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Badia a Coltibuono

Discover Badia a Coltibuono

Last updated on October 16, 2026

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Checked against Wikipedia — The abbey church of San Lorenzo a Coltibuono has the Latin-cross plan typical of Vallombrosan churches: a single rectangular nave closed by a semicircular apse, with a dome set at the crossing of nave and transept under a quadrilateral tiburio whose stepped covering gives the structure the form of a pagoda. The nave's covering is an eighteenth-century false vault decorated with late-Baroque frescoes and stuccoes while the barrel vaults of the transept are original; the nave's wall face is modest work in river cobbles while the transept, apse and bell tower are in filaretto of alberese. On the left stands the massive bell tower, opened at its summit by four large single-light windows and begun in 1160, of grandiose dimensions that marry the tiburio and apse perfectly but not the modest longitudinal body of the church or its facade, which is preceded by a small porch continuing along the left flank., The monastery of Coltibuono is entered through a door to the right of the church facade; the whole complex was transformed into a nineteenth-century country residence but the cloister and the refectory are still distinguishable, now in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century forms. (October 2026).

Architecture