The patrons of Calatafimi-Segesta are the Most Holy Crucifix, celebrated from 1 to 3 May, and Maria Santissima di Giubino, on the fourth Sunday of September. Both their stories are tied to a danger escaped.
In 1655 a locust invasion was destroying the crops in the fields around Calatafimi. The people, gathered in church, put the names of all the saints with an altar in the city into an urn and, having invoked the Holy Spirit, drew one out: it was Maria Santissima di Giubino. The central part of her triptych was hastily taken from the wall of the rural church at Giubino and carried in procession: Calatafimi was freed from the locusts, and on 25 April 1655 the Madonna was elected patroness of the city. In 1721 the bas-relief found its place on the high altar of the new church designed by Giovanni Biagio Amico, and in 1931 the triptych was reassembled and restored in the city's sanctuary.
The Most Holy Crucifix, instead, is an ancient wooden crucifix of unknown maker: on 23, 24 and 25 June 1657, in the sacristy of the small church of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria where it was kept, it produced a series of healings held to be miraculous. From that the feast was born, which for centuries was not held every year but only when there were enough resources — every ten years, then every five from 1800 — and which today carries through three days of procession the costumed figures divided by guild. The same Amico designed, between 1741 and 1759, the present sanctuary of the Crucifix too, in place of the old chapel.
