Let's give a Voice to the Invisible History around us

VISION: Embark on transformative journeys through the turning points of history and artistic visions with our sustainable, inclusive, thematic and unconventional guided tours for small groups and private individuals. Foster personal growth, and deepen your connection with your community through travel. 

MISSION: We offer inclusive, thematic and innovative guided tours of Italian cities and villages. Expand your horizons, discover events, inventions, struggles for democracy and equality. Embrace the past to create your future.

Don't just see: discover what has shaped history and determines the present in our itineraries carefully created for you by a team of expert professionals.

Through our tours, you will discover the history of conquest of the freedom, dynamics and twists in society and people mindset, religion, politics and economics. You will experience alternative way of being and thinking in the past, lifestyles, possible solutions to the challenges of past and present. Our tours are designed to inspire, educate, empower your true self and your community. As no one is self-sufficient.

We believe that everyone has the right to experience the beauty and history of Italy, and that our tours can help to create a more inclusive and equitable world.

I have a dream. But also a certainty. The world will change as it has always changed under the distracted eyes of the contemporaries. Critical knowledge of history and art, the analysis of past events and great artistic creations, they help us avoid past mistakes and adopt better solutions for current problems.

Travelling to Rome, Florence, Venice, to the small villages and or Italian cities of art, it's a way to reduce the distance with our past, with other realities, with experiences stolen by time, with ourselves. And with the future we want.

Trips are for us much more than a chance for fun and good pics. Journeys have the potential to enrich us immensely, they're an exciting adventures, a great source of encouragement - from the best past minds and evolutionary turning points of history - to find new ways, to discern good and evil going beyond the narrow and deforming lenses of the present.

In our itineraries, we also delve into unconventional and even uncomfortable themes often overlooked in standard guided tours, revealing the intricacies: you'll learn about slavery, a pillar of the Ancient Roman economy; the status of women and their emancipation during the time of Augustus Octavian, and the laws he implemented to counter it; the widespread bisexuality among emperors and men during the final centuries of the republic and through the empire; citizenship and the integration of peoples from conquered lands; the lifestyle of the youth, travels, wealth, and poverty.

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."  (Seneca, Roman writer and politician, 1st century A.D.)

History, thanks to the infinite evidence preserved in the streets and squares of Italian villages and cities, offers us an endless catalogue of errors and civil twists from which to draw ideas and tenacity to face the challenges of our time.

History teaches us, above all, to embrace a critical mindset: many ideas for centuries believed unshakable - in fact grounded solely in the power of tradition - have been brought crumbling down by the shifting tides of social and economic conditions, ultimately leading to profound transformations in the collective mindset. As an example, in less than a century -from the second half of the 4th century AD - hundreds of pagan gods fell within the Roman Empire, overwhelmed by the new imperial policy based on the religion of the one and omnipotent God of Christianity. Their cults and mythology were buried or, more often, absorbed and conveniently reintroduced by the new faith in its liturgy.

The conversion also occurred due to the political will of Emperor Constantine, following the legalization of the Christian religion in 313 AD. He entrusted the branches of the public administration to the hierarchies of the Catholic Church, who were certainly exemplary in moral conduct in the context of widespread corruption of the imperial officials of the time.

Understanding historical dynamics gives us a new awareness of how the world has worked in the past and how our own time is far from a point of arrival. Our worlds, overloaded with weapons, medicines, and superfluous consumer goods, extremely rich for a few and painful and insufficient for the majority of people on the planet, are far from the best possible world.

History compels us to be tolerant. The idea of racism based on ethnicity is, for example, very recent and was unknown in ancient Rome and greek cultures. These cultures were not immune to discrimination, and their economies were based on slavery. However, they conceived of the criterion of discrimination as the possession or lack of citizenship. However, all Roman citizens of the empire, regardless of their origin, even soldiers from the farthest corners of the known world at the time, after serving in the army and obtaining Roman citizenship, were recognized as full-fledged Romans. They had the same rights, regardless of the color of their eyes or their skin.

History debunks unfounded legends. For example, it is said that medieval people believed the Earth was flat, based on Aristotelian teachings absorbed by the Church. This hypothesis is easily denied by the evidence of hundreds of medieval statues depicting medieval emperors on horseback (such as the bronze statue of Charlemagne). They always hold the Earth in their hand (mostly in their right hand) as a sign of dominion. The Earth is always a globe.

Art reveals the taste and sensibility of the time: the alleyways, museums, and historic palaces of Italy are overflowing with important works. Art allows us to retrace the passions and the overturning of the canons of common living, of which artists and free thinkers of the past, with different styles and contents, have become direct spokespersons, often in a bold and irreverent way, sometimes even risking their own lives.

WHO WE ARE: Open Mind Tours is a group of individuals armed with critical thinking, knowledge, and commitment: we create and sell educational and memorable guided tours with a twist. We offer original itineraries in museums, monuments and archaeological sites in Rome, Venice, Florence, Pompeii, and soon in all the fascinating villages of Italy.

Open Mind Tours is a group of experts from all over Italy who are passionate about culture, history, archeology, art, and innovation. We are committed to working together to promote the cultural heritage of Italian villages and cities, and to investigating contemporary lifestyles from a historical perspective that can reveal their origins, their potential obsolescence, their value, and their shortcomings.

At Open Mind Tours, we firmly believe in the transformative power of art. We recognize its invaluable contribution to both personal and collective growth, and are dedicated to fostering its appreciation and accessibility.

By promoting historical experiences in specific locales, we actively participate in the revival of forgotten customs and the revitalization of neglected resources. This serves as a bridge between our rich past and a promising future, one that is built on the foundations of community, solidarity, and virtue.

The individual finds fulfillment within a community. It is here that one feels part of something larger than oneself, a story that precedes and permeates one's existence. A story that must be preserved and passed on to new generations, so that the memory of our past is not lost.

The individual's growth and awareness are fundamental for the progress of the community. Their contribution, in terms of reprocessing and transmitting knowledge, allows for the renewal of the dialogue between tradition and innovation.

Only through this fruitful dialogue can we build a better future.  A future that lives up to our past and knows how to value our roots.

Open Mind Tours is a brand of Open Mind Assets s.r.l., a tour operator specialised in cultural tours based in Rome, Italy; Partita IVA: 17249911003.