Infiorata di Sant'Oliva

On the 29th of May, Sant’Oliva held its annual ‘Infiorata’ festival to commemorate the night of the Corpus Domini feast. The narrow street that connects the church to the piazza was lined with a tapestry of coloured wood chippings (instead of flowers), mapping out beautiful religious murals designed and constructed by the local townspeople. Usually taking place on the 9th Sunday after Easter, the people of Sant’Oliva gathered together the day before the festival to design socio-religious themed scene in order to prepare for Sunday’s procession.

The following day included a Sunday mass, followed by a procession through the town where the ‘blessed sacrament’ or ‘body of Christ’ was paraded for people to worship. Beautiful white and cream embroidered sheets where hung outside people’s homes as a sign of respect to the ‘Body of Christ’. After a short blessing was made by the Town’s Priest in the Piazza, the community passed over the murals bounded arm in arm as they broke up the designs as they walked…

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