The Church
Along the old road once connecting Pisa to Lucca, the pieve of Pugnano is an atypically two-aisled Romanesque building. This unusual architectural type is due to two different construction phases, which may be recognized in the masonry of the western side. Considered one of the most ancient Romanesque instances in the Pisan territory, the building plain forms are deprived of any sculptural decorations. The interior guards a few interesting medieval works of art, including a Virgin with Child by Neruccio di Federigo.
Near the pieve, an ancient monastery dedicated to Saints Paul and Stephen, now belonging to a private property, dates from the 11th century.
Description »
The pieve is a two-naved Romanesque building with a single apse. Two portals open onto the façade, surmounted by simple horseshoe arches.
Built in small-sized limestone rocks coming from the nearby quarries of Monte Pisano, according to a technique using rows of little exposed ashlars, the edifice turns its back to the present road and looks onto the countryside, showing its plain lines deprived of any sculptural ornaments.
Such sobriety is found in the interior, too, where robust piers divide the liturgical area into two aisles.
The bell tower, bombed and razed to the ground by German troops during World War II, was rebuilt next to the apse, in a position other than the original one.
History »
Documented since 1069 and probably built a few decades before, the pieve was initially a single-nave building with semicircular apse and a bell tower. This early phase has left visible traces in the masonry of the apse and of the western side wall, where single-light windows open at different levels.
In the 13th century, an aisle was added, opening onto the right side wall. The reason for such addition is unknown; historians justify it with the dedication of the church to a second Saint, or with the need to create a space set aside for the baptismal rite.
This two-nave type was once found in two other pievi in the territory, now structured in a different way: Sant’Alessandro church in Vecchiano and Santa Giulia pieve in Caprona.
Works »
The church interior hosts a few significant works of art from the Middle Ages: a Virgin with Child, painted on wood by the Pisan master Neruccio di Federigo, dating from the mid-14th century, and a wooden Crucifix of Pisan school.
In the 18th century, the scholar Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti noted on his journal the presence of marble sculptures and of an inscription walled outside the bell tower: a head of Jupiter, a crowned woman’s head and a slab of the Roman age with a name incised on it. The original location of such elements, today no longer in loco, is unknown.
Restorations »
The church underwent different enlargement and restoration works.
In the 18th century, a body of the building called ‘dressing room’, reserved to the Company of the Holy Sacrament, was raised against the edifice and then demolished in the subsequent century, following a spreading trend to remove later structures from medieval buildings.
At the end of the 19th century, the wooden trusses were remade and the original schist roofing was replaced by a brickwork cover. The worst damage, though, was caused by World War II, when the bell tower was bombed and collapsed causing adverse consequences on the church.
In 1946, the Soprintendenza started the restoration of the church in order to have the floor and the roof repaired. Measures were also taken concerning the marked overhang of the left side wall. Then, the campanile was rebuilt in modern forms, in a position other than the original one.
Bibliography »
San Giuliano Terme. La storia, il territorio, Pisa, Giardini, 1990.
M. Noferi, Pugnano. Analisi conoscitiva della pieve di Santa Maria e di San Giovanni Battista di Pugnano, Pisa, Felici, 2006.
M.L. Ceccarelli Lemut, S. Sodi, Tra pievi e castelli. Società e insediamento nel medioevo, Pisa, ETS, 2010.
M. Burresi, Sacre passioni: scultura lignea a Pisa dal XII al XV secolo, Milano, Motta, 2000.
Location
