On 4 March 2018, Davide Astori died in his sleep while staying in a hotel in Udine prior to Fiorentina’s match against Udinese, proven to be caused by cardiac arrest determined from an autopsy conducted two days later. A club statement said “Fiorentina are profoundly shaken and forced to announce that their captain Davide Astori has died.

His former Cagliari teammate and coach Diego López and former Fiorentina teammate Carlos Sánchez collapsed to the ground after hearing the news of his death. All Serie A and Serie B matches scheduled for 4 March were postponed. His death had caused shock across the footballing world, and many coaches and players paid their respects.

UEFA later announced on Twitter that a minute’s silence was to be observed before every European match scheduled for that week. Cagliari and Fiorentina both retired the number 13 jersey worn by Astori in his honour (Astori wore this number as it was the number that his idol, Alessandro Nesta, had also worn throughout his career).

He was buried at San Pellegrino Terme cemetery on 8 March 2018. Fiorentina’s next home game against Benevento, on 11 March, was paused for 60 seconds at the 13 minute mark in his honour, while children from both teams entered wearing Astori’s jersey to pay tribute to him; Fiorentina won the match 1–0, with the only goal coming from Vitor Hugo, who celebrated after scoring by saluting a T-shirt bearing Astori’s image.

Later that month, Fiorentina announced that they would rename their training ground “Centro Sportivo Davide Astori” after Astori.[158] Also later that month, in Italy’s friendly with Argentina on 23 March, as well as Italy’s friendly against England on 27 March, the Italy squad shirts were embossed with, under the crest, “Davide sempre con noi”, Italian for “Davide always with us”, with the number 13 below.

Although Serie A introduced a new ruling ahead of the 2018–19 Serie A season, which introduced a standardised armband for all club captains, Fiorentina’s new captain, Germán Pezzella, was granted an exemption by the league, and was allowed to wear a personalised captain’s armband in tribute to Astori. Later that year, Astori was inducted into the Fiorentina Hall of Fame.

To commemorate one year since his death, all Serie A matches were stopped at the 13th minute mark on 2 and 3 March 2019. In April 2019 it was reported that Astori’s contract would be renewed for life with all the money going to his wife and child, but it was later revealed to be a hoax.

In May 2019, during the 2018 ceremony for new members being inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame, a Fair Play Award in memory of Astori was also awarded for the first time ever; the recipient of the award was Igor Trocchia.

On 2 April 2021, Giorgio Galanti, a former Fiorentina sports consultant, was put on trial for culpable homicide in Astori’s death. Galanti had signed off on two different certificates of fitness for Astori to practice football in July 2016 and in July 2017 despite stress tests showing cardia arrhythmias that should have induced doctors to carry out more in-depth diagnostic tests. On 3 May 2021, Galanti was given a one-year suspended jail sentence, and ordered to pay provisional compensation for damages in the total amount of €1,090,000, of which €250,000 is paid to Astori’s partner Francesca Fioretti, €240,000 to his daughter Vittoria, and the remaining €600,000 to his parents Renato and Giovanna, and his brothers Marco and Bruno.

During a reception hosted by the President of Italy Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinal Palace following Italy’s victory in the UEFA Euro 2020, team captain Giorgio Chiellini in his speech on behalf of his team mates dedicated their victory to Davide Astori, whom the team “would have liked to have here with us today”.