Note 113 — Chapter XII · In Umbria

In 1155 Frederick Barbarossa besieged Gubbio, but the Bishop of the city—Ubaldo—pleaded in such passionate terms for her deliverance, that the Emperor renounced the siege. Since then the holy Bishop is worshipped with almost barbaric rites in the city. On his feast-day (May 15) his image, and those of the two other patron Saints of the town, are carried in a weird and almost horrible procession from midday until night-fall through the streets. They are mounted on immense candelabra—ceri—of extraordinary shape, and weighing each several tons. The young men of the town, dressed in white shirts and trousers and coloured caps, and staggering, half mad with wine and weariness, bear them upon their shoulders at a half trot. At nightfall they make a final rush with these Umbrian juggernauts up the mountain side to the chapel of the Saint, and there the ceri remain in peace for the remainder of the year, till fetched for the same barbaric performance the following May. For a full and most interesting account of this ceremony we must refer the reader to Mr Bower’s delightful book on the “Ceri of Gubbio.”