Festa Medievale di Cortona: B2B merch for contrade, sponsors and delegations

Merchandising for the teams around the Festa Medievale di Cortona

Programme

Annual medieval festival in the historic centre of Cortona with historical corteo, contrade dinners, flag-throwers, street shows and a Sunday archery tournament

City

Cortona, Tuscany, Italy

The Festa Medievale di Cortona is the medieval festival that turns the hilltop town of Cortona into a 14th-century Tuscan settlement for one weekend each June. The contrade (Cortona Antica, San Marco, Porta Colonia, Peccioverdi, Torre, Porta San Domenico and others) march in historical costume through the cobbled streets from Piazza Garibaldi to Piazza della Repubblica, raising banners and reading decrees, before settling into the contrade cene that run on Saturday evening. Sunday belongs to flag-throwers (sbandieratori), street artists, musicians and the crossbow tournament that closes the weekend at the Piazza del Duomo. The audience is a mix of residents, Italian and international tourists, Renaissance-history delegations and corporate sponsors, and the visual identity of the contrade has to travel across the steep streets — from the assembly point at Porta San Domenico, to the contrade booths in Piazza della Repubblica, to the archery grandstands at the Duomo.

For the contrade of Cortona, sponsor delegations and corporate teams, the merch cycle is coordinated through the contrada capocontra and the consiglio, through the sponsor's institutional-relations office and through the delegation's protocol lead. Corp-Merch.IT runs the full production cycle from a Milan hub: brief collection, art adaptation, producer qualification on Tuscan supply chains (Pontedera leather, Volterra alabaster for limited editions, Casentino textile district, Fabriano paper, the apparel districts of Empoli and Bagno a Ripoli for small-batch Renaissance-style pieces, Maniago steel for medieval-style accessories), a physical pre-production sample with a Pantone colour map and a screen-print proof on certified fabric, and a structured proposal within 48 business hours of the kick-off. For programmes that mix costume, hospitality and contrada-team kits, we split the kit into separately labelled lots per recipient, with separate delivery addresses if a Milan-based sponsor wants a share of the kit collected from its own office.

For sponsoring companies with VAT registration, the invoice goes out in EUR at the standard 22% IVA rate, with reduced 4%, 5% and 10% brackets applied where the product category allows (books and printed paper, in particular, fall under reduced rates). The invoice is routed through the Agenzia delle Entrate's Sistema di Interscambio (SdI) to the buyer's codice destinatario or PEC address. For international buyers inside the EU we operate the reverse charge under Article 196 of the VAT Directive; for buyers outside the EU we can issue invoices ex-VAT or with VAT refund support through the Italian VAT-refund portal.

Production and venue logistics toward Cortona

Before production begins, artwork, per-contrada quantities, packaging and the named on-site recipient must be locked. The exact corteo assembly point and the sponsor table addresses finalise only against the current municipal layout close to the festival — Cortona's historic centre and the Duomo area are pedestrian-only during the festival weekend, and cannot be used as parcel-reception addresses during the festival without prior notice from the Comune di Cortona and the contrade capocontra. The town's ZTL (limited traffic zone) and the steep cobbled streets condition courier access in the centro storico, and most teams combine a contrada warehouse on the valley side (Camucia, Terontola) with a staging hotel in Val di Chiana and a corteo pickup on the afternoon of the march. The contrada capocontra coordinates the loading slot the day before the archery tournament.

For a Cortona programme routed from Milan, deliveries are consolidated at the hub and dispatched to the staging area in Val di Chiana (Camucia, Terontola, Castiglione del Lago) with a 24–48 hour window via BRT, SDA, GLS or DHL Express, and on appointment for contrada warehouses and ZTL addresses. For transfer up to the historic centre we work with local ZTL-permitted couriers licensed by the Comune di Cortona. For programmes above 1,000 pieces we offer appointment delivery with phone pre-notice and, on request, on-site set-up at the sponsor table by our staff. For clients subject to CSRD reporting (D.Lgs. 125/2024, transposing Directive (EU) 2022/2464) we attach a sustainability data sheet per PO with Scope 3 CO₂e estimates per GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain on the Lombardy–Tuscany lane, including the Pontedera–Milan–Cortona, Volterra–Milan–Cortona, Casentino–Milan–Cortona and Fabriano–Milan–Cortona production routes.

All Italian B2B orders are invoiced in EUR at the standard 22% IVA rate (with reduced 4%, 5% and 10% rates where applicable by product category) and routed through the Agenzia delle Entrate's Sistema di Interscambio (SdI) to the buyer's codice destinatario or PEC address. Corp-Merch.IT is a registered Italian VAT operator, listed on VIES for intra-EU operations, and handles reverse charge, split payment and pubblica-amministrazione self-invoicing under current Italian rules.

Planning timeline

1. 10–12 weeks out: lock product list, per-contrada quantities and decoration methods, especially for Volterra alabaster limited editions and contrada-tier gifts.
2. 6–8 weeks out: approve a physical or pre-production sample for textiles, alabaster miniatures and traditional paper goods.
3. 3–4 weeks out: finish production, AQL 2.5 quality control and per-recipient labelling.
4. Final week: reconfirm the delivery calendar for each contrada, the sponsor table warehouse and any contrade-dinner venues.

Certifications, quality and lot traceability

For the contrade of Cortona, sponsor delegations and corporate teams presenting a Festa Medievale merch programme, coherence between visual identity and raw materials is integral to the offering. We work with Italian producers operating under ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environmental management) and SA8000 or equivalent for social responsibility, and holding the main product certifications required by the segment: OEKO-TEX Standard 100 on skin-contact textiles (cotton for T-shirts and scarves, Como silk for pocket squares), GOTS on organic cotton, GRS on recycled polyester, FSC on paper and packaging (programmes, labels, pennants), EU Ecolabel on a range of textile and stationery items.

For Volterra alabaster the producer holds the Marchio Volterra Eccellenza certification and can attach a conformity declaration for every object, including the stone origin (Pigmenta or Bardiglio), the artisan signature and the finishing batch. For traditional Fabriano paper the producer holds the Marchio Fabriano certification and uses cotton fibre from European spinning mills with FSC-certified supply. For Pontedera leather the producer keeps the Italian origin certificate and can attach a conformity declaration under the Italian Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code (D.Lgs. 42/2004) for any object that incorporates protected iconography. On the packaging side, paper-product manufacturers offer FSC or PEFC options and, on request, plastic-free with vegetable-based inks.

For clients subject to CSRD reporting (D.Lgs. 125/2024) we integrate into the PO a sustainability data sheet with Scope 3 CO₂e estimate per GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain, broken down by material (cotton, silk, alabaster, paper, leather) and by logistics lane (Pontedera–Milan–Cortona, Volterra–Milan–Cortona, Casentino–Milan–Cortona, Fabriano–Milan–Cortona), plus ESRS E1 (Climate Change), E5 (Resource Use) and S2 (Workers in the Value Chain) references for the client's sustainability balance sheet. On request we also include packaging-waste reporting submitted to CONAI for post-consumer material traceability.