Ceri Race (La Corsa dei Ceri di Gubbio)

The "Corsa dei Ceri" (Ceri Race) is one of the oldest Italian rite celebration. It is a solemn act inspired by the devotion of the Eugubines to their Bishop Ubaldo Baldassini, since May 1160, the year of his death. The wax sticks, offered by the guilds of Arts and Crafts were replaced towards the end of the 16th century with three wooden structures formed by two overlapping octagonal prisms and reinforced by an internal wooden frame and crossed by an axis that at the bottom it fits on a support called "stretcher" which allows it to be carried on the shoulder. The Ceri, reconstructed several times, have come down to our days in their original form. On the top there are three small statues representing the patron saints of the guilds: S. Ubaldo (patron and protector of the city) for the masons, S. Giorgio for the traders and craftsmen and S. Antonio for the peasants. For many centuries, it has lived to the streets every year on May 15 in Gubbio (Perugia) and still has a fundamental role for the community of Gubbio. A ritual that is lived thanks to a multitude of faces, looks, gestures, voices and passions. The celebration is consumed in an irrepressible explosion of faith and civic identity passion. The identification of the people of Gubbio with the festival is so great that the Umbria Region has included the Ceri di Gubbio as the official symbol in its banner. (The story is represented "in subjective", from the inside, in sequence, respecting the pauses and the frenetic restarts of the race in the city until the final achievement of the Basilica of S. Ubaldo on top of Mount Ingino.) This reportage wants to be a personal tribute to my hometown and to the origins and traditions of my family. It is an ongoing project.