COLOMBINA. - By this name is known the feast of the "explosion of the cart" which takes place in Florence every year on Holy Saturday, at the moment when the bells are rung and the Gloria is intoned. The cart, surrounded by fireworks, stands in the Piazza del Duomo in front of the main door: and the c., running along a wire, starts from inside the church and goes, by means of a suitable device, to light the fires of the cart. Very many people flock there, especially from the countryside and the surrounding villages, because the peasants are accustomed to draw omens for the harvest from the more or less swift running of the c., or from the interruption of its course, or even from its turning back.
A long tradition, which goes back to the Middle Ages and which is handed down through the centuries by the various Florentine chroniclers, attributes to the Pazzi family the privilege of the explosion of the cart. According to this tradition, in which legendary elements are not lacking, a Pazzo or Pazzino de' Pazzi, who took part in the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre in 1099, received from Godfrey of Bouillon, in reward for his valor, the authorization to take away some pieces of living stone that touched the Sepulchre of Christ. Every year, on Holy Saturday, the Pazzi family displayed these stones in a chapel, and from them the devout were accustomed to draw the holy fire to carry to their own homes. The rite acquired with the passing of the centuries ever greater importance and magnificence, so that a machine or cart was built, which was set on fire on Holy Saturday at the moment of the Resurrection. The cart was then replaced with another more luxurious and sturdy one and, in the time of Leo X, it was enriched with "artificial and worked fires." The present cart is later than the 17th century and was repainted in 1765. Since 1864 the burden of the celebration of the feast has been assumed by the municipality of Florence, which sees to keeping the cart in a special room.
The ancient and original spectacle has always attracted the curiosity of foreign tourists: a noted Danish writer, Selma Lagerlöf, drew from it the subject for a novella of hers.
Bibliography
Paolo Toschi