Ciro Principessa Festival

A neighborhood festival born from a Roman story

The Ciro Principessa Festival is one of the most defining events in the eastern quadrant of Rome, in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, the heart of the Lazio Region. It takes place between Villa Certosa and Torpignattara, spanning Largo dei Savorgnan, the Ciro Principessa Garden, the Liberated Garden, the Quercia Park, and the spaces along Via del Mandrione, just a stone's throw from the former Casilina station. This is not a curated festival; it is a grassroots, self-managed celebration that grows assembly by assembly, filling streets that are usually reserved for traffic and parking with music and people every year.

Who was Ciro Principessa

Ciro Principessa was a young man born in 1956 who arrived in Rome as a child with a large, impoverished family. A militant of the FGCI, he worked to improve the Villa Certosa neighborhood and create a popular library, convinced that books should circulate beyond schools. On April 19, 1979, while working as a librarian at the PCI section on Via Torpignattara, he asked for identification from a young neo-fascist militant who was trying to take a book; a chase ensued, and Ciro was stabbed in the chest. He died a few hours later in the hospital. Since then, the neighborhood has never stopped remembering him, and the festival has become the collective way to do so: not a silent commemoration, but a vibrant day.

How the day unfolds

The structure is well-established and repeated each year. It begins in the morning with the organic farmers' market in the Liberated Garden and a memorial walk through the district's landmarks, from Mandrione to the neighborhood parks. Midday features an open assembly and workshops; in the early afternoon, the parade departs from Largo dei Savorgnan, winding through the streets of Certosa and Torpignattara with bands, drums, and banners. From late afternoon onwards, the spaces transform into stages: concerts, theater, comedy, readings, aerial acrobatics, and DJ sets continue until evening.

• For the little ones: animated readings, collage workshops, games with recycled materials, and chess in the Ciro Principessa Garden.
• Live music: street bands, choirs, blues, neighborhood orchestras, and folk songs, with a strong presence of local Roman and self-produced acts.
• Independent crafts: the A.U.M. (Autoproduzioni Underground Market) collective market, independent publishing, crafts, and local associations.
• Popular cuisine: lunch and dinner at the Committee's stalls, with open-air tables in the neighborhood squares.

A piece of Rome not found in guidebooks

Torpignattara is one of the most diverse and vital neighborhoods in the capital: social housing, historic shops, Bangladeshi and Chinese communities, murals, and gardens reclaimed from neglect. The Ciro Festival is the moment when all of this is showcased without a tourist filter. For those visiting Rome, it is a rare opportunity to see the city outside the monumental center, in a neighborhood setting that feels more like an urban village fair than a city event. Admission is free, and everything is donation-based or self-managed.

Accessibility and the spirit of the festival

The organizers emphasize one point every year: the festival must be accessible to everyone. Hence the invitation, repeated on all materials, to keep sidewalks and ramps clear, and the choice of flat, traversable spaces. The political message is explicit and declared by the Committee: security understood as welfare, the right to housing, income, services, and solidarity. Visitors from outside the neighborhood are welcome, provided they come with the right spirit: you participate, you do not just watch.