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Church of San Lorenzo

Church of San Lorenzo - photo by Marcello Ballerini

Via San Lorenzo, 54

The Church of San Lorenzo in Campi, although its present aspect, thanks to the widening from 1964 to 1965, is an ancient building: a document of 1208, relating to the exchange of some pieces of land, informs us that the church already existed at that time. The primary building had to have a very simple aspect, characterized by an only aisle covered by a hut roof. From then on, the small church, belonged to people, depended on the Pieve di Santo Stefano, like the others of the area of Campi Bisenzio, except for the "Propositura" in Capalle, the church dedicated to San Quirico and Giulitta, that was property of the Florentine bishops. In 1448 the Archbishop Antonino Pierozzi passed the Chapters of the Compagnia di S. Girolamo, who has just erected its Oratory, setting it against the right side of the church. This Oratory, with other adjoining rooms, would have become the seat of the Misericordia di Campi between 1816 and 1960, year when the Misericordia was moved to Via Montalvo. Taken out from  the Text: Guided Tours to the Church of San Lorenzo in Campi by Giovanni Matteo Guidetti and Renzo Bernardi.

 

Parish Priest

Don Aroldo Carotti

Addresses

Telephone 055 8953003
Fax 055 8953003
E-mail arcaroti@tin.it

 

The History

The church, after the first widening of the half of the eighteenth century, from 1820 to 1823 was interested by lots of interventions, that concerned the inside decoration (neoclassical), the building of the bell tower (partially rebuilt in 1961) and, finally, the raising of an aristocratic chapel, consacrated to the Archangel Raphael and commissioned by Eleonora Uguccioni Strozzi, the owner of the close Villa "Il Palagio" at the time. The new chapel, situated on the left of the apsidal space and in front of that pre-existent one, titled to the Madonna del Carmine, gave to the Church of San Lorenzo the Latin cross plant, that would have kept inaltered until the works of restoring of the 60s. The last ones, thanks to the Parish Priest don Onorio Masetti to answer the new demands of the parish, that was in continue growth, were guided under the direction of the architect don Marcello Peruzzi, Parish Priest of San Piero a Quaracchi. The project implied the partial demolition of the church and other annexes (like the Oratory of the Compagnia di San Girolamo), except the apse and the two side chapels, destinated to become the final heads of the columns of the new aisles. The architect Peruzzi conceived a space with three aisles, with thin pillars of reinforced concrete, that had to support a wooden covering from the elaborate and original drawing. The works of restoration, lasted for a good part of 1964, were almost finished on 4th October of the same year, in occasion of the solemn consecration. The present building is so the result of a daring architectonic intervention, that has deeply changed the ancient aspect: especially, the inside space so redefined is characterized by the original adopted solution, that creates an attractive dialectic relationship between the modern body of plant with three aisles and the linked old part, formed by the presbytery decorated by altars and paintings of valuable manufacture and by the apsidal chapel, where there are remains of frescos of the fifteenth century. Taken out from the Text: Giuded Tours to the Church of San Lorenzo in Campi thanks to Giovanni Matteo Guidetti and Renzo Bernardi.