Discover Pieve di Santa Maria a Spaltenna

The pieve di Santa Maria a Spaltenna is a religious building at Gaiole in Chianti, standing immediately above the capoluogo in the province of Siena.

The locality is recalled from 1030, in parchments of the badia di Coltibuono.

The church here is a transplant. Between 1102 and 1110 the pieve of San Pietro in Avenano was transferred to Spaltenna, took the name Santa Maria a Spaltenna and was turned into a pieve munita — a fortified one. The old church of San Pietro in Avenano kept its own name until 1153, when in the bull of Anastasius IV to the bishop of Fiesole it was cited by the pope as pieve di Santa Maria a Spaltenna.

Beside the church is a farm, and the farm was the prize. The fattoria, now restructured, together with the monastic buildings — property held by many churches — constituted a beneficio coveted by the richest families of the period, who competed for possession of it. Santa Maria a Spaltenna became the property of the Ricasoli, who already owned the lands and the farm of the pieve di San Polo in Rosso.

The type is a Romanesque pieve. Three naves concluded by a single apse — the basilican arrangement a baptismal church needed, because the whole piviere came to it.

The wall is the architecture. Walls and bell tower are built in filaretti of alberese of ash-grey colour: the limestone split and dressed into regular courses, laid with close joints. There is no marble facing, no bichrome banding and no applied order.

The facade has one opening, and it is rectangular. No oculus and no carved portal are recorded; the front is a plane of coursed alberese with a single aperture in it.

The word that defines it is munita. The twelfth-century rebuilding made this a fortified pieve, and the fortification is in the fabric rather than in a separate circuit: a church of defensible mass on a hill, with its tower.

Its opposite number is Gothic, and it is the better building. San Pietro in Avenano — the church whose title Spaltenna took — has a basilican plan of three naves closed by a square scarsella, each nave divided into five bays with round arches on octagonal piers, and is covered with ribbed cross vaults, tall pilaster strips rising from the pier capitals to carry the vault ribs. In its scarsella is an arch decorated with glazed terracotta tiles showing cherubim, rosettes and the arms of the Ricasoli. The literature calls it the most significant example of Gothic religious architecture in the Chianti and perhaps in the whole Florentine contado — and it is the ruin, while Spaltenna is the survivor.

One stone, dressed one way. Alberese is the hard, pale limestone of the Chianti hills; split and squared it produces filaretto, courses of small regular blocks laid with thin joints. Both the walls and the campanile of Spaltenna are built that way, and the resulting colour is ash-grey, not gold.

Fortifying a church meant building it heavier, not building it differently. A pieve munita gets mass, height and a tower; the same masons, the same stone and the same coursing, with the openings kept small — which is why the facade has one rectangular hole in it.

The whole complex was conceived as a farm with a church in it. The fattoria and the monastic buildings beside the pieve are the productive half, and they are what made the place a beneficio worth competing for. The farm has since been restructured; the church has not been rebuilt.

The comparison that explains the technique is two kilometres away. At San Pietro in Avenano the builders used octagonal piers, five bays a nave, round arches and ribbed cross vaults springing from tall pilaster strips — Gothic engineering in the same stone. Spaltenna is the conservative building; Avenano is the ambitious one, and Avenano is the one that failed.

Later hands did more harm than time. Avenano's facade was given its Romanesque look in a restoration of 1832, and in the early twentieth century its interior was entirely plastered and painted a dull grey that concealed the original stone of the piers and vaulting. The lesson applies to reading Spaltenna too: an austere Chianti church may be austere because it was stripped.

Why is it called Santa Maria a Spaltenna if it was San Pietro?

Because the pieve — the baptismal title — was transferred here from San Pietro in Avenano between 1102 and 1110, taking the name Santa Maria a Spaltenna. By 1153 the bull of Anastasius IV to the bishop of Fiesole uses that name, and by the end of the thirteenth century Avenano appears as a canonica inside the piviere of Spaltenna. The mother church became the daughter.

What does pieve munita mean?

A fortified baptismal church. When the pieve was moved here it was not simply rebuilt but given defensible form — unusual for a parish church, and a measure of how contested this valley was in the twelfth century.

Can I go in?

Unknown, and nothing read says yes. No opening hours, Mass times or admission are published by any operator, parish, diocesan or municipal page. Plan on seeing the exterior.

How old is it?

The locality is recorded from 1030; the church as a pieve dates here from 1102–1110 and is named in a papal bull of 1153. The piviere itself is documented from 995, at Avenano.

What is it built of?

Filaretti of alberese — the local limestone, split and squared into regular courses — of an ash-grey colour, in both the walls and the bell tower. The facade carries a single rectangular opening.

Who owned it?

The Ricasoli. The fattoria and monastic buildings attached to the pieve made it a beneficio sought by the richest families of the period; the Ricasoli, who already held the lands and farm of the pieve di San Polo in Rosso, got it.

Should I visit San Pietro in Avenano too?

From outside. The literature calls it the most significant example of Gothic religious architecture in the Chianti and perhaps in the whole Florentine contado — three naves of five bays on octagonal piers under ribbed cross vaults — but it has long been unofficiated and is in a state of enormous decay and abandonment.