The patron saint of Empoli is Saint Andrew the Apostle, celebrated on 30 November. The town grew up precisely around the parish church of Sant'Andrea and a nearby castle in the 12th century: an early church dedicated to the saint likely already existed in the 5th century, and is mentioned in a now-lost document from the year 840, as well as in a bull of Pope Nicholas II from 1059, which granted the provost and chapter of Empoli's collegiate church the tributes and revenues of the surrounding countryside, removing it from the secular jurisdiction of the Guidi and Alberti counts.
Rebuilt in the 11th century, the collegiate church of Sant'Andrea still today dominates Piazza Farinata degli Uberti with its facade, called Piazza dei Leoni by the people of Empoli after the lion-adorned fountain at its centre; alongside stand the historic Palazzo Pretorio and, opposite, the Palazzo Ghibellino, with a portico surrounding the square in a layout unusual for Tuscan towns. Inside the collegiate church, on the 1785 high altar, stands a 14th-century triptych by Lorenzo di Bicci depicting the Madonna Enthroned among Saints Martin, Andrew, Agatha and John the Baptist. From 1397 to 1860, on the feast of Corpus Domini, the town celebrated for centuries the curious «Volo del Ciuco» (Flight of the Donkey), during which a donkey was hoisted to the top of the collegiate church's bell tower and made to slide down a rope until it crashed into the Palazzo Ghibellino, a tradition re-enacted today since 2008 with a fake donkey.
