Santa Zita Festival (Flower and Sweets Fair)

Lucca's Spring Festival

The Santa Zita Festival, also known as the Flower and Sweets Fair, is one of the most heartfelt and popular events in the calendar of Lucca, in the province of Lucca, in the heart of Tuscany. Held annually around April 27th, the saint's feast day, it turns the historic city center into a triumph of colors, scents, and traditions that herald the arrival of the warmer season.

Who was Santa Zita

Santa Zita (who died in 1278) is the patron saint of domestic workers and housekeepers, and she is venerated in Lucca with great affection. Her remains are kept in the Basilica of San Frediano, inside the Fatinelli Chapel, and are displayed for the faithful to pay their respects during the festival. The famous "miracle of the flowers" is linked to the saint—a legend in which bread intended for the poor transformed into flowers. Dante himself references this in the Divine Comedy, explaining the deep bond between Santa Zita and spring flowers.

The Flower Market

The heart of the event is the large floral market set up in Piazza Anfiteatro, one of the most evocative squares in Italy. For the occasion, it fills with exhibitors from across the country offering plants, aromatic herbs, shrubs, bulbs, and seeds. The festivities also extend along Via Fillungo, Piazza San Frediano, and Piazza Scalpellini, where nurserymen and florists create seasonal arrangements and miniature gardens.

Sweets and Traditional Flavors

Alongside the flowers, sweets are the absolute stars: Via Fillungo and Piazza San Frediano become a paradise for food lovers with stalls selling artisanal treats and brigidini, which have always been an icon of this fair. The signature dish of the festival is torta d'erbi, a historic savory pie made with chard, stale bread, spices, and cheese, decorated with characteristic diamond-shaped patterns. It is also tradition to receive small bunches of blessed daffodils, a symbol of luck and good fortune.

Between Devotion and Popular Celebration

The Santa Zita Festival unites two souls: the religious, with liturgical celebrations in the Basilica of San Frediano, and the popular and commercial, enlivened by the Città di Lucca Natural Shopping Center under the patronage of the Municipality of Lucca. For the people of Lucca, it is much more than a fair: it is the ritual that marks the arrival of spring in the city of the walls every year.