The best events and festivals in Italy in 2022
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Loading... - Jude Baker
- 03 Feb 2022
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Italy has an incredibly rich cultural calendar – one of the many factors that routinely make it one of the most visited countries in the world.
Here’s an overview of some of the top events coming up around the country, so you can start planning your year.
February
· The Feast of Sant’Agata, Catania (February 3rd – 5th)
This three-day long festival in Catania, Sicily involves processions, firework displays, and some… unusual-looking desserts.
According to lore, Sant’Agata was a young girl from a noble family who found herself the object of desire of a governor. Legend has it that she cut off her breasts and ultimately martyred herself to escape his advances.
Alongside some raucous celebrations, those who attend will find cassatelle or minne di Sant’Agata – ricotta-filled sponges designed to look like the saint’s amputated bosoms.
· Carnevale (February 12th – March 1st)
February in Italy is carnival season, and the most famous carnival is of course in held in Venice.
Participants can ride a gondola down the Grand Canal to attend the Grand Masquerade Ball at Palazzo Pisani Moretta and stuff themselves with fried treats like frittelle Veneziane.
· Carnevale di Viareggio (February 12th – March 5th)
While it might not be as well known internationally, Viareggio’s carnival has nothing to envy to Venice’s festivities.
Every year this small town on the Tuscan coast sees masked participants carry hundreds of papier-mâché floats along the seafront to music and dancing.
Because of the event’s popularity, tickets must be bought in advance.
· Honorable mention: Ivrea’s ‘Battle of the Oranges’
Sadly, the health situation has led this year’s organisers to cancel Ivrea’s Battle of the Oranges, a three-day event in which attendees pummel each other with oranges to commemorate a popular uprising against a tyrannical ruler.
Look out for it in future years, as it’s a highlight of Italy’s cultural calendar.
March
· Rome Marathon (March 27th)
If you fancy panting your way around one of the world’s most scenic marathon routes, sign up now for the Rome Marathon.
This annual event takes runners along the river Tiber and past numerous historic Roman and Medieval sites. It starts and ends at the Colosseum, which means you’ll be able to celebrate with a spritz in the fashionable nearby Monti district.
April
· Scoppio del Carro, Florence (April 17th, 2022 – Easter Sunday)
All Italy will of course be celebrating Easter Sunday, but only Florence does so by setting off explosions from a cart.
Every year, Italy’s Renaissance capital puts on a midday fireworks display in the Piazza del Duomo. A wooden wagon several hundred years is pulled into the square by garlanded oxen, surrounded a procession of people dressed as Roman soldiers or in 15th century garb.
The cart comes to a rest outside the cathedral, where a service is given; afterwards, as Gloria in excelsis Deo is being sung, Florence’s cardinal lights a fuse on a model dove which then speeds down a cable through the church and onto the cart outside, setting off firecrackers and pinwheels and generating long smoke plumes.
· Annual festival of classical theatre, Syracuse (May – July, dates tbc)
Built by ancient Greeks, the amphitheatre of Syracuse is returned to its original purpose once a year when it hosts its annual festival of classical theatre.
Dates haven’t yet been announced, but Italy’s National Institute of Ancient Drama, which runs the festival, has said the 2022 season will open with Agamemnon by Aeschylus and Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.
May
· Serie A finals (March 22, 2022)
Italian football fans will be fixed to their TV screens (or if they’re lucky, their stadium seats) on May 22nd, which is when Italy’s finest football teams in the countries Serie A play the final matches that decide who gets the scudetto.
June
· Infiorata, nationwide
June sees towns and villages across Italy burst into colour with what’s known as the infiorata, or flowering, as piazzas are decorated with mosaics made from flower petals.
The tradition started with the Vatican in the 17th century, and every year Rome’s patron saint’s day of June 29th sees the walkway that leads from St Peter’s Square down to Via della Conciliazione and the River Tiber carpeted in a spectacular patchwork of flowers.
Other places especially well known for their June flower displays are Spello (June 18th-19th), Genzano (dates tbc) and Noto, which actually puts on its infiorata a little earlier than the rest of the country (May 13th-15th).
