Italic Peoples Festival

A festival telling the story of Italy before Rome

The Italic Peoples Festival was born in Rieti, in the heart of the Sabina region, as the first national event entirely dedicated to the peoples who inhabited the peninsula before the rise of Roman civilization. Sabines, Samnites, Umbrians, Marsi, Aequi, Volsci, Hernici, Piceni, Latins, Etruscans, and the peoples of Magna Graecia return to the spotlight in a choral narrative that combines archaeological research, mythical memory, and contemporary reflection.

The festival was conceived by Federico Fioravanti, the festival director, in collaboration with the Arché APS association. The event is part of a cultural enhancement project for the province of Rieti, in northern Lazio, funded by the National Complementary Plan – Next Appennino and supported by the Fondazione Varrone Cassa di Risparmio di Rieti, with the collaboration of the Municipality of Rieti.

The Sacred Spring, the guiding theme of the first edition

The theme chosen for the inaugural edition is Ver Sacrum, the « Sacred Spring »: an ancestral rite where entire generations of young people left their homelands in search of new territories, guided by a sacred animal. It is a foundation myth that explains the birth of many Italic peoples, which the festival reinterprets as a metaphor for migration, belonging, and shared roots. It is no coincidence that the Rieti area, with Lake Cotilia considered by the ancients as the Umbilicus Italiae, is one of the symbolic places of this history.

Author lectures, exhibitions, and performances

The heart of the festival is the Multipurpose Hall of the Civic Archaeological Museum, where free, popular-style history lectures by leading archaeologists and historians are held. The evenings move to the Flavio Vespasiano Theatre, the city's 19th-century jewel, for events aimed at a wider audience.

• Author lectures at the Archaeological Museum, morning and afternoon, featuring scholars such as Filippo Coarelli, Adriano La Regina, Andrea Carandini, Valentino Nizzo, Alessandro Guidi, and Giovanni Brizzi
• Evenings at the Flavio Vespasiano Theatre at 9:15 PM, with nationally renowned guests
• Exhibition « Wearing History. Before Rome: the sign of the sword, the weight of the shield », an immersive journey through the panoplies of ancient warriors, hosted at the Archaeological Museum
• « Secrets and Inventions » educational workshops, curated by the Legio XXX re-enactment group, open all day
• Book fair with national publishers specializing in archaeology and ancient history
• Storytelling with music dedicated to the foundation myth of Rome

Rieti, capital of the Sabina region

Hosting a festival on Italic peoples in Rieti is no random choice. The Sabina capital preserves evidence of millennia of settlement around the Rieti lakes and the Velino Valley, and its Civic Archaeological Museum holds artifacts documenting the long history of pre-Roman communities. The city, with its historic center clustered around Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, the Bishop's Palace, and the Roman bridges, offers visitors an ideal setting to combine culture, walks, and local gastronomy.

A wide audience, a popular approach

The festival is aimed at both archaeology enthusiasts, families, and schools: the lectures are designed to be accessible even to those without specialized training, while the educational workshops and labs allow younger visitors to get hands-on with ancient weapons, textiles, and everyday objects. The event is intended to be an annual appointment, with the ambition of becoming a national reference point for the dissemination of Italic history.

Why it is worth visiting

In an increasingly crowded landscape of cultural festivals, the Italic Peoples Festival occupies a truly original space: that of a plural and ancient Italy, often overshadowed in school curricula by the story of Rome alone. Three days in May, in a city an hour from the capital, are enough to change your perspective on the origins of the peninsula.