Originally a great faith

The procession is for Comeanesi an intense moment of religiosity and the desire of all to contribute to the realisation of the historical commemoration of the Passion and Death of Jesus. Passion is the key element that has remained constant over time and in the life of the village of Comeana, so much as to push other Comeanesi to leave an indelible mark of their part in the religion of the village. And Comeana, founded as a land of stone, the stone which, up to a few years ago, was taken from the quarries of Gonfolina, over the Arno and Ombrone, could use no other material to leave this mark.
The first mark is represented by the portal of the oratory of the Compagna della Chiesa di San Michene in Comeana, on which you can find the inscription “SS Eucharestiae Sacramenti Confraternitas A.D. MDCCLVI.” In 1753 the brothers of the Confraternita del Santissimo Sacramento (Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament) had in fact come to an agreement with the parish in order to expand their seat building to include a new sacristy in in the place of the old one and part of the cemetery. The Confraternita del Santissimo Sacramento was the centre of life of Comeana and Comeana’s people for two hundred years, providing a religious basis, and also a prime example of voluntary work. It began to form around 1590 and immediately decided to adopt their own oratory for the meetings of the brothers, seeing that the the Parish Church of Comeana, was quite narrow and was already occupied by another fraternity: that of the Santissimo Rosario (Holy Rosary).
The goal was achieved in nine years and on 19 December 1599 the Confraternity gave itself a statute that summarised its norms for conduct. The first chapter reports that the brothers had to wear a white linen gown with a belt of cord, whereas Chapter V specifies that the brothers had to take complete charge of any restoration of the new structure.
In the remaining chapters they describe the execution of the church services, and talk about the ones planned for Holy Thursday and Good Friday. Around the middle of the eighteenth century, despite the fact that pastoral visits had never been object of any criticism, the brothers decided to modify the structure making it closer to the tastes of the time so that at the time of its maximum expansion its members numbered two hundred brothers and one hundred and fifty sisters. In the pastoral visit of 1778 the Company is defined as: “very modern, sometimes very beautiful, “messa a stucchi”, and larger than the church. The altar is Roman style, made of stone and finely worked. “In the following years an organ with wooden choir was donated to the confraternity by the monks of Santa Caterina and San Sebastiano in Pistoia, and placed on the counter-façade. In 1784, after the suppression of the Confraternity, it was decided to move the parish there, the one which is now the Church of San Michele in Comeana.  

The second mark in stone on the façade of the church is represented by the Mazzinghi family coat of arms, surmounted by the crown and with a particular mask at the bottom. The Mazzinghis, a family among the protagonists in Carmignano, had conferred its patronage to the church of San Michele since the eleventh century. According to the Verino, the Mazzinghis arrived in Tuscany following Otto, King of Germany and stayed in Italy living in Pistoia. An ancient settlement of theirs was present in the plain of Campi, where they had fortified residences equipped with tower and gained the respect of Florence Pistoia. Most likely it was thanks to the possession of this land in the middle, and the fortifications, that they managed to repel the assaults of Pistoia, thus gaining a right of retaliation which was realised taking possession of a land on the slopes of the Montalbano, Comeana in fact. On two stones of the façade of the church there is a name, Ugolino di Iacopo Mazzinghi, and a date, 1576. The link is still partly shrouded in mystery, but it certainly confirms that the Mazzinghi family was important and present in the religiosity of Comeana.
(Text by Walter Fortini and Niccolò Fanfani, taken from the booklet produced for the 2006 edition of the festival)