Description
Santa Maria a Ripalta is a small Romanesque church in Pistoia, on the old road that left the city toward Bologna and Modena: it keeps frescoes from the 13th and 14th centuries, and today it is used by the Russian Orthodox community.
The highlight is the Ascension of 1274 in the apse's half-dome, a large fresco rediscovered and attributed to Manfredino d'Alberto. In the nave are the Virgin and Child by Antonio Vite and a fragment with the Lamentation over the Dead Christ. In front stands a three-arched loggia from 1628.
The church once held a famous wooden crucifix attributed to Giovanni Pisano, carried in procession during the plague of 1399. A chapel was built in 1400 to house it; an inscription under the portico recalls the procession ordered by Bishop Andrea Franchi. Today the crucifix is in the nearby church of Sant'Andrea.
The highlight is the Ascension of 1274 in the apse's half-dome, a large fresco rediscovered and attributed to Manfredino d'Alberto. In the nave are the Virgin and Child by Antonio Vite and a fragment with the Lamentation over the Dead Christ. In front stands a three-arched loggia from 1628.
The church once held a famous wooden crucifix attributed to Giovanni Pisano, carried in procession during the plague of 1399. A chapel was built in 1400 to house it; an inscription under the portico recalls the procession ordered by Bishop Andrea Franchi. Today the crucifix is in the nearby church of Sant'Andrea.