All Souls' Day Commemoration at Verano Cemetery

A day that belongs to the whole city

The All Souls' Day Commemoration at Verano Cemetery is no ordinary event: it is the most widely attended civic and religious ritual of the Roman autumn. On November 2nd, and starting as early as All Saints' Day, the Verano Monumental Cemetery—located in the San Lorenzo district of Rome, Lazio—welcomes tens of thousands of visitors. With flower sellers lining the square, chrysanthemums, and candles glowing at dusk, the atmosphere is one of a tradition repeated for generations, where private mourning becomes a shared memory.

The solemn liturgy

The centerpiece of the day is the Mass for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, celebrated in the afternoon at the monumental entrance of Verano. In recent years, the celebration has been presided over by the Pope's Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome, with the concelebration of auxiliary bishops; in 2025, Pope Leo XIV chose Verano for the November 2nd mass, continuing the custom established by his predecessors of celebrating each year in a different Roman cemetery. Other diocesan celebrations take place over the same weekend at the Flaminio, Laurentino, and Ostia Antica cemeteries.

Civic and military ceremonies

On the morning of November 2nd, Verano also hosts a dense sequence of institutional tributes:

• Common Ossuary: City of Rome ceremony with the laying of a laurel wreath and the lighting of the tripod;
• Military Memorial: Ministry of Defence ceremony with the highest-ranking officials of the Armed Forces;
• Air Force Temple: November 1st tribute to fallen aviators;
• Monument to the Fallen at Sea: commemoration with a wreath-laying in the following days.

Walks through Memories and cultural program

Verano is an open-air museum: it is the final resting place of Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Marcello Mastroianni, Alberto Sordi, and Goffredo Mameli, set among neoclassical chapels, Art Nouveau statues, and the famous Quadriportico. For this reason, the Capitolini Cemeteries authority complements the occasion with a calendar of Walks through Memories—thematic guided tours on art, history, cinema, and literature, led by specialized guides and audio-assisted with microphones and headsets. During peak days, there are up to five appointments daily. Recent editions have included the Le audaci (The Bold Women) trail, telling a century of women's history through funerary monuments with readings by the National Academy of Dance, a concert at the Quadriportico dedicated to film music with a tribute to Ennio Morricone performed by the Rome Capital Local Police Band, and the inauguration of the nature trail Nature, History, and Landscape at the Verano Monumental Cemetery.

The visitor reception plan

To manage the influx, AMA and the City of Rome activate an extraordinary plan covering the entire week of the commemoration. Five reception points are set up at Verano with dedicated staff to help visitors locate graves and distribute information: three gazebos near the vehicle entrances of Scalo San Lorenzo (Largo Passamonti), Crociate, and Portonaccio, one at the Crocione monument, and one near the Mortuary. The free internal shuttle service is also enhanced, with 21 stops and departures every 15-30 minutes, including vehicles accessible to people with disabilities; on peak days, an additional route is added for the Pincetto area.

Why it is worth experiencing

Visitors in Rome during those days will find something at Verano that no tourist guide truly captures: the city coming to a standstill, the popular devotion of the Lazio region, and the silence broken only by church bells and the brass of the band. It is a rare opportunity to read two centuries of Roman history through funerary sculpture and to understand how the memory of the departed remains a deeply collective experience in Italy.