EVENT NAME: Rificolona Festival 

EVENT PLACE: Piazza SS. Annunziata 

EVENT DATE: 07 September 2024

EVENT DESCRIPTION

On 07 September 2023 at the Square  SS. Annunziata, will be held as per Florentine tradition, the Rificolona Festival. This festival comes only once a year, but it is loved by all Florentines, young and old, who parade through the streets of the city, lighting them with the famous Rificolone (paper lanterns with colorful and imaginative decorations), and singing ona ona ona but what a beautiful rificolona. Mine is squishy and yours is lice. And mine is more beautiful than my aunt's! 

Starting from the Sanctuary of Impruneta at approximately 2.30 pm, the procession will travel sixteen kilometers until arriving in Florence, in Piazza Santissima Annunziata for the celebration of the festival as usual every year. The Rificolone procession, together with the group of pilgrims coming on foot from the Municipality of Impruneta, once arrived in Piazza della Signoria, at approximately 8.45 pm, will join the Gonfalone of Florence on the Arengario, in the presence of the President of the Municipal Council Luca Milani, and then reached Piazza Santissima Annunziata around 9.30 pm.

Like every year, in the square which has always been the heart of the event, there will be the traditional gathering of the rificolone handcrafted by children, the blessing by the Archbishop of Florence Giuseppe Betori and the awarding of the most beautiful ones.

The ancient tradition dates back to the celebrations that took place at the Basilica of Santissima Annunziata on 8 September, the day of the Nativity of the Virgin, and above all to the preparations on the eve, when numerous pilgrims arrived on the evening of 7 September from the countryside, illuminating their path with this type of lanterns hung on top of sticks or canes. The following day the Nunziata Fair was held near the Basilica. The origin of the name Rificolona derives from the nickname "Fieruculone" with which the peasant women who participated in this Fierucola were ironically called.