 
In May there is a festival honoring a Catholic
patronale of the Byzantine Empire in which
depicts the Virgin Mary in her arms with the
child Jesus. From the second to the third Sunday
of May the Feast of Our Lady of Capocolonna takes
place at Crotone, in memory of a extraordinary
event dating back to 1519 when the Turks besieged
the city and destroyed the very beautiful
painting of the Virgin, that was shortly
afterwards miraculously found intact on the beach
by a countryman.
Now, every
year thousands of people come from all over
Calabria to venerate this image of Our Lady which
includes a pilgrimage for 12 kilometres, in a
torchlight procession up to the sanctuary of
Capocolonna. The following evening the image of
the Black Virgin, on an embarkation, sails into
Crotone to return to the cathedral. During the
festival there are other such events as musical
concerts, fireworks, and a craft fair.
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The name derives from Papas-Niceforo, he was the
priest who led seven families
nell'attraversamento Greek Ionian Sea in 1409.
Niceforo means bearer of victory from the greek
nica: win and from the Latin fero: port. The
village is located on the first hills of the
Marquise, with a height of 156 meters above sea
level, country of origin grecofane was founded in
1409 by seven Greek families, among which include
the family Raimondi, Sculco, and Franco Peta,
fled dall'Eubea as a result of Ottoman raids.
A
dispute that has gone on for years is whether the
people of Papanice should be called
"papanicesi" or
"papaniciari", we say that the first is
the Italian form, the second is the form used in
the dialect, as the name of the country in which
dialect changes the last vowel in "i"
Papanice.
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