Vatican fireworks: A 500-year-old tradition for the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul

A 1775 painting of the fireworks over Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, painted by Jakob Philipp Hackert. | Credit: Public Domain


For the past 500 years, the Vatican has celebrated the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul with a bang with a spectacular fireworks show influenced by Michelangelo and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

While many associate fireworks with the Fourth of July, the Vatican had already been celebrating this week with fireworks for nearly 300 years at the time when Americans were signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Each year on June 29, fireworks are launched from atop Castel Sant’Angelo, the papal fortress originally commissioned by Roman Emperor Hadrian, in celebration of the co-patron saints of Rome, St. Peter and St. Paul.

The fireworks show, called “The Girandola,” has captured the imagination of many artists over the centuries whose sketches and paintings illustrate the event with more pizzazz than the myriad of iPhone photos of fireworks today.

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