Written by: Giovanna Pia Ferrara
The Feast of San Gennaro in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, will be held at the M Resort Las Vegas, 12300 S. F. Las Vegas Boulevard , from September 17 to 21, 2025.
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The President of the Feast of San Gennaro in Las Vegas is Anthony Palmisano, an Italian-American with a passion for Italian and Sicilian culture and traditions.
He has come from Las Vegas specifically to meet me in Mondello on a scorching Sunday in July.
Every year for three generations, he organizes the Feast of San Gennaro in Las Vegas, Nevada. This year, it will take place from September 17th to 21st, an explosion of culture, solemn and religious devotion, art, music, gastronomy, dance, entertainment, and a sense of Italianness and Sicilianness around the world.
Palmisano, in fact, is the third-generation President of the Feast of San Gennaro in Las Vegas and deserves great credit for having developed and increased the devotion and popularity of the Saint, while also contributing to the spread of traditions, culture, gastronomy, history, art, music, and Italianness throughout the world.
The interview reveals a great devotion and immense faith in San Gennaro, but also a great love for Italy, for Sicily, and the desire to continue to promote its traditions. He also shows a passion for sharing Italianness with the hundreds of visitors to the Feast of San Gennaro in Las Vegas from all over the world, and a desire to leave them with unforgettable and indelible memories, all Italian, both through devotion and through music, art, and typical Italian cuisine—a heritage of flavors, knowledge, and age-old traditions to be treasured and passed on to future generations.
President Anthony Palmisano
President Anthony Palmisano has received numerous and prestigious honors, including receiving the Keys to the City of Las Vegas in 2007, being named an Honorary Life Member of the Italian American Club of Southern Nevada, and being invested as a Knight of the Order of Sicily in 2006 for keeping Italian culture alive abroad. He received the title of Knight from the Vatican, along with the blessing of Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict, and Pope Francis. In a video interview with journalist Maria Concetta Cefalu’, he recounts with deep emotion his childhood, when at just 11 years old he followed his uncle, from whom he learned the ins and outs of the festival business, a practice he proudly passes down to his children.
San Gennaro
Saint Gennaro, considered the patron Saint of Italians everywhere in the world, he was a Roman bishop and Christian martyr, venerated as a Saint by the Catholic Church, which celebrates his cult on September 19th. The principal patron Saint of Naples, he is loved by the faithful and respected by pagans for his works of charity towards the poor. San Gennaro is venerated throughout the world, from Naples to all Italian communities abroad, particularly in places such as New York, Las Vegas, Chicago, Melbourne, and New Orleans.
In the interview, the President Palmisano speaks moved , by his personal witnessing of the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro, a miracle that is repeated three times a year in Naples: the Saturday before the first Sunday in May, in September 19th (the feast day of San Gennaro), and in December 16th (the day commemorating the protection of San Gennaro during the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631).
The First Celebrations of the Feast of San Gennaro
The first Feast of San Gennaro in America was organized by Anthony Palmisano’s great-grandfather, Giuseppe Palmisano, who emigrated from Termini Imerese, Sicily, via Ellis Island and moved to Mulberry Street in New York in 1903. Giuseppe Palmisano’s son, Vincent Jimmy D. Palmisano (Anthony’s great-uncle), started the Feast of San Gennaro on Mulberry Street in New York, then brought it to Florida in the 1970s and finally to Las Vegas in 1980, where it has remained ever since. It was held at the Italian American Club in Las Vegas, and in its early years, the party was hosted and entertained by numerous internationally renowned celebrities, such as Tony Sacca, Pat Cooper, Ernest Borgnine, Jerry Vale, Liberace, and Frankie Avalon.
The President’s Message
His trips to Italy also aim to increase knowledge of Italianness and its art, to enrich and create new Italian menus and dishes, where tradition reigns supreme, and to popularize other typical Italian dishes in America. Furthermore, he aims to disseminate Italian culture, traditions, and music and pass them on to the future generations, to create a bond between Italy and America with the new generations of Italian-Americans today, like his own children, who belong to the fourth generation.
His message is an invitation to all Italians and Americans to participate at the Feast of San Gennaro in Las Vegas in September 2025, an invitation for those who truly love authentic Italian cuisine, considered world-class and unforgettable to international palates, an invitation to taste some of the typical dishes such as: sausage and peppers, linguine and clams, fried calamari, pizza with stuffed artichokes, spaghetti and meatballs. The Feast of San Gennaro features rides, games, dancing, music, art, and live entertainment on the Las Vegas Strip! Fun for both adults and children. The Feast of San Gennaro in Las Vegas is a love story with Italy – don’t miss it!
For more details on the history of San Gennaro, or for those interested in exhibiting or ticket information, you can visit the Feast of San Gennaro page.
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