Maratea's greatest feast commemorates not the death of its patron but his arrival: the anniversary of the translation of the relics of Blaise of Sebaste to this Lucanian town. It lasts eight days, from the Saturday before the first Sunday of May to the second Sunday of the month. The martyrdom is remembered on 3 February instead, here as elsewhere.
The protocol of the modern feast was set in 1695 and has been kept ever since. Over those eight days the statue leaves the basilica four times: the first procession, called "San Biagio goes through the land", crosses the old town, the Castello; the third, "San Biagio through the streets of the city", goes through the present historic centre; the second and fourth consist of carrying the statue, in a form fixed since 1781.
The basilica stands on the summit of Monte San Biagio, facing the statue of the Redeemer, at the highest point of old Maratea: tradition has it built on the site of a temple of Minerva, and it has been a minor basilica since 1940.
