Pieve of San Leolino: A Romanesque Parish Church near Panzano in Chianti
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page11 sections
History
The Pieve of San Leolino is a Catholic Romanesque church in Italy, near Panzano in Chianti in the municipality of Greve in Chianti. The present building dates from the twelfth century and belongs to the Diocese of Fiesole. As a pieve, a historic parish church exercising pastoral authority over dependent churches, it became an important medieval religious center.
Early records and medieval importance
The church was first mentioned in 982 as San Leolino in Flacciano, in a parchment belonging to the Abbey of Passignano. Two sculptural fragments preserved inside the building suggest that activity at the site may have begun earlier. The present structure is attributed to the twelfth century on the basis of its construction and style.
During the Middle Ages, San Leolino governed a substantial parish district. Fourteen subordinate, or suffragan, churches were associated with it, including the church inside Panzano Castle. The historic district included San Piero in Pesa, Santa Maria in Panzano Castle, San Giorgio at Grignano, Santa Lucia at Favale, San Lorenzo at Upper Grignano, Santa Lucia at Monteripaldi, Sant’Andrea at Grignanello, San Clemente at Grignano, San Michele at Montanino, Santa Maria at Petriolo, San Martino alle Stinche, Santo Stefano at Brustino, San Niccolò at Montagliari, and San Jacopo at Pietrafitta. San Piero in Pesa and Sant’Andrea at Grignano were attached directly to the pieve, while Santa Lucia at Monteripaldi was attached to San Lorenzo at Upper Grignano. Santa Lucia at Favale, San Michele at Montanino, and Santo Stefano at Brustino are recorded as destroyed.
Patronage and later transformation
In 1508, patronage of the church passed to the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. Restoration and rebuilding during the sixteenth century produced much of the exterior appearance visible today. During the same period, the original semicircular apse was demolished and replaced by a rectangular-ended sanctuary known as a scarsella.
The interior was transformed in the eighteenth century in the Baroque manner. The walls were plastered and side altars were built. The restoration of 1942 removed these interventions and brought the interior closer to its earlier Romanesque character. The floor was remade during restoration in the early 1980s. The church is also associated with the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious association organized around a devotional practice, whose small oratory stands beside the main façade.
Remains
The Pieve of San Leolino survives as a three-aisled Romanesque basilica built with substantial masonry and simple geometric forms. Roughly finished blocks of pale alberese, a Tuscan limestone, form the square pillars separating the aisles. The church is roofed with wooden trusses and terminates in a rectangular sanctuary. Later additions and restorations are incorporated into the medieval core and its surrounding religious complex.
Church and associated spaces
Main church
The façade carries a sixteenth-century portico supported by sandstone columns. Its entrance portal is made of gray pietra serena, a sandstone widely used in Tuscan architectural details. Inside, a monolithic baptismal font with very simple forms stands in the first bay of the right aisle. The two smaller apses are later additions rather than original medieval elements.
Cloister and confraternity oratory
A portal in the right wall opens toward a small cloister. Its covered walkway has a wooden roof resting on brick columns, while rooms of the rectory open onto the sides. The forms of their portals and windows indicate that the rectory buildings were probably constructed in the sixteenth century. Farm buildings are also part of the complex.
The Oratory of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament has a restrained eighteenth-century façade. Its portal, with a broken pediment, upper window, corner edges, and sloping roof edges are framed in pietra serena.
Artworks and furnishings
Early medieval carving
The oldest preserved artwork is a sandstone slab, possibly a pluteus, or decorated screen slab used in an early medieval church. It now supports the altar table. Its low-relief decoration shows a cross formed with interlaced, grooved ribbons and spirals, and dates from the eighth or ninth century.
Paintings and altarpieces
The church preserves the thirteenth-century altarpiece Madonna Enthroned between Saints Peter and Paul and Stories from Their Lives, attributed to Meliore di Jacopo. On the high altar stands the triptych Madonna Enthroned with the Child and Two Angels, attributed to Mariotto di Nardo. Its side compartments show Saint Francis, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Eufrosino, and Saint Lawrence.
Another triptych, Madonna and Child between Saints Catherine, Peter, and Paul, was attributed by Bernard Berenson to the Master of Panzano, a conventional name for an unidentified painter associated with Barna da Siena and Bartolo di Fredi. The work dates from the end of the fourteenth century. In the baptismal chapel, the fresco The Baptism of Jesus is attributed to Raffaellino del Garbo and was extensively repainted in the nineteenth century. A small, cusp-topped panel of Madonna, Child, and Two Angels, from the Florentine school, dates from the fifteenth century.
Terracotta and devotional objects
Two glazed terracotta tabernacles near the altar are attributed to the workshop of Giovanni della Robbia, the Florentine Renaissance artist known for glazed terracotta sculpture. Leonardo Buonafede commissioned them. The church also preserves an eighteenth-century plaster reliquary bust of Saint Eufrosino, which formerly belonged to the Oratory of Saint Eufrosino.
