Corsa dei Ceri

The statues, five metres tall and weighing in excess of 400 kilos, represent three saints of the city: San Ubaldo, the patron saint of the city, San Giorgio, patron saint of merchants, and San Antonio, patron saint of farmers. The result of the race is preordained - San Ubaldo wins every year, but the contestants put up a vigorous sweaty "fight" anyway. The ritual generates a great festive spirit, and the trappings, decorations and ceremonies are full of life.

The origins of this strange and exuberant ritual are shrouded in mystery: the most popular theory links the festival to the patron saint of the city, San Ubaldo Baldassimi, a bishop who died in 1160 and whose remains are still kept in the local cathedral, minus three fingers which were apparently chopped off as a religious souvenir by his manservant. Dissenting scholars argue that it is rather a pagan celebration of Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest, appropriated by the church in recent times.

Whatever the origins of the ritual, it is clearly a baroque and syncretistic practice, with its roots in many places: some of the little boys who ride the horizontal ceri on the first Sunday of May when they are taken out to be shown wear a fez, and no women are allowed to touch the oversized looming wooden cylinders carried by the men.

Other noteworthy attractions of the city include the Fontana dei Matti in Via dei Consoli, the "Fountain of the Mad" which is reputed to drive anyone who walks around it three times completely bonkers. Don't blame us, we warned you!