400th Festival of Santa Rosalia
A YEAR OF CELEBRATIONS IN PALERMO
“With the symbolic gesture of placing a wreath of flowers at the Sanctuary of Santa Rosalia, on 2 January this administration opened the year of Rosalia.
The year 2024 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of Santuzza's body and Palermo will celebrate it with a calendar full of events and initiatives to celebrate the patron saint, involving institutional, cultural and association entities in close collaboration with the Curia.
This anniversary will be an important opportunity for renewal for the city".
So declared the Mayor of Palermo, Roberto Lagalla, on 2 January, when he laid the wreath of flowers at the Sanctuary of Monte Pellegrino as a symbolic gesture for the start of the year dedicated to the 400th anniversary of Santa Rosalia.
THE STORY OF SANTA ROSALIA AND THE FESTINO
Santuzza is not only the patroness of Palermo. Among the many ethnic groups that have adopted Rosalia, the Tamils are certainly the most devout: the community is truly large, the most numerous among those present in Italy (with about 8 thousand people, Palermo has the third largest number of resident Tamils in the world). Most of the families come from Sri Lanka and took refuge in Palermo to escape the bloody civil war that broke out in their homeland.
Progetto cofinanaziato dall'Unione Europea - Fondi Strutturali e di Investimento Europei - Programma Operativo Città Metropolitane 2014-2020