The Gressoney Valley is preparing to celebrate one of the most fascinating and influential female figures in Italian history: Margherita of Savoy, the first queen of Italy, who found her retreat here for 37 years. On Saturday, December 13, at 11:30 a.m., in the garage of Castel Savoia, the photographic exhibitions of the Viva Margherita 1926–2026 project has been inaugurated, a cultural and identity journey that will accompany the territory towards the centenary of the sovereign's death.
The exhibition: ten women, ten stories, a single pink thread
The beating heart of the project is the exhibition “Sempre avanti. Da Margherita alle nuove regine del Rosa” (Always forward. From Margherita to the new queens of Rosa), a journey through images that brings the past and present into dialogue.
The protagonists are ten women of today—scientists, athletes, artisans, mountain experts—photographed by Daniele Camisasca in the places the queen loved.
Women who, through their work and passion, bear witness to what it means to live, protect, and recount the mountains in a contemporary key.
Alongside the current portraits, a series of vintage photographs from the Guindani Archive will be exhibited in the historic center of Gressoney-Saint-Jean, creating a sort of itinerary spread across streets, buildings, and memories: a “treasure hunt” that allows visitors to rediscover the village through Margherita's eyes.
Viva Margherita: a contemporary story of history, community, and mountains
Promoted by the Institute for the Environment and Education Scholé Futuro ETS-WEEC Network of Turin, sponsored by the Autonomous Region of Aosta Valley, in collaboration with the Municipality of Gressoney-Saint-Jean, the Gressoney Monterosa Consortium, Monterosa Ski, and the Pro Loco of Gressoney-St-Jean, and supported by the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation, Viva Margherita is a project that looks to the past to speak to the present.
Through the model and values of the queen—care for the mountains, participation in community life, enhancement of cultural and artisanal heritage, a courageous and pioneering feminine perspective—the initiative aims to create a network between the symbolic places of the territory: Castel Savoia, Villa Margherita, the Queen's Promenade, the Beck Peccoz Museum, the parish church, the Chapel of St. Anne, and even the mountain huts and high-altitude landscapes that marked Margherita's imagination.
