Pieve di Santa Maria a Spaltenna

The Pieve di Santa Maria a Spaltenna was built to be defended, and it is named after a different church. The phrase for it is pieve munita — a fortified baptismal church. When the pieve was moved up here from San Pietro in Avenano between 1102 and 1110 , it was not simply rebuilt; it was fortified. In the twelfth-century Chianti, where every hill had a castle and the Florentine and Sienese frontiers were still being argued over, that decision tells you what a parish church was worth holding. The friction is that nothing is published about it at all. No operator, no diocesan page, no comune listing gives an opening hour, a Mass time or a way in. The church may well be shut, and no source read says otherwise. The smart way is to come for the masonry and the position, and pair it with the valley. It stands immediately above Gaiole — a five-minute drive or a short climb from via Ricasoli — and the walls and bell tower are filaretto of ash-grey alberese , the local limestone laid in courses. Then go and look at San Pietro in Avenano , the church it took its title from, which is called the finest Gothic religious building in the Chianti and is falling down.

Nothing is published about visiting this church. No opening hours, Mass times, admission or guided visit appear on any operator, parish, diocesan or municipal page read for this entry. The comune's own website carries no opening hour for any building in the comune. That silence is the state of affairs; it is not evidence that the church is open.

Assume you are coming for the outside. The walls, the bell tower, the facade with its single rectangular opening and the restructured fattoria beside it are all visible from the approach, and they are the greater part of what the record describes.

Getting here. Spaltenna stands immediately above the capoluogo of Gaiole in Chianti — a very short drive, or a steep walk up from via Ricasoli, the street-square that is the centre of the town. The comune has no railway station and publishes no bus timetable.

Pair it with Avenano, from outside. San Pietro in Avenano, the church whose title Spaltenna took, is in the comune at the locality of San Piero in Avenano. It is a derelict building, not a site: see Responsible Travel below before going near it.

Municipal contacts. Comune di Gaiole in Chianti, Via Ricasoli 5, 53013 Gaiole in Chianti (SI). Switchboard 0577 744711, freephone 800 012661.

This is a church and a working farm, not a monument with a custodian. The fattoria beside the pieve has been restructured and is in use; the land around both is private.

Do not force a door. No hours are published, and a locked pieve is locked for a reason.

If you find it open, treat it as in use. It has been the baptismal church of this piviere since the twelfth century and remains a place of worship.

San Pietro in Avenano is genuinely dangerous. The record describes it as in a state of enormous decay and abandonment, unofficiated for a long time. Do not enter it; look at it from outside, and do not move anything.

Park in the town and walk up. Gaiole's centre is via Ricasoli and the climb is short; the lanes above it are narrow, and leaving a car on them blocks the people who live there.