The patron saint of Portocannone is the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Constantinople, whose statue is an object of great veneration for all the faithful of the town. The church dedicated to her was built near the old settlement, destroyed by an earthquake, which was given the same name as the town levelled to the ground.
Portocannone is one of four municipalities in the province of Campobasso belonging to the Arbëreshë ethnic and linguistic minority, along with Campomarino, Montecilfone and Ururi: it was rebuilt by a colony of Albanian exiles during the first migration of 1461, when King Ferdinand I of Aragon, to defeat the Angevin faction, secured the help of the militias of Giorgio Castriota Skanderbeg, the Albanian national hero. In memory of that arrival, every Monday following Pentecost the famous «chariot race» takes place, in which ox-drawn carts, followed by young men on horseback, compete, divided into three factions with white-light blue, yellow-red and orange colours, for the coveted right to carry the statue of the Madonna in procession the following Tuesday, the day of the patronal feast.
