Acea Christmas lights illuminate Via del Corso and decorate the city for the holiday season, turning the entire street into an authentic Christmas spectacle.
8 December 2025
Rome
Acea Christmas lights on Via del Corso transform the heart of Rome into a grand open-air Christmas backdrop, offering citizens and visitors an immersive and charming experience.
A carpet of lights, composed of 500,000 LED spheres, winds from Piazza Venezia to Piazza del Popolo for almost two kilometres, enveloping one of the most iconic streets of the capital in a spectacular and evocative atmosphere.
This year’s installation introduces a completely renewed concept and cutting-edge technology: over 70 km of 360° high-brightness LED strips turn the classic Christmas lights into a true choreography of moving light images that create an engaging visual narrative. Traditional Christmas lights evolve into a dynamic light system that recreates a comet and classic Christmas decorations with innovative visual effects. The light strip is composed of 40 strands that guide passers-by along the promenade, creating an emotional and enveloping “light embrace”.
With its contribution Acea aims to offer an experience that combines tradition, care for the local area, and attention to the future.
Light installations are not just decorations: they are a project designed to enhance the city’s historic centre, combining aesthetics, innovation, and energy efficiency.
The technologies adopted– lightweight and high-performance–allow a reduction in energy consumption, and keep light pollution to a minimum.
The Group worked to ensure:
The use of low-energy;lights and technologies that optimise energy consumption.
A fully programmable RGB LED system that allows the creation of dynamic light scenarios that enhance Rome’s Christmas tradition.
Installations that conform to the highest safety standards and are designed to withstand the elements.
The project also includes 4 large light portals, each composed of 6 x 1.5 metres of LED strips, positioned at the symbolic points along the Christmas route on Via del Corso:
Piazza del Popolo
Piazza Venezia
Largo Chigi
Via dei Sabini
Largo Chigi is further embellished with dedicated architectural lighting: special projectors illuminate Palazzo Chigi, the seat of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, with the illuminated message “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year”.
Acea’s initiatives for the Christmas holidays also include the projection of images, in each of the fourteen Municipalities of the capital, that evoke the motifs of the Christmas lights on iconic locations of the city.
According to tradition, the Christmas lights are inaugurated on December 8. On the same day, Rome’s Christmas tree is lit in Piazza del Popolo, in the presence of Roberto Gualtieri, Mayor of Rome, and Barbara Marinali, President of the Acea Group.
The fir tree, evocatively wrapped in strings of warm light, serves as a backdrop to the performance of the Choral School of Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera.
Born to light up patronal festivals widespread in Southern Italy around the 16th century, over the decades illuminations became true works of art, known as “Luci d’artista” for their visual impact. Light, colours, architecture, and scenographic elements are what characterize illuminations, which over the years have become so significant as to involve renowned artists in their creation.
Rome lights up with Christmas lights by Acea, which celebrate the city's historic sites and more. This further confirms the Group's commitment to enhancing the architectural and cultural heritage of the Eternal City.
Once again this year, Rome's historic centre lights up with Christmas light created by the Acea Group.
Every year, the Acea Group’s Christmas lights on Via del Corso transform the heart of Rome into a unique and immersive experience.
This year, the tradition coincides with a special occasion: the opening of the twenty-fifth Holy Year.
The carpet of lights, stretching approximately 2 kilometers from Piazza Venezia to Piazza del Popolo, features 49 luminous representations of water drops, symbols of this precious and universal resource, alongside small globes representing the Jubilee, a symbol of renewal and hope.
The centre of Rome lights up again this year with Christmas light decorations made by the Acea Group.
A starry sky, composed of strands of lights, runs all along Via del Corso and offers to passers-by an extremely impressive scenic effect.
The carpet of lights, stretching from Piazza Venezia to Piazza del Popolo, is about 1,400 meters long and consists of 18 warm white LED light strings, totalling 300,000 light points.
The blanket of lights is interspersed with the word "Peace," translated into various languages, from French to German to Spanish, and embellished with glowing stars and the Acea logo.
The Capital's Christmas lights are dedicated to the universal theme of peace. In order to convey this message even more, Acea, on the occasion of the lighting of the Christmas Tree in Piazza del Popolo, took it upon itself to involve a Person from the Group, and his family, who suffered a great loss this year due to a traffic accident, in order to raise awareness about the issue of road victims among all citizens.
In addition, thanks to the collaboration between Areti, an Acea Group company, and Roma Capitale, more than 500 illuminated crosswalks (APLs) will be installed in the upcoming months, using state-of-the-art technologies that will improve the public lighting service near particularly relevant crosswalks, including in the peripheral areas of the Capital.
Christmas in Rome: the Christmas tree in Piazza del Popolo and the illuminations in via del Corso has been lit up
Press release/ PDF 157 Kb
Once again this year, Acea launches the Rome by light Acea photo contest.
Participating is simple: just take a picture of the lights on Via del Corso or of the Christmas trees in the various Town Halls of Rome and submit it using the dedicated form. You can access the form by scanning the QR Codes found on the interactive terminal near the trees.
The purpose of the Contest is to reward those who can represent through images the festive atmosphere created by the lights with reference to the themes of Sustainability, Peace or the Territory.
The contest is active from 8th December 2022 to 8th January 2023. An evaluation committee will choose the winners following four criteria: creativity, originality, technique and coherence with the aims of the Contest. Find out all the details on the regulation (only italian version).
Video of 2022 edition
The contest allowed participants to choose one of three thematic categories: “Emotions of Sustainability”, “Lights for Peace”, “Living the City”. The winner for “Emotions of Sustainability” was Federica Testini, the “Living the City” award went to Nelly Schneider, while the prize for “Lights for Peace” was won by Alessandro Di Mario. Two special mentions went to Marco Policicchio and Valeria Ciardulli.
Discover the photos of the winners in the exibition room of MIA
The tree in piazza Venezia and the illumination in via del Corso have been turned on
Press release/ PDF 96 Kb
Video of 2021 edition
Project “Christmas in Rome – Let’s gift a sustainable city” presented at the Campidoglio. Christmas tree lit in Piazza Venezia
Press release/ PDF 139 Kb
Acea switches on the Christmas lights in Rome, artistic lighting and famous quotes from personalities who have told the story of the Capital
Press release/ PDF 66 Kb
Video of the 2019 edition
Acea takes part In the Christmas lights event in via Veneto
Press release/ PDF 111 Kb