The patron of Solarino is Saint Paul the Apostle, and the town's oldest and most heartfelt feast is held on the first Sunday of August, with festivities starting already the week before: it is the «feast» par excellence for the people of Solarino, drawing the faithful from neighbouring towns and the many emigrants scattered across the world, especially in Australia, the United States, Switzerland and Germany. During the procession, the float of Saint Paul leaves the mother church in what is locally called «a sciuta», the coming out.
The bond between Solarino and the apostle goes back, according to local tradition, to the journey that in AD 61 took Paul from Syracuse to Rome: having landed in the city, he stayed there three days despite the military custody he was under. The town's very name, founded in the 18th century as a fief, came from the saint's: it was officially called «San Paolo Solarino», a name that still coexists today with the older place-name Solarino. The so-called «Pauline places» — Saint Paul's well, Saint Paul's cave and the remains of the old church at Cozzo Collura — remain among the town's main points of interest, together with the mother church of San Paolo Apostolo, whose construction began in 1764 and finished ninety years later.
