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Church of San Domenico

HISTORY

The church of San Domenico was built in the first half of the XVII century starting from 1621 outside the medieval walls. Completely built in brickwork with a simple façade completed by triangular tympanum on a pre-existing chapel dedicated to the Madonna del Rosario. At the center of the gable, in white marble, the ancient coat of arms of the town of Bientina. Severely damaged by the bombardment of the bell tower during the last world conflict, it was reconstructed and restored in 1994. Inside, in a single classroom, there is a painting by the painter Aurelio Lomi of 1603, depicting the “Last Supper”. From the church of Santa Maria, a magnificent residence for the Sacred Sacrament of the eighteenth century, restored in 2016 and a marble monument dedicated to the fallen of the First World War of 1924. To the left of the building stands the high bell tower, Also called Tower of the Belvedere, rebuilt in 1978.

It is one of the Tuscan Churches where the Tridentine Mass is celebrated.

Church of San Francesco

HISTORY

Built between the 13th and 14th centuries, the church of San Francesco was initially reserved for the nuns of an adjacent monastery. It underwent profound transformations during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. To the right stands the massive bell tower.

The interior, with a single transeptic hall, keeps the magnificent aspect of six-eighteenth-century works and preserves some interesting paintings. Among them there are the Madonna with Child and saints of Pisa and four ovals with Santi Gaetano, Francesca Romana, Giuseppe and Andrea of Butese Jacopo Danielli.

Church of San Giovanni Battista

HISTORY

Eighteenth-century reconstruction of an ancient church attested by a “Bolla papale” of 1193, the building was restored in 1946. The interior, with a single nave, is completed by three apsidal chapels. In one of these are kept the relics of Santa Ubaldesca Taccini from Calcinaia. It lived between 1136 and 1208, celebrated on the fourth Sunday of May. Among the preserved works there is a fifteenth-century wooden sculpture depicting the sorrowful Maddalena, and two precious Angels of the school of Andrea della Robbia. In controfacciata, behind the chorus, the recent murals dedicated to the patron saint by Enrico Formaini stand out.

The church bell tower was deeply restored in the second half of the Twelve years.

Church of San Donato

The church of San Donato is located in Chianni.

HISTORY

The oldest news concerning the church dates back to May 8, 1277. Pope Boniface VIII, in 1301, sent a “Bolla papale” to the Chianni pieve to order him to claim the goods of the Morrona abbey, to say abusively alienated by the abbots who were part of it. The building was completely redone in 1812, drawing the apse in a castle tower and expanding the pre-existing church.

The interior has a single nave with four chapels. In the middle of the apse stands the majestic early seventeenth-century altar made of fine polychrome marble and came in 1812 from the destroyed collegiate church of San Pietro (Massa). On the sides, two statues of the saints Peter and Paul of the first half of the eighteenth century.

The apsidal cathedral is frescoed by Antonio Gaioni: Christ among the saints Donato, Maura, Francis, Catherine, Lino, Dominic. In a chapel, there is the Holy Family of John the Baptist Tempest. In counterfeiting, the cantoria with the center of Sant’Antonio in adoration of the Child Jesus attributed to Ventura Salimbeni.

Chiesa di San Leonardo

HISTORY

Dedicated to the holy Occitan San Leonardo of Noblac (whose worship is also practiced in the nearby village of Lari), its origins dates back to the 13th century, but the church was rebuilt in the nineteenth century when, on the design of the architect Angiolo della Valle , Important restorations were made to imprint neoclassical forms; The work was carried out between 1853 and 1856. The facade dates back to 1925 and is flanked by a bell tower built at the end of the nineteenth century. During World War II the building was damaged; The major altar, destroyed, was replaced in 1957.

The interior has three naves, with the central one covered by a barrel vault.

Church of San Verano

The church of San Verano, probably built between the end of the XI and the beginning of the XII century, has a prospect of five blind arches, decorated with elegant losangas inspired by Pisan, while the sides are moved by hanging arches. In the bell tower, built in 1885, still stands the ancient medieval structure.

INTERNAL

The interior, divided into three aisles, has been modified several times, and in 1580 the chapel of the Assumption was added, which includes three canvases of the Florentine painter Jacopo Vignali; The same author preserves the Assumption of Mary.

There is also an 18th-century Crucifix, a Madonna with Child and saints from Neri di Bicci, and two paintings of the 13th century Pisan school: Stories of St. Nicholas of Bari and Madonna with Child.

The evening of ss. Announced, on March 25, 1688, the pieve was destroyed by a fire and the following year it was restored.

Villa Niccolini

The area, at the base of an hilly area between the valleys of the Era and the Cascina, was chosen by Duke Alessandro de ‘Mediciper to create a grand dwelling in the center of an extensive estate. The area also had a strategic role because the Medici’s interests were increasingly turning towards the Pisan plain, with a policy of expansion to the sea that was followed by subsequent granducs.

The villa is set in a scenic location at the end of a cypress avenue and dominates, with its compact cubic structure and the four mighty corner towers, the surrounding area.

The villa is very much reminded of a fortified structure, with the bases of raised towers (“scarpatura”) and reinforced corners, while the front yard, on which the villa rises majestically, was created to gather on occasion a square of arms .

This lawn, in which stands the sixteenth-century statue of the Edolo killing the Hydra, by Giovanni Bandini, is delimited by two symmetrical factory bodies, used as stables and barracks.

The military use of the villas became necessary after the anti-Semitic insurrections of Pisa and Valdarno, against which the villas of Camugliano were built, and later the twin Villa Medicea dell’Ambrogiana in Montelupo Fiorentino.

In the second half of the sixteenth century Cosimo I donated Camugliano’s villa to Giuliano Gondi for the services rendered to the Medici family. Subsequently it was given to Matteo Botti who, after having been invested in the title of Marquis of Campiglia d’Orcia by Cosimo II, returned it to the Grand Duke with an act dated 25 December 1615.

On September 23, 1637, the doctors in the person of Grand Duke Ferdinand II finally gave up the villa and the estate of Camugliano, selling it to Senator Filippo Niccolini, who at the same time was also nominated Marquis of Camugliano and Ponsacco.

The Niccolini family made some modifications to the original structure, such as the double ramp staircase that connects the façade and loggia to the first floor with the front yard. Later the loggia was closed by large windows, while the surrounding park was arranged according to the dominant English style. In front of the villa was created a scenic elliptical hedge trimming decorated with marble busts, which still embraces the square.

The villa is still privately owned and it can not be visited.

The estate also belongs to the oratory of San Filippo.

Villa Gherardi Del Testa

At the beginning of the hamlet of Terricciola is located the villa Gherardi Del Testa abode of farmland of the Pisan noble family. It was built in 1660 by the friar Sebastiano Gherardi. In 1814 in that house born Tommaso Gherardi Del Testa, he became a famous comedy writer.

DESCRIPTION

In the course of time the building was exposed to various structural modifications, between them the most important modification was that in the second half of 1700 with the construction of an ample segmental arch that link the opposite space of chapel with the rear square that it show to the forest. The last substantial intervention date back to 1883, when it was added a factory in the left side of villa.

Today the building present a systematic arrangement from the point of view landscape, with a terraced garden at east and at west a nineteenth-century garden. The salon is richly decorated with stucco, frescos and architecture of trompe-l’œil. The overdoor are painted with rural scene inside of ovals, whereas on the sides there are cartouches and putti. The decorations of the wood structures of the ceiling represent a urban setting of fantasy. In the part of nineteenth-century the rooms are decorated at tempera with the motif of the.

Castle of Gello Mattaccino

The castle of Gello Mattaccino is located in the municipality of Casciana Terme Lari.

HISTORY

In this ancient fortification there was the church of San Martino in Gello, that dates back to 764 d. C.

The name derives from “Gellum Mathaesi Cini”, who acquired this estate during the period when Cosimo I reigned in 1550. He supported a dispute with the municipality of Santa Luce for border issues.

In the nineteenth century the Pordenone family Rosselmini owned the estate and the annexed mill fed by the ditch of the Giunco Marino.

Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta

La chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta di Casciana Terme, risulta documentata dall’840, restaurata nel 1553. è stata più volte trasformata, fino all’attuale assetto tardo ottocentesco. È costituita da una navata centrale e due transetti laterali, uno a destra e uno a sinistra.

Descrizione

Nella cappella di destra accanto all’altare è conservata una “Madonna del Rosario” attribuita a Domenico Passignano. di quest’ultimo anche sei ritratti di donatori della famiglia Sancasciani, che fa da cornice ad una tavoletta trecentesca con la “Madonna con il Bambino“, detta “delle Grazie“, attribuita al Maestro di San Torpè, opere recentemente riportate al loro splendore originario da un restauro.

Nella cappella di sinistra del SS. Sacramento è conservata una statua lignea di Cristo risorgente, di ottima fattura moderna.

Le finestre e il rosone absidale sono tutte istoriate con vetrate raffiguranti Santi e immagini sacre, di fattura recente. Sono moderni anche i quattro affreschi monocromi posti sul soffitto della navata centrale, che raffigurano gli evangelisti.

Nella chiesa, è conservato un antico fonte battesimale e alcune pietre e lastre marmoree con iscrizioni provenienti dalle fondazioni precedenti.

Completa la chiesa un caratteristico e svettante campanile, eretto all’inizio del Novecento, dedicato ai caduti della prima guerra mondiale. A testimonianza di questa intitolazione la lapide marmorea sul retro del campanile, che, insieme ad altre lapidi dei caduti della seconda guerra mondiale e a un cippo celebrativo per tutti i cascianesi caduti, inserite in un piccolo giardino recintato, hanno formato un piccolo angolo devozionale. Il campanile fu inaugurato alla presenza del Re Vittorio Emanuele III.