General

Rome marks National Unity and Armed Forces Day

03 Nov, 2020

Frecce Tricolori to fly over Rome on 4 November.

Italian president Sergio Mattarella will attend the annual ceremony at Rome’s Altare della Patria to mark national unity and armed forces on the morning of Wednesday 4 November.

Accompanied by Italy's defence minister Lorenzo Guerini, the president will lay a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Piazza Venezia in honour of Italy’s war dead and casualties of international peacekeeping missions.

This year, due to the covid-19 emergency, there will be no military display which usually comprises more than 3,000 troops, reports Italian news agency ANSA.

However there will be the flypast by the Italian air force’s Frecce Tricolori aerial acrobatic team, emitting plumes of the three colours from the Italian flag.

The date of the annual military ceremony, 4 November, coincides with the anniversary of the armistice of Villa Giusti in 1918, which ended world war one on the Italian front.