The patroness of Gela is Maria Santissima dell'Alemanna, celebrated on 8 September. The feast is tied to the ancient finding, by a farmer, of a Byzantine panel on a gilt background depicting the Madonna, in the area of the Aldisio village: a sanctuary now stands there, a destination for pilgrims in the days before the feast.
The name «dell'Alemanna» comes instead from another sanctuary, from the 13th century, built by the order of the Teutonic Knights, torn down as unsafe in the 1970s and rebuilt in 1985: behind the altar is a trapdoor where, in 1450, the icon of Maria Santissima dell'Alemanna was found. On the feast day the painting goes out in procession through the main streets of the upper town, accompanied by the cuccagna a mare — also called «iocu do palliantino» —, the local Sperone Arte exhibition and the via Mare market.
