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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
From 1456 into the sixteenth century, the Compagnia dello Scalzo in Florence was governed by a set of statutes that required that lights be put out during flagellation rituals. This was, as shown in Chapter 1, a common practice in Florence. The chapter of the statutes setting out the order of the Scalzo confraternity's flagellation ritual reads as follows:
And when the Governor deems it time to begin the office, after giving the usual sign he shall order the Jube Domine Benedicere with the [reading of the] lesson of Compline, and once the general confession has been done and the Oration of Saint Raphael has been said, the Penitential Psalms are to be said with the litanies and orations and the Magnificat and the Peace is to be given. Afterwards they shall recite the Orations of Our Lady, of St. John the Baptist, and of the Peace; and once the Benedicamus Domino has been said with the Salve Regina and oration, everyone is to sit down and the sacristans shall hand out the whips. Then the Governor shall give a sermon, comforting them, and the brothers shall whip themselves fervently. Once the lights have been put out he is to recite the Chapter of the Passion and three stanzas of the Passion with other devotions and prayers, and [when] it is finished a general admonition shall be made. Then everyone shall dress himself again, singing a laud or in silence, as the Governor deems.
As Douglas Dow has suggested, after the implementation of new statutes from 1579 the brothers probably continued to practise flagellation in the dark, even though extinguishment of lights is not explicitly mentioned in the new text. Some of the elements of the old office were, indeed, integrated into the new:
Also we ordain that during our sessions they say the seven Penitential Psalms with litanies, orations, and with the oration and versicles, and the antiphon of our Father Saint John the Baptist, and once the psalms are finished one says the office of the glorious Virgin Mary, and once the office is finished the Governor should,
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