La Fiorita

Each May 23, Florence remembers Fra Girolamo Savonarola with La Fiorita, a commemoration stemming from a spontaneous and popular occurrence: the morning after the preacher’s death in May 1498, the place of his torture in Piazza della Signoria was covered with flowers. 
From that memory was born a ceremony that keeps alive the link between history, the city and collective participation.

Celebrations open with Mass in the Cappella dei Priori in Palazzo Vecchio. Afterwards, the Procession of the Florentine Republic reaches Piazza della Signoria, where a wreath is laid on the plaque placed on a dedicated pavement in the square. 
The procession then continues to the city’s most famous bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, where Florentine ladies toss rose petals into the Arno river, as an act rich in strong symbolic value.