The patron of Caltagirone is Saint James the Greater — Santu Jacupu in dialect — and his feast on 25 July is one of the most important in the province of Catania.
On the evenings of the 24th and the 25th the Santa Maria del Monte staircase is lit up: oil lamps inside polychrome roof tiles, laid out in a pattern along the one hundred and forty-two steps. Both evenings also see the procession of the Civic Senate, in 17th-century costume, escorting the civil authorities to the religious rites and recalling the standing that the Universitas of Caltagirone had in the Kingdom. For years now the bearers' cry of «Viva Diu e Santu Jacupu» has no longer been heard: on the evening of the 25th the float and the case with the relic go round the city on motor vehicles, with the same ceremonial as of old and a few variations.
