The Feast of the Giglio has its origins in Nola, Italy, where it has been held in honor of St. Paulinus for more than a thousand years. As the story goes, Paulinus, a bishop at the time, was able to secure the freedom of the men of Nola who had recently been captured and enslaved by invading Huns from North Africa. In gratitude the people of Nola met the returning hero on the shore carrying "gigli", Italian for "lilies".

After Paulinus' death in 431 AD and...
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The Feast of the Giglio has its origins in Nola, Italy, where it has been held in honor of St. Paulinus for more than a thousand years. As the story goes, Paulinus, a bishop at the time, was able to secure the freedom of the men of Nola who had recently been captured and enslaved by invading Huns from North Africa. In gratitude the people of Nola met the returning hero on the shore carrying "gigli", Italian for "lilies".

After Paulinus' death in 431 AD and subsequent canonization, people began brining lilies to the church in Nola on his feast (or festival) day, June 22nd. While at first the lilies were brought by hand, people soon began placing the lilies on poles in decorative arrangements. The structures evolved through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to become more and more ornate, comprising not only lilies but also platforms and statues of St. Paulinus on top of tall towers, as groups began competing to see who could have the most awe inspiring display.

This annual tradition continues in Nola, Italy but also for the past 100 years in the Italian-American section of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where many Nola immigrants settled in the late 19th century. Some of these original immigrants created the mutual aid society "Societa M.S. Sao Paolino" and a new (old) tradition was born.

In the 1950s the feast of St. Paulinus was taken over from the society by the local church, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which subsequently combined its own feast with St. Paulinus' to create a two to three week period of celebration and various rituals, known as the "Cooperative Feast". These weeks of feasting require year long planning and serve to further strengthen bonds in this already tight knit community, as well as creating a hierarchy that is on full display on what many see as the culmination of a year's work, "Giglio Sunday"......

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