Pieve di Santa Maria a Fagna

Along the road that connects San Piero a Sieve and Scarperia you can glimpse the façade of the Pieve of Santa Maria a Fagna, a pieve of medieval origin extensively remodeled in the eighteenth century.

The structure

The façade, probably dating from the eighteenth-century works, retains at the top center two winged putti bearing the Marian monogram, in white and gilded stucco.
The present appearance of the interiors also largely dates back to the restoration works carried out in the eighteenth century. On that occasion the naves were vaulted, the side altars were arranged, the confessionals opened and the organ installed on the opposite façade.
Also dating from then are the white and gold stucco decorations that pervade the Pieve.
The pillars of the central nave are adorned with gilded stucco decorations with botanical motifs. The central vault, instead, was painted with episodes from the life of Mary, which were lost due to the 1919 earthquake.
In the first bay of the left nave is the baptismal font, probably dating back to the 12th century. It allows a stylistic and temporal comparison with that of the Pieve di Sant’Agata. Even older is, instead, the marble pulpit.
Halfway along the left nave lies the altar dedicated to the Assumption of Mary on which is the altarpiece by Santi di Tito, created at the end of the 16th century. At the same height, in the right nave, is the altar dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, also dating from the eighteenth-century works.
In the apse area we find other stucco decorations recalling elements of water and fertility. To the left of the apse is the Chapel of the Dead Christ, opened in 1829.
The baptismal front that we see today dates, instead, to the restorations carried out at the beginning of the twentieth century by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure of Florence.

Historical notes

The oldest document mentioning the Pieve is dated 1018, but its foundation is certainly older.
Details about what the forms and appearance of the complex were in its early years are not known to us, since the first reliable accounts dealing with the church's architecture and treasure date back only to the twelfth century.
It is thought that the works carried out then radically modified the appearance of the church. The most important intervention was on the structure: the interior space was divided into three naves, without transept and with a single apse, using wooden trusses and sandstone pillars. These latter elements, although hidden by subsequent interventions, are still present in the church's structure.
Probably, at that time the Pieve di Fagna enjoyed the protection of the Ubaldini family, hence its fortunes were tied to those of the Counts.
In the Seventeenth century the Pieve experienced a period of difficulty, common to the Mugello area plagued by epidemics and famines: the pievani were forced to use the church funds to combat these phenomena and, consequently, could not invest in maintaining the environments and sacred goods.
The remodeling works of the church began with Don Giuseppe Raggioli (18th century) and within about thirty years, the Pieve was completely transformed.
The violent earthquake of 1919 caused the bell tower to collapse, the façade to detach from the body of the church and the central nave sustained substantial damage. The Pieve reopened in 1922, recovering the previous forms.
After a rather difficult postwar period, the restoration works of the 2000s have again bestowed splendor on the Pieve.