According to legend, on Epiphany of the year
1600 four priests and several laymen withdrew to the monastery of
the Romanesque church of San Prospero where they founded a religious
community. Ten years later the community was recognized by a Papal
Bull of Apostolic Confirmation as the Congregazione del Santissimo
Crocefisso, to be included under the Oratory Institute. Only in
the second half of the century did the Pistoian congregation decide
to completely embrace the Instituto di San Filippo Neri and at that
time the church was renamed for the Saint. The renovation of the
inside of the building, which had been previously promoted and conducted
by the architect Domenico di Giovanpiero Marcacci, had already altered
the original Romanesque character of the church. Side altars had
been added to allow the worship of saints according to the indications
established by the Council of Trent while the high altar, the place
of Eucharistic sacrifice, occupied the center of the liturgical
space. The church, even though it is small, houses six confessionals,
a sign of how important the sacrament of Confession was to this
Order and how these furnishings were in great use during the Counter
Reformation period. In this same era the Sienese painter Rutilio
Manetti painted the Incoronation of Thorms for the Balocchi altar
(the first on the left)
A, a composition dose to the Caravaggio
follower Orazio Gentileschi's style for its use of light.
A hundred years after the architectural work, the church of San
Filippo was the object of new patronage. Cardinal Carlo Agostino
Fabro (
vs18), a high prelate
of the Holy See, had a floor added above the hall of the church
so : that he could house there the extensive library he had left
to the Congregation (
vi). Some years before, as we read in
the plaque over the entrance, the new decoration had been entrusted
to seven painters who decorated the walis with a cycle of eight
Scenes from the Life of San Filippo Neri. Giovan Domenico Piastrini
was the only artist from Pistoia and, by the Cardinal's wish, he
also frescoed the vestibule of the basilica of the Madonna dell'Umiltà
(
vs35).
The painter Giovan Domenico Ferretti (
vs21/42),an
important exponent of the Florentine Rococo style, was called the
first time to fresco the church vault
B together with the
scene painter Lorenzo del Moro; the second time he was commissioned,
with the scene painter Pietro Anderlini, to do frescos for the cupola
of the apse
C,the chantry
D and the choir
E.
This cycle is one of the Florentine artist's greatest works. The
Order of the Pistoian Oratoriani was dissolved in 1808 after the
Napoleonic occupation of the city. Today San Filippo continues to
be officiated for mass.
(n.) refers to the number of the file-card (s.i.) means see information
inside
The Fabroni Library
Cardinal Carlo Agostino Fabroni financed the construction of the
floor above the hall of San Filippo so that it could house his extensive
library consisting of 2400 bound volumes, 1850 volumes in quarto
format and 2460 in other formats, mostly dealing with theology.
To validate the donation, the Cardinal specified in his will that
the library should have a public use, a function it still serves
nowadays. Today the book shelves in inlaid walnut wood display only
part of the 20,000 volumes that constitute the library's entire
holdings, enriched over time by donations. The architect Francesco
Maria Gatteschi (
vs21/42)
was charged with the renovation project that reorganized the layout
of the surroundings when several buildings were torn down. The architect
used the Late Mannerist style derived from Buontalenti's work that
was still being followed in eighteenth century Italy and the construction
was completed in 1726.
