Chrysanthemums, Candles and the Quiet of 1 November
You'll notice it first at the florist stalls — bucket after bucket of chrysanthemums, the flower Italians buy for the dead, stacked high on street corners and in market squares as the last days of October run out. Then the city changes rhythm. On 1 November, Ognissanti, government offices, schools and many private businesses close, and public transport runs to a Sunday timetable. Milan empties a little as people travel home to be with family and to visit the graves of relatives, and the day's shape is set by the Catholic calendar rather than by commerce.
Ognissanti is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic Church, so Mass is required unless there's a valid reason not to attend — one exception being when 1 November falls on a Monday or a Saturday adjacent to Sunday, when attendance is encouraged rather than required. Services typically include the reading of the Beatitudes from Matthew, and in recent years a commemoration of those who died during the year. If you want to see the city at its most observant, this is the day to be in a church rather than a café.
Buy Chrysanthemums and Light a Candle the Evening Before
The most reliably Milanese thing you can do is also the simplest: join the flower-buying. Chrysanthemums are placed on graves in cemeteries, and the custom of lighting candles on graves happens on the evening before All Saints' Day. Head to the flower sellers around the city's markets and carry your bunch out to the cemetery — the Cimitero Monumentale is the obvious destination for a visitor, being the city's great burial ground and a place Milanese families return to every year at this time.
- Buy chrysanthemums — the flower of the season, sold everywhere in the days before 1 November.
- Go on the evening of 31 October, when candles are lit on graves.
- Keep the visit quiet and respectful; this is a family observance, not a spectacle.
Follow It Into All Souls' Day
Ognissanti doesn't end on the evening of 1 November. The next day, 2 November, is All Souls' Day — la commemorazione dei defunti — when many Italians return home to be with family and pay respects to deceased relatives. If you're in Milan across both days, plan your cemetery visit for either, and expect the city to feel quieter still.
On All Souls' Day you'll find sweets such as fave dei morti — bean-shaped cookies, originally from Perugia, whose black broad beans symbolised the souls of the dead in Ancient Roman funeral rites. Look for them in pasticcerie alongside the chrysanthemums; they're the edible counterpart to the day's customs.
Know Which Day You're Getting
The date is fixed: 1 November, a public holiday across Italy. What changes is the day of the week it lands on, and that changes how the holiday behaves. When 1 November falls on a Monday or a Saturday next to a Sunday, Mass attendance is encouraged rather than obligatory, and the long weekend tends to pull more people out of the city toward family elsewhere.
- 1 November — Ognissanti, the public holiday. Offices, schools and many private businesses shut; transport on a Sunday schedule.
- 2 November — All Souls' Day, la commemorazione dei defunti.
- Evening of 31 October — candles lit on graves.
Halloween has been gaining ground among Italian children — dolcetto o scherzetto, trick-or-treating — but All Saints' Day remains the more traditional holiday, and it's the one that shapes the city's behaviour.
Where the Day Comes From
Understanding the holiday's history makes the Milanese observance legible. A festival honouring saints and martyrs may go back to a 4th-century Greek Christian celebration held on the Sunday after Pentecost. The first recorded All Saints' Day was 13 May 609 AD, when Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome — a gift from Emperor Phocas — to the Blessed Virgin and all martyrs. In 835 AD, under Pope Gregory III, the festival moved to 1 November and was expanded to all saints. It was likely chosen to replace the pagan feast of the dead, Samhain; Halloween itself derives from All Hallows' Eve, and the day is also known as All Hallows' Day, the Solemnity of All Saints, Hallowmas, and the Feast of Saints.
Other customs exist elsewhere in Italy — in Sicily the deceased are said to bring gifts to well-behaved children; in Sardinia children go door to door asking for offerings from the deceased; in Rome families eat a meal near gravesites; in Abruzzo and Trentino lanterns are made by placing candles in pumpkins. Milan's own observance is the cemetery visit, the chrysanthemums and the Mass. Note that Finland and Sweden observe All Saints' Day on the Saturday between 31 October and 6 November, and the Netherlands on the first Sunday in November — useful if your trip spans more than Italy.
Book your Milan stay for the end of October so you have the evening of the 31st for the candles and the whole of 1 November free of opening-hours assumptions. Check Mass times at the church nearest you, find the flower stalls before they sell down, and let the quietest public holiday in the Italian calendar show you a side of the city that the design fairs and the aperitivo crowds never do.