The patron saint of Montone is Pope Gregory I, known as Gregory the Great, celebrated on 12 March: the town's collegiate church, dedicated to him together with Santa Maria Assunta, holds a Last Supper signed and dated 1611 by the Flemish painter Denijs Calvaert, possibly commissioned by a member of the Vitelli family.
Montone's most heartfelt feast, however, is another one: the donation of the Holy Thorn, celebrated on Easter Monday. It was instituted in 1473, when Carlo Fortebraccio, following in the footsteps of his father Braccio in the service of the Republic of Venice, won a victory over the Turks and received as a gift a thorn believed to be from Christ's crown, which he sent to Montone; legend has it that when the first detachment of soldiers arrived, the town's bells began ringing on their own. The relic, displayed from 1635 in a silver reliquary, soon drew such crowds of pilgrims that in 1638, for reasons of public order, a second annual exposition was established.
