Running around Gubbio with giant phallic candles

Damn. I can’t believe I missed it. A couple of weekends ago Gubbio held the Corsa dei Ceri—the Race of the Candles—and I wasn’t there. This is like the Kentucky Derby of phallic symbol races.

“The Gubbini are thought to be slightly mad, so I think it’s okay you missed it,” Maura told me. So what, exactly, happens in this race? I asked her.

She said it was very complex and a little difficult to explain, but she’d try. First of all, this crazy race has been going on for at least 800 years and probably is a mixture of pagan and Christian traditions. But what happens is that the town selects three teams, each wearing white pants and red scarfs with different colored shirts—yellow, blue, or black—and then they build these 20-foot-tall wooden candles.

Corsa dei Ceri–the Race of the Candles–in Gubbio.

“These candles, they’re like giant penises. And they put vases of water on top of the candles and they crash down and explode and the pazzo Gubbini fight each other to get a little piece of the wet pots because it’s considered good luck or something. Capisca?”

 So first these teams parade the giant candles around town, ending at the Piazza della Signoria, and then at exactly 6pm, the big bell of Palazzo dei Consoli rings and the candles are raised on the shoulders of the men and are carried up the slope of Mount Ingino to the Basilica of St. Ubaldo, the patron saint of Gubbio.

Now, since this is a race, you’d think that whoever arrived at the top of the mountain first would win, but you’d be wrong. The thing is each of the candles is dedicated to a saint: St. Giorgio, protector of merchants; St. Anthony, protector of farmers; and, of course, St. Ubaldo, the town’s patron saint. So no matter who gets to the church atop Mt. Ingino first, St. Ubaldo always wins.

“So why,” I asked Maura, “do they even have a race if it doesn’t matter who wins?”

“I already told you,” Maura said, obviously exasperated by my denseness. “The Gubbini are crazy!”

Still, I wish I’d been here. How often do you get to see a bunch of grown men race around a medieval town carrying giant phallic symbols on their shoulders?