Why Thousands of Italians Sprint Through a Medieval Town Carrying a 400kg Wooden Tower

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Every year on 15 May, the medieval streets of Gubbio fall quiet. Then the drums begin.

Within moments, hundreds of men are sprinting at full speed through narrow stone lanes, carrying a massive wooden structure above their heads. The crowds pressed into the alleyways scream. The church bells ring from every tower. Nobody — not even the participants — can quite explain why they still do this.

This is the Festa dei Ceri. And it has been happening, without interruption, for more than 850 years.

What Are the Ceri?

The word “ceri” means candles in Italian, though these wooden structures look nothing like any candle you’ve encountered. Each cero stands roughly four metres tall — an octagonal wooden prism crowned with a carved statue of a patron saint — and weighs hundreds of kilograms.

There are three: one for Sant’Ubaldo in yellow, one for San Giorgio in blue, one for Sant’Antonio Abate in black. Each team of carriers — called ceraioli — trains together throughout the year, learning to hold corners, shift weight, and keep the cero from swaying on Gubbio’s steep medieval streets.

The Race That Always Ends the Same Way

Here is the detail that surprises every first-time visitor: everyone already knows who will win.

Sant’Ubaldo’s team always arrives at the Basilica di Sant’Ubaldo, high on Mount Ingino, before the others. This is not a technicality — it’s tradition. The festival honours Gubbio’s own patron saint, and his cero must reach the top first. This has never changed.

Yet the competition is fierce. Each team races to carry their cero with the greatest speed and precision possible. Gubbio’s winding medieval lanes were not built for this kind of effort. Competitors sprint around blind corners, press through stone archways, and somehow always keep the cero upright.

A Festival Older Than Most Nations

Scholars trace the Festa dei Ceri to the Middle Ages, though many believe its roots go further still — back to ancient spring rituals connected to Ceres, the Roman goddess of grain. The festival’s timing in May and its symbolic structure echo traditions that predate Christianity in this part of Italy.

Whatever its origins, Gubbio has never let it go. Through plagues, wars, and upheavals that erased other traditions entirely, the ceri were lifted every 15th of May. In 2013, UNESCO formally recognised the festival as Intangible Cultural Heritage — an acknowledgment of something Gubbio’s people had known for centuries.

Growing Up on a Team

In Gubbio, your team is often decided before you are old enough to ask questions. Your surname, your neighbourhood, your grandfather’s trade — these things determine whether you will bleed yellow, blue, or black.

This is campanilismo at its most vivid — the fierce, tender loyalty to one’s own place that runs through Italian identity at every level. Children watch from their parents’ shoulders. By their twenties, many are ceraioli themselves.

What It Feels Like to Be There

The streets fill from dawn. The formal procession that precedes the race is ceremonial — historical costumes, the Bishop of Gubbio, civic officials moving slowly through the old town. Then the ceri are lifted. Everything changes in an instant.

People who witness it for the first time describe feeling ambushed by emotion — the sound of hundreds of feet on stone, the sheer physical improbability of what’s being carried. Italy has no shortage of extraordinary traditions, and festivals are woven into Italian life in a way that other countries have largely forgotten. But the Festa dei Ceri has something different. It is not spectacular in the way fireworks are spectacular. It is human in the way that very few things still are.

Planning Your Visit

Gubbio sits less than two hours from Florence by road and is easily reached from Perugia or Assisi. The town itself — walled, medieval, and free of mass tourism — rewards more than a single day. If you are planning your Italy trip, Umbria is often the region travellers discover once and spend years trying to return to.

For 15 May, arrive the evening before. The best positions along the race route are claimed early. Find a spot on one of the narrower streets, stand as close as you can, and let what happens happen.

Nine centuries of this. That kind of continuity is rare — and rarer still to stand inside it, even for an afternoon.

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Plan Your Italy Trip

Ready to explore Umbria? The Ultimate Italy Travel Guide covers everything from hidden regions to essential itineraries — start here.

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