The story
Saint Anthony's Feast in Boston
Saint Anthony's Feast is a four-day Italian-American religious festival held every August in Boston's North End, begun in 1919 by immigrants from Montefalcione, in Avellino, Italy. Billed by organizers as the largest Italian religious festival in New England and once called the Feast of all Feasts by National Geographic, it combines Catholic Masses and processions honoring Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Lucy with street food, live music, and parades through Endicott and Thacher Streets.
In 1919, a wave of Italian immigrants from the small town of Montefalcione, in the Avellino province of southern Italy, brought a devotion with them when they settled in Boston's North End: an annual public procession honoring Saint Anthony of Padua, the Franciscan friar venerated as a finder of lost things and a protector of the poor.