Solemn feasts for the patron saint in Calcinaia

The feast of the Patron Saint Ubaldesca Taccini occurs every fourth Sunday of May, while the Solemn Procession is on Saturday evening at 9:30 pm.

On Sunday at 11:30 am the Solemn Mass with the blessing of the flags and the crews. A tradition that dates back to 1804, as thanksgiving for having saved the population from a cholera epidemic. Every year on the first Sunday of Advent, Calcinaia celebrates the “Festa del voto o del cordone” with the lighting of a candle at the altar of St. Ubaldesca.

Ubaldesca Taccini was born in Calcinaia on May 23, 1136. At 15 years old she entered the convent of S. Giovanni in Pisa, taking the habit of the order of Jerusalem (the current Knights of Malta). She distinguished herself for the exercise of charity towards the humble, the poor, the sick. She died on May 28, 1206, feast of the Holy Trinity. Since the day of her death, the people, especially those who had benefited her so much in body and spirit, had begun to invoke and honor her as a Saint.

Her body was kept in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Pisa, which had previously belonged to the order of the Templars. The people of Calcinaia asked to have her body back since she was chosen as the Patron Saint of the town. In 1643, the “Relic of the right arm” was granted, until in 1924, the Cardinal of Pisa Pietro Maffi, adhering to the repeated requests of the Calcinaioli, granted the entire body which is kept with devotion in the Church of San Giovanni Battista