Description
The Church of San Francesco is Pistoia's great Franciscan church, on the square that bears its name. Outside it has a facade in white and green bands, simple as the friars' style demands; inside, in the main chapel, it hides a cycle of 14th-century frescoes with the stories of the saint, a bit worn but of great quality.
The stories of Saint Francis were discovered only in the 1920s. They are frescoes of 1343, with life-size figures amid architectural backdrops, modeled on the famous cycle in the Upper Basilica at Assisi. The scenes, in three registers, are read from left to right and from top to bottom.
On the central arch are busts of apostles, doctors of the Church and saints, often hard to recognize; on the vaults, the Franciscan Virtues. Vasari attributed them to Puccio Capanna, but scholars think rather of a Bolognese painter, perhaps Dalmasio degli Scannabecchi, called by the wealthy merchant Bandino dei Ciantori.
Around the main chapel there are others. The Bracciolini chapel has frescoes of the Stories of Mary, the Pazzaglia those of Saints Anthony and Louis, the Gatteschi those of Saint Donninus. The great triumphal arch separates them from the nave.
The nave is a single hall covered by wooden trusses, as the Franciscan model requires, with traces of 14th-century frescoes on the walls. Among the altars are the altarpiece of the Adoration of the Shepherds by Giuseppe Schifino, from 1606-1609, and the one with the Raising of Lazarus by Alessandro Allori, signed and dated 1594.
The chapter house and the sacristy were also decorated between 1386 and the end of the century. Work began in September 1289, where a small Franciscan convent already stood, and went on into the 14th century. The facade, though, was completed only in 1707.
For this church Pietro Lorenzetti painted a Madonna enthroned with the Child among eight angels, finished in 1340: today it is in the Uffizi. The friars had to leave the convent in 1808, because of the Napoleonic suppressions, and the convent was returned to the friars in 1926.
Don't miss
• The frescoes of the main chapel.
• Schifino's Adoration of the Shepherds.
• Allori's Raising of Lazarus.
Did you know?
• The main organ comes from London: it was built in 1896 for a chapel in Hampstead, and after a restoration it was installed in Pistoia.
• In 1343 the friars commissioned a polyptych for the altar from Lippo Memmi, which according to Vasari was based on a design by Simone Martini: today it is lost.
The stories of Saint Francis were discovered only in the 1920s. They are frescoes of 1343, with life-size figures amid architectural backdrops, modeled on the famous cycle in the Upper Basilica at Assisi. The scenes, in three registers, are read from left to right and from top to bottom.
On the central arch are busts of apostles, doctors of the Church and saints, often hard to recognize; on the vaults, the Franciscan Virtues. Vasari attributed them to Puccio Capanna, but scholars think rather of a Bolognese painter, perhaps Dalmasio degli Scannabecchi, called by the wealthy merchant Bandino dei Ciantori.
Around the main chapel there are others. The Bracciolini chapel has frescoes of the Stories of Mary, the Pazzaglia those of Saints Anthony and Louis, the Gatteschi those of Saint Donninus. The great triumphal arch separates them from the nave.
The nave is a single hall covered by wooden trusses, as the Franciscan model requires, with traces of 14th-century frescoes on the walls. Among the altars are the altarpiece of the Adoration of the Shepherds by Giuseppe Schifino, from 1606-1609, and the one with the Raising of Lazarus by Alessandro Allori, signed and dated 1594.
The chapter house and the sacristy were also decorated between 1386 and the end of the century. Work began in September 1289, where a small Franciscan convent already stood, and went on into the 14th century. The facade, though, was completed only in 1707.
For this church Pietro Lorenzetti painted a Madonna enthroned with the Child among eight angels, finished in 1340: today it is in the Uffizi. The friars had to leave the convent in 1808, because of the Napoleonic suppressions, and the convent was returned to the friars in 1926.
Don't miss
• The frescoes of the main chapel.
• Schifino's Adoration of the Shepherds.
• Allori's Raising of Lazarus.
Did you know?
• The main organ comes from London: it was built in 1896 for a chapel in Hampstead, and after a restoration it was installed in Pistoia.
• In 1343 the friars commissioned a polyptych for the altar from Lippo Memmi, which according to Vasari was based on a design by Simone Martini: today it is lost.