Visiting
Coming to the Parco Thomas Sankara
The park is an open public space, free to enter at any time. It lies on Via Ugo della Seta, in the III Municipio of Rome, in the north of the city.
Saturday 24 October 2026 The monument is in place in the park. It will be unveiled on Saturday 24 October 2026. The park is open, and can be visited today.
The essentials
| Address | Parco Thomas Sankara, Via Ugo della Seta, 00139 Roma RM, Italy |
|---|---|
| District | Val Melaina, Montesacro — III Municipio |
| Entry | Free and open. No ticket, no booking, no opening hours: it is a neighbourhood park. |
| Underground | Line B then B1, Jonio terminus, then about 25 minutes on foot, or a bus |
| Trolleybus | 90, from Roma Termini to Largo Labia |
| Bus | 80, “Della Seta” stop, on Via Ugo della Seta itself |
| By car | Park-and-ride above Jonio station, 252 spaces |
| On site | Tree-lined walks, children's playground, cycle path, dog area, outdoor gym |
Journey times are indicative. Roman lines and timetables change: check the day's route with Atac before setting out.
Getting there
Two ways from the centre of Rome. The diagram below is a journey diagram, not a map: this site calls no outside service, not even a map background.
For a real map, the park's coordinates are 41.9600° N, 12.5255° E: open the park on OpenStreetMap. They give the street, not the exact position of the monument, which will be stated after installation.
What there is to see
The Parco Thomas Sankara is the only public space in Europe given over entirely to the memory of Comrade President Thomas Sankara. It was named by the III Municipio of Rome, and its commemorative plaque unveiled on 17 September 2025. It reads: PARCO THOMAS SANKARA (1949 - 1987) — PRESIDENTE DEL BURKINA FASO.
It is not an enclosed place of remembrance but a neighbourhood park Romans cross every day, on the way to work, walking a dog, taking children to play. That is exactly why the monument takes the form it does: a work legible from every angle, which you meet without having looked for it.
Once raised, the monument will read in two ways. Head on, the two sides carrying the face of the Comrade President, cut clean through the plate — go early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when the low light passes through the cuts. From the side, the two faces covered with bosses, which only take on relief at those same hours.
The two portrait faces look north and south. The southern one looks towards Africa, the northern one towards Europe.
Accessibility
The park is level and its walks are passable. The monument will stand on a stepped concrete base: it can be seen and walked around from the path, with no step to climb.
The portrait is cut clean through the steel, not painted: it is read through the contrast between metal and daylight. For anyone with little sight, the grid of bosses can be read by touch — they are wide, smooth half-spheres, fourteen centimetres across, standing two centimetres proud. The name and the dates are cut as voids straight through, and can be followed with a finger.
The monument stands on a north-south axis: the two faces carrying the portrait look north and south, and it is from those two sides that it reads. The precise position within the park, the nearest gate and the step-free route from that gate will be published here once they have been surveyed on site.
If you cannot come
After the unveiling, this site will open the virtual tour: a complete photographic rotation around the installed monument, usable on a phone and on a slow connection. It is meant first of all for those who, in Burkina Faso and elsewhere, will not make the journey to Rome.