The Co-cathedral of SS. Marziale and Alberto in Colle Val d'Elsa
The Feast Day
Anyone who comes to Colle on the second Sunday of September can participate in the Feast of the Holy Nail. On this occasion the community of faithful assembles to take part in the solemn celebration, during which the relic is displayed and carried in procession from the cathedral through the streets of Colle di Val d’Elsa, through the castle area as far as the Bastion, where a solemn blessing is invoked on the city. Finally, long lines of the faithful move towards the grille in front of the altar of the Holy Nail, waiting to be able to kiss this object, apparently a mere instrument of death and suffering, but which enabled Christ to die on the cross, overcome death, and grant mankind eternal life.
The Knights of the Holy Sepulcher also take part in the festivities, since, as defenders of the Holy Land, they feel a special attachment to this relic.
Another occasion when the Holy Nail is taken out is Good Friday. After the Way of the Cross through the city streets, the population gathers in the Co-cathedral where, from the door, the archpriest blesses the city by turning the relic towards the four points of the compass and then holds it out for the faithful to kiss.
These are today the main times when the relic can be seen and honored, but in the past the people of Colle turned to it also in their moments of greatest difficulty, invoking protection and help during battles and aid in periods of famine and plague. In this regard, in 1554 the priest Jacopo Fontana tells us about a miracle the holy relic brought about by liberating the city from the plague of 1527 after a procession in which a large part of the population participated.
For these illustrious reasons, veneration of the relic spread beyond the area of Colle. Soon a real pilgrimage grew up to the altar of the Holy Nail, to which the people, including the family of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, came to pay tribute.
Devotion to the Holy Nail led the Florentine Giovan Battista Buonaccorsi, bishop of Colle, to found in 1654 the Centuria del Sacro Chiodo, or Legion of the Holy Nail, a canonically established association of faithful made up of one-hundred priests, a centurion, and twenty-five laymen.
The association, still active today, has as its exclusive statutory purposes worship and intercession for the souls of the deceased brothers.