Rome

The Rome scene

Rome’s Scuola di Bondage grew out of organizing work in the mid-2000s. According to the Scuola di Bondage, Stefano Laforgia began organizing bondage and Japanese rope courses in Rome in 2006; at first his role was mainly to find teachers, arrange sessions and run the venues. In September 2011 he founded the school itself, choosing a continuous course of study over a series of one-off workshops. Its full name is Scuola di Bondage “Itoh Seiyu”. Laforgia trained in architecture and industrial design, and the school says this shapes how he teaches: ties are read as structures, with functions and a distribution of load.

A school with a curriculum

The school teaches through weekly courses. A base course is meant for people with no experience, and an intermediate and advanced course widens the repertoire and the student’s independence. Single-topic lessons, private lessons, workshops with Italian and international guest teachers and free open days with an introductory lesson fill out the program, and a weekly Rope Space gives students time for free practice outside class. The school is hosted in the rooms of AKA, a sports and social association; AKA’s page stresses that the school’s activities are for adults only and kept separate from its own leisure and youth activities. The school’s site is in Italian.

A newer community space

The second name in the city is whyKnot. In a 2025 feature on shibari’s spread in Italy, Il Post reported that whyKnot had hosted lessons, events and workshops in Rome since 2023, including workshops by international guests, some on other forms of BDSM. The paper quoted two of its founders. Lily Gray Banshee stressed that the practice carries real risk and that nobody can improvise it, while Alessandro Uch pointed to the psychological work it takes to say clearly what one does and does not want, a theme covered in Consent and negotiation. whyKnot has run full-day beginner workshops, one of them listed for October 2024, and its website, written in Italian and English, was still in pre-launch in 2026.

Rome in the Italian picture

The same Il Post feature traces the national arc: the first Italian shibari courses appeared in the early 2000s but stayed very niche until about ten years before the article, interest rose noticeably in the five years before it, and a bigger wave followed the pandemic. It lists groups or schools in cities including Turin, Milan and Rome. Rome has also hosted the international circuit: the touring teacher Gestalta lists a shibari festival in the city in 2018 among her presentations. Italy’s place in the Naka lineage, through Riccardo Wildties, is told in Kinbaku in Europe.

What the city offers now

A newcomer in Rome can follow the Scuola di Bondage’s course path from a first lesson upward, or look for whyKnot’s one-day workshops and community events. For help comparing schools and teachers, see Choosing a teacher.