Events in Lazio: Easter at Rome

For those who admire traditional events and are in search of the true spirit of Easter, then Rome is the ideal destination. As the city is the heart of Christian Easter celebrations, the Holy Week hosts an array of impressive rituals with ancient origins, attended by Christians from all over the world. Celebrations being on Maundy Thursday with the ritual of the Washing of the Feet at the Vatican, evoking the bible recount of when Christ washed the feet of the disciples before the Last Supper. Good Friday is when the solemn procession of the Via Crucis is held, preceded by a mass held by the Pope and transmitted all over the world. Easter celebrations are concluded on Easter Sunday with a mass held by the Pope at the Basilica of St. Peter’s, with the blessing urbi et orbi.

Easter at Rome also provides the opportunity to visit two important exhibitions. Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Edward Burne-Jones and the Legend of Italy in Victorian England is the title of the exhibition which opens until 12 June at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna. The exhibition displays over 100 woks by 19th century English artists, which highlight the influence of renaissance Italian artistic styles on English art in that period, with displays of works by Dante Gabriele Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Frederic Leighton, George Moore, George F. Watts and John William Waterhouse.

The Archivio di Stato hosts the exhibition Caravaggio a Roma. Una vita dal vero (Caravaggio in Rome. A Real Life) which recounts with the most important events of the life of Caravaggio with original documents revealing unknown facts of his life, thanks to works by art historians, palaeographers and archivists who searched and rescued documents at the State Archive Centre (Archivio di Stato) .