Duomo

The cathedral or Duomo of Colle Val d’Elsa is dedicated to 4 Saints: Martial, Faustino, Giovita and Alberto. L’edificio attuale fu costruito sulla preesistente cappella di San Salvatore già menzionata in una bolla papale del 1115. At the end of the 12th century, the church was raised to the rank of parish of Saints Salvatore, Faustino and Giovita. The development of this church occurred in conjunction with the formation of the Colligiano municipality, which resulted in the new construction with a facade with seven blind arches and the foliated capitals typical of the Pisan Romanesque, still visible today on the left side of the building. Three centuries later (1520) the parish was elevated to a collegiate church. Already at the end of the sixteenth century, however, after Colle Val d’Elsa became an episcopal city (1592), the need arose to have a larger church. Thus began the construction of the current Cathedral which lasted about half a century (1603-1658), with the exception of the facade which was instead built in the early decades of the nineteenth century. On the left side of the Cathedral is the bell tower dating back to 1632, while the large clock was installed in 1807. The internal building follows the typical lines of the Counter-Reformation: three naves divided by sturdy pillars, a protruding transept and a deep presbytery. Although the architectural structures appear to be of a certain simplicity, inside the cathedral there are precious artistic treasures to be admired. They range from the rich ornamental apparatus made of gilded stuccos and frescoes in the chapel of San Marziale, to the fifteenth-century pulpit in the central nave, passing through the fine inlaid door near the entrance to the sacristy. In addition to the valuable wooden altars, precious bronze paintings and crucifixes on the model of Giambologna, one of the most sacred objects, kept and venerated throughout the Cathedral, is a nail, one of those from the crucifixion of Christ. Closed by a wrought iron gate, the Cappella del Sacro Chiodo houses in its fifteenth-century tabernacle the Sacred Nail of the Cross of Christ, venerated since the twelfth century and still an object of worship among the Colligiana community. The nail, which arrived in Colle in the 9th century, is in fact carried every year in September, in a solemn procession through the streets of the city.