The Co-cathedral of SS. Marziale and Alberto in Colle Val d'Elsa

Where the Holy Nail is kept

The Holy Nail is kept in a humble piece of reed, the same one in which it was carried back to Bibbiano, and to which it seems to be particularly attached. In this regard, the tradition recounts the episode when the people of Colle, wanting to honor the relic, placed it in a magnificent silver reliquary. The day after the celebration, when they opened this precious container, they were amazed to see that it was empty. The relic had returned miraculously to its place inside the reed.
Some people claim that the reed is a portion of the one used to raise a sponge soaked in vinegar to Christ’s lips when he was on the cross; others say it was the original container in which the Holy Nail was lowered into the sea by Saint Helena to calm the storm during her trip home from Jerusalem.
Today the reed with the Holy Nail inside it is housed in a precious silver strongbox, made in Florence in the seventeenth century, kept in the tabernacle of the Chapel of the Holy Nail. Everything is protected by a system of five keys: two for each door of the tabernacle, plus the one that opens the strongbox; for security reasons, these keys are entrusted to five different people.
Besides the relic, the strongbox also holds the crimson wool gloves used for the first time by the archpriest Albert of Chiatina in the twelfth century and still used today by all his successors to touch the relic. Once the relic is removed from the box, it is placed inside an eighteenth-century silver and glass monstrance to be shown and kissed by the faithful and carried in procession. Only priests, wearing sacred vestments, are allowed to kiss the relic directly.