficult moments in recent memory. The war in Ukraine continues, while conflict in the Middle East and its consequences for global oil flows and regional stability add further pressure. At the same time, the United States, long a guarantor of European security, is stepping back. “In this challenging global context, what is the role of cities? Cities are uniquely placed to promote peace,” he argues.

“The mayor is the closest elected person in government that a citizen has access to,” he says. “I cannot walk ten steps outside my home before I am stopped by a citizen telling me what they need for their family, their work, their neighbourhood.” That direct relationship, he explains, creates both a responsibility and an opportunity that national governments cannot replicate.

At the Urban Forum in Cairo, he fought to give cities a permanent seat at the table alongside the G7 and G20. “I had to work hard to get the Urban Seven official recognition — to stay at that table not as a guest but as a member.”

At a meeting in Riyadh exploring pathways to peace between Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities, he left with a conviction he has carried since. “Cities can really be the link between people of different nations, different cultures. Everyone has to sleep, has to have a house, something to eat, work, good schools. It is the same all over the world, and you can see these similarities much more in cities than in countries.”

That commitment is visible closer to home too. For twenty years, the Rondine Citadel of Peace, a small hamlet just outside Arezzo, has brought together young people from countries at war, using a structured methodology to resolve conflict first between individuals, with the hope that it can scale to nations. Alessandro has taken that experience to the United Nations. “This is a powerful method to resolve conflict,” he says. “It is something I hope to see spread.”

For Alessandro, city diplomacy is not something he will leave behind with his office. It is a practice he intends to continue long after his mandate ends.

A legacy worth sharing

Not all of Alessandro’s work has played out on the international stage. One of the initiatives he is proudest of began with a simple observation: that classical music was losing young audiences, and that the problem was not the music but who was delivering it. Together with Andrea Zanon, a young violinist who recently opened the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, he launched the Arezzo Youth Music Festival. Each October, young internationally recognised musicians visit schools to talk about music with students their own age, before performing in the city’s historic theatre.

“If grandpa goes to talk to young people, nobody will listen,” he says. “But if a young person does it, they listen.”

The format has already been replicated. Castel Franco Veneto launched its own edition last year, the first of what Alessandro hopes will be many. “We created a format that can be exported,” he says.

It is a small example of something he believes applies to everything Arezzo has done over the course of his mandate. A mid-sized Tuscan city, with no special advantages and no obvious claim to international influence, has shown that opening up — to other cities, to new ideas, to the difficult work of peace — changes what a city can become.

“Many cities still operate only within their own walls,” he says. “I want more for Arezzo. The last eleven years have shown what collaborating with other cities has to offer. That is what I would like others to take from my time in office.”

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Mayor Alessandro Ghinelli is one of the shortlisted ‘City Heroes’ at the Eurocities Awards 2026. You can view the full awards shortlist here.

The winners will be announced at the Eurocities Annual Conference in Utrecht, 8-10 June 2026. Register for the Annual Conference to join the ceremony. 

Photos copyright City of Arezzo.