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Italy welcomed over 62 million tourists last year with its 60 world heritage sites as well as its history, food, fashion, and natural beauty. This may be the principal reason travelers choose Italy as a destination, but there are also the year-round offerings of festivals, religious and historical events, and commercial exhibitions. A majority of travelers plan to visit in May, June, September, and October.
The Arena of Verona draws thousands of opera lovers and concert-goers. | ADOBE
For those planning a visit in June there will be plenty to do in between visiting heritage sites and Italy’s famed museums. In past issues we have touched on various cultural and religious events that take place throughout Italy in June, but we are highlighting others with this month’s issue. If you are not visiting Italy but love all things Italian, learning about these events will give you a sense of how Italians celebrate their rich and storied heritage.
Summer kicks off with the celebration of Italy’s Festa della Repubblica on June 2. It is a national holiday celebrated throughout the country, but the largest celebration is in Rome, with a huge parade and a spectacular fly-over by the Italian Air Force. The holiday commemorates an institutional referendum, held on June 2-3, 1945, when Italians were given the chance to decide if they wanted the country to be governed as a monarchy or a republic. Italian Americans here in the United States will show their pride with events to honor this date across the country.
Corpus Christi procession in Orvieto. | WIKIMEDIA
Sixty days after Easter all Italian Catholics will celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi or Corpus Domini which is also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. The holy day is a solemn but vibrant event celebrated across the country by Italian Catholics and visiting pilgrims, but it also offers a chance for visitors to witness church customs, including historical costumes and massive floral displays. In Rome, there is an outdoor evening Mass celebrated at San Giovanni in Laterano which is then followed with a procession led by the Pope from to Santa Maria Maggiore. This year will be especially meaningful because there will be a new Pope who will lead the faithful to Santa Maria Maggiore, now the final resting place of Pope Francis after his death in April.
The small hilltop village of Orvieto, a charming medieval town built high on a tufa rock, has a costumed procession with more than 400 people. They’ll parade through streets decorated with banners and flowers. The town has become a popular destination in recent years with its stunning Gothic style white Duomo, underground wells and caves and small medieval streets which invite one to wander and discover charming shops and beautiful views of the Umbrian country below. It also has other archeological sites to explore, museums and a variety of places to eat and enjoy delicious local products as well as Orvieto wine, considered the best wine produced in Umbria.
La Sagra di San Giovanni ends with spectacular fireworks over Lago Di Como. | ADOBE
In June, Europe’s renowned Opera di Verona season begins. The season offerings take place inside the city’s 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater. It is one of the best preserved of its kind, with acoustics suitable for the most powerful voices of tenors and sopranos who enthrall concert-goers. The theater once held up to 30,000 people but today only up to 15,000 people can enjoy performances here due to seating and security logistics.
Verdi’s Aïda has become a beloved performance since its first production in 1913. It was one of the most magnificent and flamboyant international shows of the 20th century and was enjoyed by people attending from all over Italy and Europe.
The Arena Opera Festival hosts approximately 600,000 fans during the course of 50 evenings, with five or six different productions. Another magnificent venue for operatic performances and other
musical and artistic events produced by the Rome Opera Theater is amidst the historic site of the Caracalla Baths.
Fireworks over Castel St. Angelo illuminate the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II bridge and Tiber River as Romans celebrate the annual Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome. | ADOBE
Le Terme di Caracalla, as they are known in Italian, is an extensive complex of ancient Roman thermal baths constructed in the third century. The baths are located close to the Colosseo and the Circus Maximus. They were the second largest public baths which could hold up to 8,000 visitors daily and were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.
The site is a perfect backdrop for theatrical performances and this year’s schedule will have something for everyone. Verdi’s La Traviata will be one of the opera’s offered as well as other musical events including Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”
In Tuscany, the sunflowers blooming across the green hills of this region are a major attraction for visitors both Italian and foreign. They are honored each year in June with the Tuscan Sun Festival, a popular and well-known summer arts festival that assembles acclaimed artists and musicians for a weeklong event. The festival events include music, cuisine, and wine as well as cooking demonstrations, art exhibitions, and pre-concert receptions with locally made products and Tuscan wines.
Each region of Italy and each village celebrates their patron saint but there are also events which laud saints who are celebrated across the entire country. One of these is the feast day of San Giovanni Battista. La Sagra di San Giovanni is celebrated every year on the last weekend of June and is a well-known tradition woven from art, history, and religion.
Pope John Paul vested in the pallium, a sacred woolen scarf which expresses the unbreakable connection between the universal and local Church. | WIKIPEDIA
The setting is on the island of Comacina, and the event includes a somber procession with costumed participants, lanterns lit on the lake, a musical performance, and a grand fireworks display in the evening. The following day there is a regatta with historical boats referred to as “Lucie” boats as well as folk dancing and flag throwing events.
The festival marks the official start of summer in the region and pays homage to the glorious past of the villages of Ossuccio, Lenno, Mezzegra and Tremezzo which are collectively referred to as the Tremezzina area.
The event, which first took place about five hundred years ago, is tied to the history of Isola Comacina. During the Middle Ages, there was a war between Milan and Como and when Como lost, the island of Comacina became a major political center. In 1169 the warriors of Como, with the help of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, invaded and sacked the island. It is a splendid example of how ancient rituals, legends and historical facts are mixed together to create lasting traditions.
In Fabriano, in the Marche region, a four-day celebration is replete with medieval competitions in period costumes, flag throwing events and stands with crafts and foods. It ends with the infiorato or the crafting of carpets of flowers. It is believed the first infiorata was created on June 29, 1625, in the Vatican by Benedetto Drei, the principal florist at the Vatican, and his son Peter. They used flower petals to create a mosaic using flower petals in place of small pieces of stone, glass, ceramic, and other small materials which were used to create mosaics. Their creation decorated the Basilica on Saints Peter and Paul’s feast, the patron saints of Rome.
The end of June is marked by the celebration of the Feast Day of Saints Peter and Paul, the revered patron saints of the Eternal City and the Catholic Church. St. Peter is heralded as the founder of the Christian church and was the first Pope. He is the patron saint of popes and of Rome. St. Paul, one of the 12 apostles, had initially persecuted Christians but then converted and was martyred for his faith. He is the patron saint of missionaries and evangelists as well as other groups of workers. The celebration in their honor is marked by both solemn and festive events which marks a significant occasion on the Roman calendar.
One of the most moving events of the day is the Pallium Ceremony or Bond of Unity when the Pope adorns chosen bishops with the pallium, a sacred woolen scarf which expresses the unbreakable connection between the universal and local Church. The use of the pallium is reserved to the pope and archbishops who are metropolitans, but the latter may not use it until it is conferred upon them by the pope. Pope Francis modified the ritual of conferring the pallium in January 2015. During the ceremony, the Pope also pays homage to the bronze statue of St. Peter.
During the celebration, a procession bearing St. Paul’s chain, comprising fourteen robust iron rings, winds its way through the city. Later in the evening the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica is illuminated as a reminder of St. Peter and St. Paul’s endurance and unyielding faith during their imprisonment. As dusk falls, the sky above Castel Sant’Angelo is illuminated by a spectacle of color with the traditional Girandola fireworks. It is a magnificent end to a day filled with solemnity and joy.
These are just a few of the events taking place across Italy in June and there are more to follow for the remainder of the summer months and beyond. For Italians these are occasions to gather and celebrate their rich heritage and for visitors it is a chance to immerse themselves in local customs and another way to experience la dolce vita.
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