The patron saint of Forlì is Our Lady of the Fire, celebrated on 4 February with a solemn procession through the old town, accompanied by liturgical celebrations and moments of communal prayer. In 1630, during a plague epidemic, the people attributed the town's salvation to this sacred image, which from then on became its patron: the Chiesa del Miracolo is dedicated to her, a Baroque-classicising 17th-century sanctuary, while at the centre of Piazza del Duomo still today stands the votive column named after her, erected in 1636 with a statue attributed to Clemente Molli and originally placed in Piazza Saffi.
The town's co-patrons are Saint Valerian the Martyr, Saint Mercurialis, Saint Pellegrino Laziosi and the Blessed Torello da Poppi. Linked to Saint Mercurialis, whose abbey gave the town its medieval name as «Figline qui vocatur Livia», is the historic Palio di San Mercuriale, documented in the medieval period and once held on 30 April; surviving in various forms into the modern age, it never took firm hold again despite some 20th-century attempts at revival. Saint Pellegrino Laziosi, patron of cancer patients and the incurably ill, rests instead in the basilica dedicated to him, raised to minor basilica by Pope Paul VI, near which the traditional Fiera di San Pellegrino, also known as the Sagra dei Cedri, is held every 1 May.
