Premium Featured Accommodation

Pieve di San Giovanni Battista - Pisa in Tuscany

The oldest document relative to the parish church is a 9th-century parchment, in which you read that near Verriana (the ancient toponym of S. Gervasio) stood a rural settlement and a religious community belonging to the diocese of Lucca. In the place of the present-day church stood another early-medieval building, of which only the Lombard-style capitals are left. The new parish church of San Giovanni stands near the defensive walls of the homonymous castle and remained unchanged until today, except for the addition of the 17th-century bell tower. The present-day parish church dates back to the last quarter of the 11th century, has an austere appearance, typical of the rural churches, and presents a basilican plan, three round apses decorated with small Pisan-style arches, two side aisles and a nave.

The arches separating the nave from the two side aisles rest on cylindrical pillars made up of smooth limestone ashlars (a building material used in the whole church); on the top of the pillars are abacus, Lombard capitals and the interior presents a wooden beamed ceiling and a floor done in terracotta tiles. The small bell tower of fired brick situated on the left side, near the façade, was built after the construction of the parish church and dates back to the end of the 17th century. The original low belfry is placed on the right side near the apses: the smaller apse on the left (invisible from outside) was incorporated in the 18th-century parsonage.

Articles