Rome marks 79th Festa della Liberazione in 2024.

Italy on 25 April celebrates the Festa della Liberazione which marks the country’s liberation from German occupation and fascist rule at the end of world war two.

A public holiday across Italy, all state schools and offices are closed on Thursday 25 April, with many Italians planning a “ponte” long weekend by taking Friday 26 April off work.

The day is marked in Rome with a ceremony at the Altare della Patria at 09.00 when Italian president Sergio Mattarella will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The event will result in traffic diversions and bus detours in the area around Piazza Venezia.

Supporters of the National Partisan Association of Italy (ANPI) mark 25 April by paying homage to the victims of the massacre at the Fosse Ardeatine where the Nazis murdered 335 anti-fascist prisoners, Jews and civilians on 23 March 1944.

This solemn event is followed with a public gathering, from 09.00, at Rome’s Piramide Cestia landmark for live music, readings and a rally at 10.00 (see ANPI website for details).

Also on 25 April, Rome hosts the 77th edition of the Gran Premio della Liberazione, involving cyclists of all ages taking part in a route that begins and ends at the Baths of Caracalla.

This year Rome will celebrate the Italian Resistance with the Festa della Resistenza, a three-day festival from 23-25 April.

The 2024 programme, available on the city website, includes around 80 free events “to remember and share the values of the Italian Resistance in the places of the city where the partisans fought 80 years ago”.

Since becoming mayor in late 2022, Gualtieri has marked the Festa della Liberazione by visiting the Historic Museum of the Liberation of Rome, a former SS prison which documents the persecution of Jews and Resistance figures tortured there during the Nazi occupation of Rome from 1943-1944.