The Giglio Feast at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is an Italian American summer street fair known for the dancing of the Giglio, an 80-foot tall, three ton wooden steeple decorated with lilies. “Giglio” means lily in Italian. White lilies, Italy’s national flower, grow in summer.
Giglio Feast 2024
The Giglio Feast at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Shrine Church in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; is an Italian religious festival and street fair, from Wednesday, July 10 to Sunday, July 21, 2024. 🇮🇹
Festival highlights include:
- Children’s Giglio Lift on Thursday, July 11, 2024 at 6:30pm.
- Giglio Sunday July 14 with a Capo Parade at 9am, Paranza Mass at 11:30am, and the First Lift at 1:30pm.
- Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Tuesday, July 16, 2024.
- Dancing of the Giglio Under the Stars with a First Lift on Wednesday, July 17, 2024.
- Children’s Giglio Lift, with a First Lift on Thursday, July 18, 2024 at 6:30pm.
- Old Timer’s Giglio Sunday, with a First Lift on Sunday, July 21, 2024 at 2pm.
Giglio Feast
The Giglio Feast is a street fair with food, games, crafts, live entertainment, and lots of dancing the Giglio. It’s a small town carnival like patron saint festivals all over the Latin world.
The Giglio Feast in Williamsburg honors our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Paulinus of Nola. Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the patroness of the Carmelite Order of Christian hermits. She is also the patron saint of Chile. Saint Paulinus of Nola (354-431) was a French-born Roman poet who became a leading senator before abandoning is wealth and rank to become a monk.
The Giglio Feast was originally a celebration of the return of Saint Paulino de Nola to Nola Italy, a town outside of Naples, from enslavement in North Africa. The people of Nola welcomed him with lilies.
The legend is that during a North African pirate slaving raid in 410, Bishop Paulino took a young man’s place among the kidnapped after seeing the man’s old mother cry. Word of this reached a Turkish sultan who arranged the release of Bishop Paulino and the other Nolani in North Africa, out of respect for the Bishop’s sacrifice.
The feast has been celebrated since 1903 by families from Nola, a town outside of Naples, Italy. Lifting the Giglio is an almost literal expression of the strength of community. It takes more than 100 people to life the 4-ton, 70-foot tall statue.
NYC celebrates two Giglio Feasts: in Williamsburg in July and East Harlem in August.
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