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Chiesa di Santa Maria, Panzano in Chianti

Discover Chiesa di Santa Maria, Panzano in Chianti

Last updated on October 16, 2026

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Checked against Wikipedia — The church of Santa Maria is a place of worship at Panzano in Chianti, a frazione of Greve in Chianti in the province of Florence, diocese of Fiesole, built between 1890 and 1903. It derived from the enlargement of a primitive Romanesque building recorded in the lists of the Rationes Decimarum per la Tuscia of 1274-75, itself probably enlarged in the fourteenth or fifteenth century with the use as a bell tower of one of the perimeter towers of the ancient medieval castle. At the end of the 1800s the church was contained between the two present great arches, without side chapels, and the bell tower remained detached from the church; between the two structures was the entrance to the cemetery, from which one reached the chapel of the Compagnia della Santissima Annunziata, believed to be the same seen today except for a direct access from the church, closed in the last restoration of the 1960s. The present aspect is due to the deep restructuring between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, with the creation of the side chapels and the prolongation of the central nave at the front, taking in with the new facade part of the bell tower and so closing the entrance to the old cemetery which, following the edict of Saint-Cloud issued by Napoleon in 1802 and promulgated for the Kingdom of Italy in 1806, had been decommissioned; the prolongation also affected the rear, creating the two present semicircles. These enlargements are clearly recognisable observing the left flank of the church from the old graveyard., From the Renaissance period the church of Santa Maria at Panzano had a single nave without an apse and measured about 19 metres long by 9 wide; in the rear wall behind the high altar opened two great stone windows with grilles and glazing, and the same in the facade; the side altars were set against the flanks, and from the left flank one reached a vaulted chapel housing the baptismal font, octagonal and in pietra serena, made around the year 1730 and in all probability the present one. In the floor were numerous burials of the most notable Panzano families of the time: Firidolfi, Quercetani, Petrucci, De Luigi, Baldi, Cappelletti., The castle is the highest and oldest part of Panzano; a good part of the walls that girded the hill is still conserved, though on two sides they have been reduced in height while on the south-east side they are missing altogether. Corner towers also survive, one of which has been reused as the bell tower of the church of Santa Maria while another still keeps its apparato a sporgere. The internal structure is simple: from the single access gate, which may originally have had an antiporta, a single street leads to a small piazzetta onto which the cassero faces, the cassero being a tall tower rising higher than all the other buildings; beside the access gate is a building of obviously medieval character. For the accuracy of the wall facing and the form of the archivolts, all the buildings of the castle date its structures to the twelfth century. (October 2026).

Discover Chiesa di Santa Maria, Panzano in Chianti

Architecture

The short history

How it was built and evolved over time

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Discover Chiesa di Santa Maria, Panzano in Chianti

Architecture

The short history

How it was built and evolved over time

Frequently asked questions

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