Ferragosto: Celebrated on the fifteenth of August, the Italian summer bank holiday takes its name from the feriae Augusti of Ancient Rome, when under the Emperor Augustus the Romans started to celebrate the harvest festival in August instead of September. These festivities which reached their peak on the 15th were so deep-rooted that the Church preferred to give them a Christian cover: the religious holiday celebrating the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (the rise of Mary up to heaven to join her son Jesus, taking her place by his side to look after those remaining here on Earth).
Nowadays the whole of Italy seems to shut down on this day, everyone determined to spend a day by the sea, a lake or in the countryside. Great firework displays in the evening: Montalto Marina and Tarquinia Lido by the sea, Capodimonte on Lake Bolsena.