Since 1969, a story of popular passion for the historical and religious identity of Umbria.

“It is an ancient custom of the castle that on the eve of the Assumption three companies of laymen gather at the Madonna del Serraglio with many devout folk and clergy, they carry a light around the castle and go as far as the church of Sant'Agostino, then to the square, ever singing litanies, and once they reach the parish church they beg the lights as alms and return home. On the morning of the said feast of the Assumption the three companies accompany, with those same lights, the procession that is held by carrying around the castle a relief image of the Madonna, together with the clergy present in the said castle, singing hymns”

(ADPg, Visitationes X, Inventari, PSS, 1593, Notula di tutte le chiese, oratori, Madonne, Maestà, Hospitali, Fraternite et altari che sono nella cura della parrocchia del Castello di Corciano)

One of the features of Umbria's oldest festivals and historical processions is that over the years they have prompted very important paths of historical research which, alongside documentary discoveries or cultural and historical readings, have allowed local communities to keep an ever updated and popular knowledge of their past, that is, one shared among non specialists. This happened at Corciano too, after don Franco Pulcinelli (Castiglione del Lago 1930 – Perugia 2008) and other devoted parishioners conceived the Historical Procession of the Gonfalone in 1969. From the very beginning, from the mimeographed publication of the “Quaderni dell'Agosto Corcianese” to the studies circulated in the programmes, in the exhibition catalogues, in the meetings and lectures, the Procession has moved in step with research into Corciano's identity and memory, each becoming the iconographic mirror of the other. The 1593 document I transcribed at the beginning of this article is a fortunate case, still unknown when the festival came into being.
The procession, to be held on the day of the Assumption, was conceived to bring together two masterpieces central to Corciano's identity: the Gonfalone depulsores pestilentiae by Benedetto Bonfigli, and the altarpiece that Pietro Vannucci, il Perugino, delivered to Corciano to celebrate the mid August Madonna of the year 1513. Marian faith and love for one's own town, as one can imagine, were joined to the hope of recounting and displaying, through the evocative ceremony of the historical procession as well, the beauties and monuments of Corciano, then largely unknown: it was an invitation to discover places, streets and alleys, and with them the figures who had frequented and enlivened them, leaving traces of old or recent memory.

The path sensed in 1969 was the right one: to recreate an itinerary of the sacred in memory of the medieval processions born for preventive and/or therapeutic purposes, so as to place under the protection of the patron Virgin the streets, perfectly recognisable and identifiable, and the people who live and work here, accompanied by the clergy and the lay confraternities. The 1593 document has only made clear that what was carried in procession for the feast of the Assumption was a sculpture of the Virgin and not the Gonfalone of the Mater misericordiae.
Bonfigli's gonfalone was not “brought out” during the patronal feast but for extraordinary reasons, to ward off social emergencies such as famines, plagues, droughts, earthquakes or other natural calamities, not forgetting wars. In Bonfigli's gonfalone, upon the mantle opened like an umbrella to protect those who entrust themselves to Mary, divine wrath descends, personified by the angered Eternal and by the arrows; the two intercessor saints, the doctor ecclesiae Augustine of Hippo, patron of the church of the Augustinian friars for which the painting was made, and the wonderworker Sebastian, turn to the Virgin in the customary silent speech: «Santa Maria succurre miseres, iuva pusillanimes, refove flebiles, ora pro populo tuo» and «O Maria flos Virginum velut rosa, vel lilium, funde preces ad filium pro salute fidelium». These scrolls inspire the Lauda that, in the painting, a magistrate recites at the end of the procession on behalf of the whole community.
The title of the exhibition, Communitas et Homines insignis oppidi Curtiani, which will be open from 4 to 15 August in the Sala dell'antico mulino, is taken from the heading of the community's land register (ASPg, Catasti, III, 39, 37), and was chosen because it explains the idea the procession seeks to convey: the community in its entirety, made up of oratores and bellatores, clerics and laypeople, priors, stewards and auditors, musicians and heralds, nobles and commoners, townsfolk and artisans, men and women, the old and children, the guilty and sinners who entrust themselves to the divine while awaiting grace. The fifty images, gathered from the holdings of the Pro Loco Corcianese tourist association, always the event's organiser, of the Municipality of Corciano, its first supporter, and of various local families, allow one to step inside the procession and relive its emotions, feelings and glimpses of history.

Projections and set reconstructions help recreate the magic of a past that merges with the present. To the ringing sound of the trombetti and the roll of the tamburini in the Community's pay, through the streets and lanes of Corciano coloured by the many hued rione banners, the roughly three hundred participants parade, dressed in late fifteenth century costumes made by the skilled hands of the local women and artisans.
Starting from the convent of Sant'Agostino, the place for which in 1472 – as the register of the Riformanze attests, on display at the permanent exhibition centre on medieval and Renaissance culture, in the Tower of Porta Santa Maria – the Community had the pictor urbis, Benedetto Bonfigli, make the Gonfalone di Corciano, the procession ends in piazza Coragino. The square is named after the mythical founder of Corciano, a Trojan companion of the Greek Ulysses, who in turn founded Perugia, according to the fourteenth century heraldic legend of Il Conto di Corciano e di Perugia, in the shadow of the pieve church of Santa Maria Assunta, where the Pala dell'Assunta by Perugino dwells.
The apotropaic ritual of protection, with the sacred “brought out” from its own temple and led through the everyday streets, is marked by the silent prayer of the people who parade in keeping with the rigid hierarchies of the time. During the procession, the route touches the ancient divisions of the castle of Corciano: the Borgo, just outside porta Santa Maria; the Forma, the Fratta, the Castel vecchio and the Girone within the thirteenth century walls. Represented by their own heralds are the rioni of Corciano vecchio, a place about a kilometre away where, around the pieve of Santa Croce, the ancient settlement mentioned by the land registers rose, and that of the Serraglio, where stand the church of Santa Maria del Serraglio, built by incorporating a crossroads shrine graced by a walking Madonna and Child of the late fourteenth century, and the complex of San Francesco, today one of the museums that holds numerous local treasures.

Beyond its own colours, each rione is marked by an emblem. The Borgo has as its coat of arms the Tower of Porta Santa Maria, raised in 1482 to a design by Pietro Lombardo, by Bartolo di Meo Lombardo, both surely members of the Perugian guild of the Lombards that worked in Perugia and Umbria between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, obtaining important civil, religious and military commissions. The raising of this bastioned or modern style fortification changed the look of the southern side of the castle, altering the image immortalised by Bonfigli in the Gonfalone. The Forma quarter is represented by a Lion in memory of the two beasts mentioned in Il Conto and today kept at the Antiquarium. In the coat of arms of the Fratta is impressed the dogwood of the della Corgna lords, who owned many properties in this rione. A recent discovery, in fact, is that a fine palace located a short way from the apse of the parish church belonged to the family; inside, it preserves remains of frescoes in which the cardinal's coat of arms of Fulvio stands out and, on the lintel of the entrance door, the stone emblem of the Medici, allies of the della Corgna family. The Girone is distinguished by the symbol of the ancient well dug in 1493; the Castel vecchio is marked by the communal tower, one of the first in the Perugian countryside to be furnished with a clock mechanism (1453); the Serraglio is represented by the little church of the same name dedicated to the mother of Christ; the Santa Croce rione is outlined by the coat of arms of the Rotelli. The family that gave birth to Luigi (Corciano 1833 – Roma 1891), bishop of Montefiascone, made cardinal by pope Leo XIII three and a half months before his death, had vast holdings here.
Il Conto also tells of the origin of the coat of arms of Corciano that opens the procession beside the key of its main gate. It was the paladin of France, Orlando, who gave his arms, which became the emblem of the Community. The knight, who was on his way to free the paladin and brother in law Olivieri, held prisoner in Perugia by Aregoglioso, passing through here came upon Cornaletto, lord of Corciano and last descendant of the founder Coragino, who challenged him to a duel. The paladin accepted, proposing however that in the event of his own victory he would baptise him. Naturally Orlando won and Cornaletto became the first Christian of Corciano; he had, however, so distinguished himself in the joust that the paladin wished to give him his arms: a shield quartered in red and silver.
Some carved stone records of Corciano recount the origin of the coats of arms of the guilds of the Arts and Crafts, regulators of medieval communal civic life. The three main ones, set along corso cardinale Rotelli, the main street of Corciano, are the tailors, whose emblem is taken from the one still visible on the keystone of the ancient entrance to their seat; the butchers, whose coat of arms appears instead among those of the extraordinary burial ground still visible inside the church of San Francesco of Corciano; and the wool workers. Parading with the herald are the representatives and priors who, according to what was laid down by the Statute of 1560, during the mid August festivities were obliged to offer a candle to the parish church. The offering is re enacted, as the 1593 document recounts, with a solemn illumination after vespers on the eve. The guilds offer the mother church the fruits of their work, that is cuts of velvet, damask and very fine cotton cloth; a delicious piglet raised specifically for this solemnity and cooked porchetta style, and a tuft of the purest and finest wool dyed in woad, a colorant grown on the Corciano plain.

As the 1593 document also shows, a leading role in medieval Corciano was played by the confraternities, lay associations with charitable and benevolent aims. Their emblem is a cross covered with precious velvets, called a benda. The bende, of great artistic and historical value, are carried by the confreres, dressed in the characteristic coloured tunics and capes, alternating with children who bear insignia and standards. In memory of the older ones of the Rose, the Cockerel and the Lily, the confraternities still in existence today parade, following the liturgical calendar of the religious feasts. The first is the one dedicated to Saint Anthony the Abbot, to which country folk and farmers turned, already attested in 1452. It has its seat in the church of the same name, the first religious settlement of the castle of Corciano, built on a pre existing structure, a sort of fabrica attached to an early medieval or earlier palatium, which tradition identifies with the palace of Coragino, mentioned in Il Conto. There follow the confraternity of Saint Sebastian and Roch, which has its seat in the church of Sant'Agostino and was devoted to the care of the sick, above all in times of calamity, and that of Prayer and Death, located inside the church of Santa Maria del Serraglio, whose purpose was to ensure everyone the last journey to the cemetery and burial. The confreres have their faces veiled by a cloth called a buffa, to conceal the face of whoever carried out that act of charity. Next parades the confraternity of the Most Holy Sacrament, which has its seat in the church of San Cristoforo, raised at the top of the settlement in place of the large arch, depicted by Bonfigli in the Gonfalone, the imposing access to the first core of the castle. It was devoted to the cult of the precious Host and administered the property of the community hospital, which had its seat in the fine palace, just outside Porta Santa Maria, where the little church of the Mater Salvatoris is incorporated, decorated with a valuable fresco by Ludovico di Angelo di Baldassare of 1494. Concluding are the confraternity of Saint Anthony of Padua, whose home is in the church of San Francesco, which saw to providing dowries for poor girls and, for this reason, was called the “company of the spinsters”, and that of Saint Joseph, which has its seat in the church of Santa Maria del Serraglio and saw to the schooling of children on behalf of the Community. Behind each confraternity parade their respective priors and overseers.
The way of the Gonfalone, carried on the shoulders by four communal pages in white and red quartered dress, is opened by the Franciscans and the Augustinians, mendicant orders attested at Corciano from the early fourteenth century. Garlands, sprays and baskets of flowers, musicians with their ancient instruments, trumpets and heralds of the Municipality, celebrate the solemnity and salute the mother church, pieve of a wide territory, represented by the Corciano clergy, led by the parish priest accompanied by monsignor Jacopo Vagnucci (Cortona 1416 – Corciano 1487), bishop of Perugia, particularly attached to the land of Corciano. Indeed, from as early as 1453, he had promoted the development of a flourishing agricultural centre around the residence of Pieve del Vescovo, the elegant stronghold set within the community's territorial domains, later completely restored by cardinal Fulvio della Corgna (Perugia 1517 – Roma 1583), where he withdrew to live after leaving the see of Perugia to his nephew Dionigi in 1482.

There follow the civil magistracies, which Corciano, a free commune since 1242, elected on its own, and the Captain of the Contado, representative of the ruling Perugia, with a small armed escort. The public offices of Corciano were designated through election by Briscioli, that is through appointments made by all the allibrati. Those elected were: two priors or stewards, a treasurer, two auditors and two assessors; these authorities had to answer to the Captain of the Contado, an office that from 1428 had the task of tax collection and that of maintaining public order on behalf of the ruling Perugia. He is recognisable by the rampant griffin richly embroidered on his mantle. The origin of the griffin as the emblem of the august city is also recalled in Il Conto, given by the paladin Olivieri, freed by Orlando with the help of Cornaletto, who married the Trojan descendant Presemana.
In the shadow of the Gonfalone, almost to affirm its highest protection, parade the nobility and the upper bourgeoisie, marked by the coat of arms of their house worn on the chest by the knights who accompany the richly dressed ladies.
Corciano, as the land registers reveal, has always been one of the richest communes of the Perugian countryside and counted among its ranks a large number of high ranking figures. It also gave birth to painters, notaries, physicians and warriors who won renown above all in nearby Perugia. Among the most important fifteenth and sixteenth century families are the della Calcina, the Doni, the della Corgna, the Ballarini, the Speziali, the Laudati. Many cives perusini, moreover, had property and residences in the territory of the castle and took an active part in Corciano's public life.
In a period of very sharp conflicts which, opened by the siege of Braccio Fortebraccio da Montone (Perugia 1368 – L'Aquila 1424), which Corciano resisted so firmly that it earned a five year papal exemption from taxes, affected the territory both in the opposition among the various Perugian factions and in the wavering of the delicate system of alliances that Perugia had with other cities, the castle was also a refuge for Perugian exiles. For this reason, in 1495, the famous conspiracy of Sant'Agostino took place here, with the degli Oddi and the Baglioni as protagonists. Thanks to their many deeds of valour and the services rendered, numerous Corciano families acquired the right, recognised by the Perugian magistracy, to bear their own arms. There follows the people, made up of small artisans, farmers and humble folk who colour and enliven the solemn procession with their own gifts.
The procession closes with men at arms, halberdiers and soldiers who ensure peace and quiet for the little castle even on a day of festivity.
According to what the Perugian Statute laid down for the day of the feast of the Assumption, the Captain of the People could grant a pardon “pro amore Dei” to two convicts, guilty of having broken the statutory rules of the Community of Corciano. For this reason the procession, shortly before vespers, ends with the release of two prisoners, with the solemn blessing given by the parish priest, with the flight of the white doves and with the roaring sound of the Leona, the main bell that, from the nineteenth century terracotta bell tower raised by Nazareno Biscarini (Perugia 1835 – 1907) upon a thirteenth century feudal tower, perhaps once belonging to the della Corgna, majestically marks the rhythm of the ancient festival that every 15 August, for fifty years now, is renewed.

Alessandra Tiroli, Communitas et Homines insignis oppidi Curtiani. Il Corteo storico del Gonfalone 50 anni in 50 immagini, photographic exhibition, Corciano, Sala dell'antico mulino, 4-15 August 2018.