The patron saint of Motta d'Affermo is Saint Luke the Evangelist, celebrated on 18 October. His statue, now kept in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli on Piazza San Luca, was moved here after the destruction of the church originally dedicated to him; the same church also holds a precious 15th-century reliquary containing a relic of the patron saint.
The town also venerates Saint Roch as protector, celebrated on 16 August with masses, processions and a «historical cavalcade», a parade of horses preceded by a banner bearing the riders' offerings and closed by recitations of dialect poems; the church dedicated to him, from 1575, holds among other things his statue made by Antonio Pellegrino between 1613 and 1620.
Around 1380 the knight Muchius Albamonte, alias de Fermo, repopulated the hamlet and became its lord and baron; killed in 1392, he was succeeded by his wife Margherita Ventimiglia. In 1452 Giovanni Albamonte was named baron of Motta de Firmo: among his sons was Guglielmo Albamonte, who was one of the thirteen Italian champions of the famous Challenge of Barletta in 1503.
