Santa Maria della Fiducia Parish Festival

A neighborhood festival in the heart of Finocchio

The Santa Maria della Fiducia Parish Festival takes place every year in late June in Finocchio, a neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Rome (Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Lazio), along the Via Casilina, in the Borghesiana area of the VI Municipality. It is a popular festival that has grown around the parish at Via Casilina 1837, marking the neighborhood's summer for nearly forty years and serving as its main community gathering.

Visitors arriving in Finocchio during these days will find a transformed neighborhood: street lights, stalls in the parish grounds, an outdoor stage, and entire families gathering every evening after sunset. This is not a manufactured tourist event, but a celebration organized by the community for itself, which is precisely why it retains an authenticity hard to find elsewhere.

A program of entertainment and devotion

The festival operates on two tracks that intertwine throughout the week. On one hand, the artistic evenings: live music and folk dancing, cabaret nights, performances by local dance schools, recitals by children from the parish nursery school, and events dedicated to the youth groups of the oratory. On the other, the religious celebrations, which accompany every day and give the event its deepest meaning.

• Outdoor musical evenings with ballroom orchestras and Roman folk music
• Comedy and cabaret shows
• Recitals and performances by local dance schools
• Events for children, with the participation of the parish nursery school
• Vintage car gathering with a parade through the neighborhood streets
• Food stalls and refreshment points managed by volunteers
• Parish raffle with a final prize draw

The Marian procession

The highlight is the procession with the image of the Madonna della Fiducia, which closes the week of festivities. After the solemn evening mass, the Marian image leaves the church and is carried through the streets of the neighborhood accompanied by a brass band, amidst decorated houses and faithful followers joining along the route. It is the ritual that, more than any other, gives identity to the Finocchio community and attracts those who have moved away but return for the occasion every year.

An organizational machine made of volunteers

The festival is entirely self-funded: expenses are covered by private donations, contributions from local businesses, and above all, the sale of parish raffle tickets, which in recent years has offered a dozen prizes, from electronics to grocery vouchers. Behind every evening are dozens of volunteers from parish groups who spend months preparing decorations, the kitchen, and shows: the festival is effectively the culmination of an entire year of work by the communities gravitating around the parish.

Why visit

For those who want to experience a side of Rome beyond the monumental circuits, the Fiducia Festival is a precious opportunity. Here, you don't visit a monument: you enter a vibrant suburb, eat at tables alongside residents, listen to the Roman dialect during dance evenings, and witness a deeply felt Marian devotion. It is free, accessible to everyone, and showcases the most genuine face of the capital's outer districts—those that grew along the consular roads in the second half of the 20th century and have managed to build their own traditions.