The name has nothing to do with the flower: it comes from the Latin Igilium, which is traced back to the Greek aigylion, the goat. The municipality is made of two islands, Giglio and Giannutri, and it borders no other municipality in Italy. The Romans kept a base and a villa here: at Giglio Porto, half under water, there are still the remains of the villa of the Domitii Ahenobarbi, with the sea tank where they farmed fish. And the island's granite ended up in Rome, in the columns and the buildings of the city.
In 1544 the Ottoman corsair Khayr al-Din Barbarossa landed on Giglio, killed those who resisted and carried off more than seven hundred islanders as slaves: almost all of them. The Medici had to repopulate the island with people brought from the Sienese lands, and the Barbary raids went on until 1799. The other date everyone knows is 13 January 2012, when the Costa Concordia struck the Scole rocks and ran aground in front of Giglio Porto: thirty-two people died. The ship stayed there until 2014, and it is the largest ever to sink and be recovered; on the Molo Rosso a plaque remembers the dead.
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📅 Every year, on 15 September
On 15 September Giglio Castello celebrates its patron Saint Mamilianus with a procession, the Palio degli Asini (donkey race) and the quadrille; on 10 August it is Giglio Porto's turn, with the Palio Marinaro for Saint Lawrence.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Isola del Giglio, but an easy day trip away.
