Global True Lithuania Encyclopedia of Lithuanian heritage worldwide

Italy

Italy is the center of the Roman Catholic world. Historically, it was also a center of European art and commerce, a target of many pilgrimages and Grand Tours of European nobility.

As such, there are more historic Lithuanian sites in Italy than in almost any other Western European country. This heritage dates to various eras, ranging from those created by the Renaissance or Baroque eras Lithuanian nobility to those created by post-WW2 Lithuanian refugees and priests.

This is an introduction to Lithuanian heritage in Italy. There are also separate articles on Rome and Bardi.

Massive Lithuanian sites in Rome

The largest Lithuanian landmarks of Italy are located in Rome. The top three are:

*Lithuanian Chapel right within the Vatican’s St. Peter Basilica. Created mostly by the famous Lithuanian-American artist Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas in 1970, its bas-reliefs include the famous leaders of Lithuania as well as the Lithuanian martyrs and, symbolically, the tragedies of the Soviet and Russian rules in Lithuania. It is one of merely a few national chapels in the Vatican.

Lithuanian chapel in St. Peter Basilica in the Vatican

*St. Casimir Lithuanian Pontifical College and Villa Lituania Guesthouse. Two 19th-century twin palaces adorned in Lithuanian symbols, one of them housing a college where Lithuanian priests live while studying in Rome while the other one housing a guest house for Lithuanian pilgrims. The buildings were acquired by Lithuanians in the 1940s-1950s and many Lithuanian symbols and artworks have been added since.

St. Casimir Lithuanian College

*Lithuanian funerary chapel at Verano Cemetery, the most famous burial where is that of priest Kazimieras Šaulys, who was one of just 20 signatories of the 1918 Lithuanian Declaration of Independence.

Lithuanian chapel at the Verano Cemetery

Furthermore, Rome has a square named after Lithuania (Piazza Lituania); a Lithuanian cross in the Vatican Gardens; Villa Lituania building that is often referred to as the “final occupied part of Lithuania” as it served as an embassy of Lithuania before the World War 2 but was given away to Soviets by the Italian government afterward; Lithuanian coat of arms bas-relief right next to the famous Spanish steps and a Lithuanian cardinal Radvila buried under the floor of one of the most famous churches in Rome, the Gesu.

Church of Gesu, where cardinal Radvila is resting

With Rome having a fair share of Western Europe’s most important Lithuanian heritage sites, an entire article on this website has been dedicated to Rome, where each of these locations is explained in detail. Read that article on Rome here.

Traces of Lithuania beyond Rome

While Rome has always been the center of both Italy and the Lithuanian life there, the Lithuanians for centuries spilled beyond the city of Rome itself: after all, Italy as a whole served as a major center of art, science, faith, and civilization.

This was true for pre-modern intellectuals and post-WW2 refugees alike but it may be truer than ever today, as the post-1990 emigration wave created Lithuanian communities in various places in Italy.

An unlikely 2nd “city” in terms of Lithuanian heritage in Italy is the small town of Bardi. There, a local parish Youth House building of 1963 is adorned with many Lithuanian-history-inspired murals and stained-glass windows, most of them located within Sala Lituania. There are also several Lithuanian monuments and a street named after Lithuania, all this despite there never being a Lithuanian community in Bardi, all the Lithuanian sites here created by Lithuanian donors from elsewhere in Italy and abroad, and much of the work done by a Lithuanian-Italian priest Vincas Mincevičius and his employer cardinal Antonio Samore who had worked in interwar Lithuania. There is so much Lithuanian in Bardi that we have dedicated a separate article to this town.

Sala Lituania mural in Bardi

One of the more active Lithuanian communities is in Tuscany. Among the first known emigrants from Lithuania living there was a famous Polish-Lithuanian composer Mykolas Kleopas Oginskis (Polish: Michał Kleofas Ogiński), who served as a treasurer of Lithuania before the Russian Empire annexed the country (1795) and fled to Italy in 1815 after it became clear that the Russian Imperial rule in Lithuania would not end anytime soon; Oginskis's grave is in Santa Croce basilica next to such luminaries as Galileo Galilei, Michelangelo, and Giacomo Rossini. A plaque for Oginskis was also unveiled on the house where he lived. Like many luminaries of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Oginskis is seen as “their own” by several modern ethnic groups, namely Poles, Lithuanians, and Belarusians. Oginskis’s grave is inscribed in Polish, which was the language of the Grand Duchy’s elite at the time, while the plaque was erected by the Belarusian community and thus is written in Cyrillic.

Grave of Oginski

Oginski plaque in Florence

Florence’s famous Porte Sante Cemetery has a funerary chapel of the Sapiega family from Lithuania. On the chapel, there is an image of the Lithuania coat of arms.

Sapiega family crypt

The Lithuanian honorary consul in Florence ensured that a street of Florence was named Via Lituania in 2016, commemorating 25 years since the Italian recognition of the Lithuanian independence restoration.

Via Lituania in Florence

All over Italy, there are many streets named after Lithuania. The majority of them are not related to Lithuanians anyhow: simply, when building new districts in the 20th century, the streets would often be named after all the countries; typically, Lituania streets are next to streets named after Latvia, Estonia, or even the Soviet Union. For example, there are two Lituania streets in and around the popular resort of Rimini alone, as well as one in the town of Grosseto. Then, several more places were named after Lithuania due to the activities of Italy’s Lithuanian Community: some of them were renamed while Lithuania was still occupied, and ensuring its name was not forgotten was a major activity for the whole Lithuanian diaspora, while others were renamed after Lithuania became independent in 1990, celebrating the restored ties between Italy and Lithuania and the new Lithuanian diaspora in Italy. For example, a street was named after Lithuania in Torri in Sabina, Tuscany in 2021, in Bari in 2010. Sicilian capital of Palermo has had a Lithuanian square since 2016, while the Sicilian town of Barrafranca has Lithuania - Hill of Crosses square [piazza Lituania – Collina delle Croci] since 2012 when it was named so to commemorate the friendship between the local diocese and diocese of Šiauliai (Hill of Crosses near Šiauliai is an important sight and symbol of Lithuania). Cadoneghe town in Veneto has a park named after Lithuania since 2024.

Lituania street near Rimini (Longiano)

The modern-day Lithuanian community of Italy has also planted numerous trees representing Lithuania.

Another source of Lithuanian sites all over Italy were the activities of Lithuanian priests, who were especially active here while Lithuania itself was occupied by the Soviets and the religious life limited there (1940-1990). Many sites have since closed down and the gravity of Lithuanian Catholic activity moved back to Lithuania (for example, the Lithuanian Salesian house “Vytėnai” in Frascati was closed in 1993 and sold in 1996 in order to fund a construction of a new church in a churchless Soviet district of Vilnius). However, a few traces have remained, the largest of which is the Lithuanian chapel-post in Aosta Valley, near the famous Mount Matterhorn. Here, Lithuanian Salesians had a summer residence. While the residence was sold, the chapel-post survives (45.7997, 7.5843), adorned in Lithuanian symbols (crosses of Vytis).

Lithuanian chapel-post in Aosta Valley

Lithuanian symbols on that chapel-post

See also our other articles about Italy:
*Lithuanian heritage in Rome and the Vatican.
*Lithuanian heritage in Bardi.