This church with its white and green marble façade
is the last example of the extraordinary period of Pistoian polychrome
decoration and interprets in a fully mature manner the feeling of
the period. A motif of small arches - supported by fiat pilaster
strips and decorated above by polychrome rhombi - runs along the
south wall and includes the side door with the arched lintel in
black and white marbles. The same motif is to be found on the façade
which has three doorways of which the middle one is topped by a
sculpted architrave. The sculptures portraying Christ and the Apostles
are very near in style to the workshop of the Guidis (
vs23),
artists who were working in Pistoia in the mid 1200s. The mastery
of the carving, the figures separated by small columns of green
marble, are seen alongside beautiful inlays depicting fantastic
animals taken from the rich medieval bestiary. To the upper left
and right, the entrance doors are flanked by two magnificent griffins
in white marble.
The origins of San Pietro date to a past so distant that the church
can possibly be related to the paleo-Chuistian cathedral (
vs31).
The church was already built before the Lombard period when the
via regis (
vs4/13),began
here and it must have had a remarkable importance since its name
was given to the southern gate of the city (
vs8).
called the Sancti Petri gate.
San Pietro, entirely rebuilt at the end of the eleventh century,
was enlarged with the convent which, from that moment until the
late 1700s, hosted a group of Benedictine nuns (
vi). Great
changes were made in the seventeenth century when the Jesuit architect
Tommaso Ramignani (
vs37)worked
on the choir, giving the church the Baroque style that stili characterizes
its three naves.
Since the year 1822 the organ designed by Benedetto Tronci stands
out on the inside wall of the façade as a work that is highly original
for its structural complexity as well as for its many registers.
This important instrument is an example of the vitality of Pistoia's
organ-building school (
vs37).
The church has been closed to worship for many years while the convent
has become the seat of the local art school. Many projects for the
building's better use have been proposed and one of these should
allow, in the near future, the permanent exposition of the plaster
casts by the Pistoian sculptor Andrea Lippi.
(n.) refers to the number of the file-card (s.i.) means see information
inside
The Wedding of the Bishop and the Abbess
Traditionally, the new bishops who took over the Diocese of Pistoia
had to join the Abbess of the convent of S. Pier Maggiore in marriage.
This ceremony is recounted by Luca Dominici in his Chronicles when
the Bishop Matteo Diamanti came to the city in the year 1400: and
then they sat down together and they said and did what was customary,
he married her and gave her a ring. There was a beautiful bed and
he sat down on it for awhile and the Abbess gave this bed to the
Bishop. The curious custom, in use up until the seventeenth century,
cast the Abbess in the symbolic role of the Diocese that, by marrying
the Bishop, accepted his authority. The fact that the ceremony was
held first in San Pietro before the bishop's solemn installation
in the cathedral is proof of this ancient church's importance.
