San Gennaro festival returns to Boston's North End

Boston's San Gennaro feast returns tomorrow for the first time since the pandemic.

The intrigue: The feast honors San Gennaro, the Bishop of Benevento, Italy, who died a martyr in 305 AD during a religious persecution.

State of play: The festival runs Friday through Sunday in the Paul Revere Mall with 32 vendors, including an espresso martini bar and a beer garden, says Gaetano Nino Trotta, the son of one of the organizers.

• The feast culminates with a mass and procession Sunday.
• The proceeds will go to Autism Awareness.

Flashback: Pasquale Trotta, Frank DePasquale, Nick Varano and Angelo Vigliotta brought the tradition from Naples to the North End in 2018.

• They paused it when the pandemic hit.

Zoom in: The Naples celebration involves a ceremony called "the blood miracle of San Gennaro."

• The procession carries a silver bust of San Gennaro and a glass vial believed to contain his blood, before returning to the church. There, the crowd watches the blood melt.
• The North End feast won't involve the blood-melting ceremony, but the organizers had an identical bronze cast of San Gennaro created, Nino and Pasquale Trotta tell Axios.

What they're saying: "He is probably one of the biggest patron saints in Italy," Nino Trotta says. "People do get excited even if they're not from the region."

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