Last updated: November 2026
My daughter was born on 8 March. The neighbours brought round mimosa flowers.
That’s how I learnt about La Festa della Donna, International Women’s Day, and the Italian tradition of giving women mimosa. Not from a guidebook. From my neighbours.
So for her first birthday I planted a mimosa in the garden of my village house. It grew like a triffid. It had to go.
La Festa della Donna at a glance
- When: 8 March, every year.
- What: International Women’s Day. In Italy it’s called La Festa della Donna, or simply “l’8 marzo”.
- The flower: mimosa, a small sprig of fluffy yellow blossom. Italy has given it since 1946.
- The cake: torta mimosa, a sponge and cream cake covered in yellow crumbs.
- Is it a day off? No. Shops, schools and offices are open as normal.
- Bonus: in recent years women have gone free into Italy’s state museums on the day.
Facts checked 3 November 2026. Sources at the end.
Where the day comes from
International Women’s Day started with working women and the vote. In 1910 a meeting of socialist women in Copenhagen agreed to hold a women’s day every year, an idea pushed by Clara Zetkin. The date settled on 8 March after women in Petrograd went on strike for “bread and peace” on that day in 1917. The United Nations started marking it in 1975.
In Italy, the day as people know it now began straight after the war. On 8 March 1946 the Unione Donne Italiane (UDI) held the first Women’s Day in a free Italy. It was also the year Italian women voted for the very first time.
Why mimosa?
Because it was cheap. Honestly, that’s most of it.
The UDI wanted a flower to hand out with their leaflets, the way the French give lily of the valley on 1 May. They went through the options. Carnations were already the May Day flower. Violets and anemones cost too much. Mimosa was in bloom in early March, it grew wild around Rome, and you could pick it for nothing.
Who actually chose it depends on who you ask. The story usually credits three women from the UDI: Teresa Mattei, Rita Montagnana and Teresa Noce. Marisa Rodano, another UDI founder, remembered the meeting too, and drawing a little sprig of mimosa on the stencil for the circular sent round the country. Teresa Mattei, the youngest member of the assembly that wrote Italy’s constitution, had been in the women’s resistance groups in Tuscany. She said mimosa was the flower partisans used to give to the staffette, the women who carried messages through the mountains.
In the early years it wasn’t just a pretty gesture. Women handing out mimosa with leaflets and the UDI’s magazine, Noi Donne, were sometimes stopped by police and had their bunches taken away. So when someone hands you a sprig, there’s a bit of history in it.
How Italians celebrate now
- Mimosa, everywhere. Florists, market stalls and supermarkets fill up with it. Men give it to partners, mums, colleagues and friends. Friends give it to each other. My neighbours gave it to a new mum.
- Girls’ night out. 8 March is a big night for women-only dinners. Pizzerias and trattorias fill up with long tables of women, so book if you’re in Italy that evening.
- Free museums. Italy’s Ministry of Culture has let women into state museums for free on 8 March. In Florence in 2026 that included Palazzo Pitti, the Accademia and the Bargello. Check the ministry’s page nearer the time, as it’s announced each year.
- The serious side. There are talks, marches and events about women’s rights and violence against women. It’s a celebration, but it isn’t only about flowers.
- Cake. Of course there’s cake.
Torta mimosa: the cake that looks like the flower
Torta mimosa is a sponge cake filled with a light cream, then covered all over in little cubes of sponge. The yellow crumbs are meant to look like mimosa blossom. From a distance, they do. Up close it looks like a cake that’s been in a very gentle accident.
It was invented by Adelmo Renzi, a chef from Rieti, near Rome. He took it to a pastry competition in Sanremo, the Italian city of flowers, in 1962. Depending on which account you read he won, or came second. Either way, bakeries all over Italy copied it, and it became the 8 March cake. He never gave away his own recipe.
A home version goes roughly like this:
- Bake a plain sponge (pan di Spagna). Two is easier if you’re feeding a crowd.
- Slice a thin layer off the top and set it aside. Then hollow out the middle a little, leaving a base and walls.
- Brush the sponge with a little sugar syrup, with a splash of liqueur if you like.
- Fill it with crema diplomatica, which is custard (crema pasticcera) folded with whipped cream. Make a dome.
- Cut the spare sponge into tiny cubes and press them all over the cream.
- Chill for a couple of hours, then dust with icing sugar.
If you’d rather have something proper Tuscan with your mimosa, there are more bakes and dinners on my Tuscan food and drink page.
Mimosa, Pescia and the flower growers
Here’s a fun one. A lot of Italy’s mimosa trees start life near Pescia. The nurseries around Pescia and Uzzano grow mimosa in pots, from seed up to trees taller than a person. Some go to gardens and parks. Some go to the big growers on the Ligurian riviera, who cut the flowering branches you buy for 8 March.
Pescia also has Tuscany’s wholesale flower market, the Mercato dei Fiori della Toscana. In early March, cut mimosa from the growers in Liguria and Versilia comes through it on its way to the shops.
The tree itself is Acacia dealbata, from south-east Australia, and it’s been grown in Italy since the 1800s. It loves a mild coast. In Tuscany you’ll see it in gardens, along roads and on hillsides, mainly from late February into March. In a mild winter it can flower weeks early and be nearly over by the 8th. Nobody tells the mimosa what day it is.
Coldiretti, the farmers’ association, suggests buying it from florists, nurseries or growers rather than from someone with a bucket at the traffic lights. That way you know it’s Italian and you’re not overpaying.
If you’re in Tuscany on 8 March
- Say “Auguri!” or “Buona Festa della Donna!” to the women you meet. It always gets a smile.
- A sprig of mimosa is a lovely thank-you for your host, your landlady or the woman who runs your B&B.
- Book dinner early. Remember the long tables of women.
- Have a nosy at the free museum list for the year.
- Look out for torta mimosa in the pasticceria window. Have a slice. It’s tradition.
Festa della Donna FAQ
Is 8 March a public holiday in Italy?
No. Everything’s open as normal. The celebrating happens around work, mostly in the evening.
Who gives mimosa to whom?
Anyone can give it to any woman. Partners, children, friends, colleagues, neighbours. Women give it to each other too.
Why mimosa and not roses?
In 1946 it was in bloom, it grew wild and it was free. Roses and violets cost money most people didn’t have.
Do other countries give mimosa on 8 March?
It’s mainly an Italian thing. Other countries mark the day in their own ways.
You might also enjoy:
- Otello and the village house I fell for
- Tuscany in bloom: when and where to see the flowers
- My Tuscan food and drink
- Pescia
Cheap, cheerful and grows like a triffid. Auguri, ladies.
Susan x
Sources: UDI (udinazionale.org), interview with Marisa Rodano; ANSA (2018 and 2023); Patria Indipendente (ANPI); Sky TG24; United Nations, International Women’s Day background; Ministero della Cultura, 8 marzo 2026; la Repubblica and Gambero Rosso on Adelmo Renzi and the torta mimosa; Coldiretti Toscana (March 2025); I love Pescia; Pistoia24; Mercato dei Fiori della Toscana; Valdinievole Oggi. Photos via Wikimedia Commons, credited under each one.
