The giglio feast – technically known as the Our Lady of Mount Carmel feast – is a July tradition in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The families of NYC – Italian and non-Italian alike – gather to eat great food, sing, dance and play music. And most impressively, 100 people hoist the giglio – a 72-foot tall 4-ton statue – onto their shoulders and dance up and down the street with it.
I’ve written two posts about the giglio feast before, in 2016 and 2017. I had to miss the last few years due to covid, but I couldn’t wait to go back to one of my favorite NYC summer traditions. While the feast certainly focuses around the impressive lifting of the giglio, in all other ways it’s exactly like any other Italian feast. The scents of Italian staples – grilled sausage, fried calamari and zeppoles, and huge pots of bubbling gravy – fill the air. Kids line up to ride mini versions of the ferris wheel and teacups. Stands of carnival games line the streets, and men and women shout to entice you to shoot water guns into a target or toss balls at stacked bottles. And the whole thing is set to the soundtrack of a live band playing some of the most “typically Italian” horn music I’ve ever heard.
But the thing that sets this feast apart is the lifting of the giglio. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen at any other Italian feast (although there are other giglio feasts all over NYC and the world). And you truly have to be there to experience it.
PHOTOGRAPHY AT THE FEAST
This year, as I weaved in and out between of crowds while trying to capture all the commotion on film, I realized that what I love most about this feast is not watching people physically lift a giant statue. It’s watching their expressions, their interactions with each other. The embraces, with the traditional Italian kiss on each cheek, the slapping of hands and pats on the back. The hand gestures, an open palm waving to express a “what’re you, stunad?” sentiment. And the faces of the lifters as they shoulder literal tons onto their backs for the honor of celebrating a generations-old tradition. That’s what I tried to capture in my photographs of this year’s feast. So without saying anything more, I’ll let my photos give you a glimpse into what it’s all about.
A QUICK HISTORY OF THE GIGLIO
The lifting of the giglio is a tradition that started in Italy over 1,000 years ago, and has been held in Williamsburg since 1903. It all started in a small town just outside of Naples called Nola. As legend has it, in 410 AD San Paolino di Nola was returned home from captivity in North Africa. The townspeople greeted him with cheers and elaborate displays of lilies symbolizing their love for him. This first homecoming celebration soon turned into an annual event where local tradesmen competed to see who could make the biggest and most lavish display of lilies. These complicated floral arrangements grew larger and larger over the years, until they evolved into what we know as the giglio today: a 4-ton, 72-foot obelisk covered in papier-mache carvings of angels and lilies, complete with a statue of San Paolino on top. In Italian, the word giglio literally means lilly.
Many of the Italian immigrants who wound up in Williamsburg at the turn of the century were from Nola and the surrounding area, so of course they brought the tradition of the giglio with them. While the Our Lady of Mount Carmel feast is the largest giglio feast that I know of in NYC, there are many others around the city and world. In NYC alone, there’s the Giglio Society of East Harlem, and the Feast of Saint Anthony in the Bronx’s little Italy also includes the impressive lift. And in Nola, the Festa dei Gigli remains an annual event to this day.
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