Feast of the Ascension

In Gualdo Tadino the Ascension has been celebrated since recorded time, in the full force of spring, near the sanctuary of the Most Holy Trinity, in an enchanting location on the top of Mount Serrasanta and in the underlying meadows of Valsorda, on the borders of Umbria with the Marche.
In popular customs the party followed a much more complex ritual, even if today the ancient building is the destination of many faithful, prayers and gifts, in particular of delicious bunches of daffodils collected in the surrounding meadows.
The confraternity of the Most Holy Trinity, owner of the church, promotes in the anniversaries of the Ascension and of the SS. Trinity processions, and on such occasions, respecting the tradition, distributes bread and eggs to the people, products considered, according to a custom common to many Italian regions, of beneficial virtues comparable to those of water and herbs. The feast, which is no longer celebrated on the fortieth day of Easter but the following Sunday and which has lost part of its solemnity because the religious symbolism has been added to folkloristic elements, was a solemn time as a day of blessing and purification.
However, in recent years it is slowly recovering its original meaning, thanks to the revival of elements of that extraordinary sacrality attributed to it by popular religiosity.

The Sunday of the Ascension of the Lord.