The basilica stands on the top of Monte Ingino, above Gubbio, and keeps the body of the city's patron saint. It is the finishing point of the race of the Ceri, which every year on the fifteenth of May carries three enormous wooden machines up here at a run, pushed on the shoulders of teams of men in coloured shirts: one of the oldest and most serious feasts in Italy.
What to see
Work began in 1513, over a small earlier church and a parish church, with the support of the duchesses of Urbino and the pope. The church was entrusted to the canons regular of the order the saint had belonged to, and it returned to them a few years ago after more than two centuries in the hands of others.
Inside, the body of the saint is displayed in an urn above the high altar. But what strikes most those who come out of season are the three Ceri, resting in the nave for all the rest of the year: seen standing still, as tall as a house, they give the measure of what it means to carry them up the mountain.
Visiting
You go up from Gubbio by the basket cable car, which is an open cage for two people standing, or on foot by the steep road that starts from the upper gate; free entry to the basilica, cable car hours seasonal and shorter in winter. An hour and a half.
Our editors' tip
Go on a day other than the feast, when the Ceri stand still and there is nobody about. Then look out from the terrace at the road going down to the town: that climb is done at a run, with an enormous weight on the shoulders, and it has been done for centuries. No video conveys what you understand by looking at the drop from up there.
