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Chiesa di Santa Maria, Panzano in Chianti

Chiesa di Santa Maria, Panzano in Chianti historical timeline

Last updated on November 3, 2026

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It begins as a tax entry. The church derived from the enlargement of a primitive Romanesque building recorded in the lists of the Rationes Decimarum per la Tuscia of the years 1274–75. The thirteenth-century tithes also cite a church of Santa Maria placed inside the castle of Panzano.

Then it annexed a tower. It was probably enlarged in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, with the use as a bell tower of one of the perimeter towers of the ancient medieval castle.

In the Renaissance it was a single hall. From that period the church had one nave without an apse, about 19 metres by 9; two great stone windows with grilles and glazing opened in the rear wall behind the high altar and the same in the facade; the side altars stood against the flanks; and from the left flank a vaulted chapel housed the octagonal pietra serena font, in all probability the present one, made around 1730. The floor held the burials of the most notable Panzano families of the time — Firidolfi, Quercetani, Petrucci, De Luigi, Baldi, Cappelletti.

In 1542 a bishop wrote down what was in it. Braccio Martelli (1501–1560), bishop of Fiesole, recorded at his pastoral visit the tabula egregie dipincta cum immagine Anunciationis B. M. and the pulcram immaginem Cristi Crucifixi — the Annunciation and the Crucifix still in the chapel of the Annunciation today.

A Napoleonic decree emptied the graveyard. The edict of Saint-Cloud, issued by Napoleon in 1802 and promulgated for the Kingdom of Italy in 1806, caused the old cemetery beside the church to be decommissioned.

At the end of the 1800s the church and its tower were still separate. The church was contained between the two great arches now visible, without side chapels; the campanile stood detached; between them lay the cemetery entrance, from which one reached the chapel of the Compagnia della Santissima Annunziata — believed to be the same chapel seen today, except that it also had a direct access from the church, closed in the last restoration of the 1960s.

Between 1890 and 1903 it became the building it is. The deep restructuring created the side chapels, prolonged the central nave at the front so that the new facade took in part of the bell tower and closed the old cemetery entrance, and extended the rear into the two present semicircles.

Verified against Wikipedia, October 2026.

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Checked against Wikipedia — The church of Santa Maria is a place of worship at Panzano in Chianti, a frazione of Greve in Chianti in the province of Florence, diocese of Fiesole, built between 1890 and 1903. It derived from the enlargement of a primitive Romanesque building recorded in the lists of the Rationes Decimarum per la Tuscia of 1274-75, itself probably enlarged in the fourteenth or fifteenth century with the use as a bell tower of one of the perimeter towers of the ancient medieval castle. At the end of the 1800s the church was contained between the two present great arches, without side chapels, and the bell tower remained detached from the church; between the two structures was the entrance to the cemetery, from which one reached the chapel of the Compagnia della Santissima Annunziata, believed to be the same seen today except for a direct access from the church, closed in the last restoration of the 1960s. The present aspect is due to the deep restructuring between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, with the creation of the side chapels and the prolongation of the central nave at the front, taking in with the new facade part of the bell tower and so closing the entrance to the old cemetery which, following the edict of Saint-Cloud issued by Napoleon in 1802 and promulgated for the Kingdom of Italy in 1806, had been decommissioned; the prolongation also affected the rear, creating the two present semicircles. These enlargements are clearly recognisable observing the left flank of the church from the old graveyard., From the Renaissance period the church of Santa Maria at Panzano had a single nave without an apse and measured about 19 metres long by 9 wide; in the rear wall behind the high altar opened two great stone windows with grilles and glazing, and the same in the facade; the side altars were set against the flanks, and from the left flank one reached a vaulted chapel housing the baptismal font, octagonal and in pietra serena, made around the year 1730 and in all probability the present one. In the floor were numerous burials of the most notable Panzano families of the time: Firidolfi, Quercetani, Petrucci, De Luigi, Baldi, Cappelletti., The oldest furnishing of the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta at Panzano is a small fourteenth-century panel of the Madonna and Child referred to Cenni di Francesco di ser Cenni, framed in the following century by a panel with saints executed by Bernardo Rosselli, now in the third chapel on the left. In the chapel of the Annunciation, entered from the right side of the church, are an Annunciation from the workshop of Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio executed around 1520 -- the tabula egregie dipincta cum immagine Anunciationis B. M. recalled by the bishop of Fiesole Braccio Martelli (1501-1560) in the pastoral visit of 1542 -- and a wooden Crucifix attributed to Jacopo Sansovino and dated between 1510 and 1518, also recalled by bishop Martelli as a pulcram immaginem Cristi Crucifixi, carved in polychrome poplar with a loincloth of linen cloth gessoed and painted blue with gilded decoration, of which Francesca Petrucci wrote after the restoration of 1998 that it had revealed a harmonious Renaissance structure heightened by the presence of the original polychromy of very fine pictorial quality. The same chapel holds an old gilded wooden ciborium in the form of a hexagonal tempietto of the late sixteenth century, the painted decorations of whose door panels are attributed to Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, together with old vestments embroidered in gold and silk and ancient reliquaries. Another important Crucifix attributed to a fifteenth-century Florentine sculptor stands on the altar of the first chapel on the left, also in poplar with a gessoed linen loincloth painted blue; the octagonal pietra serena font at the entrance on the right was made around 1730 by the then prior Giuseppe Maria Mammoli by order of the bishop of Fiesole Luigi Maria Strozzi; and in the first chapel on the right is a canvas of Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi and Sant'Antonio di Padova painted by Pier Dandini in the mid-seventeenth century., The castle is the highest and oldest part of Panzano; a good part of the walls that girded the hill is still conserved, though on two sides they have been reduced in height while on the south-east side they are missing altogether. Corner towers also survive, one of which has been reused as the bell tower of the church of Santa Maria while another still keeps its apparato a sporgere. The internal structure is simple: from the single access gate, which may originally have had an antiporta, a single street leads to a small piazzetta onto which the cassero faces, the cassero being a tall tower rising higher than all the other buildings; beside the access gate is a building of obviously medieval character. For the accuracy of the wall facing and the form of the archivolts, all the buildings of the castle date its structures to the twelfth century., The pieve di San Leolino is a Catholic place of worship at Panzano in Chianti, a frazione of Greve in Chianti in the province of Florence, diocese of Fiesole; it is recorded from 982 under the name of San Leolino a Flacciano in a parchment of the abbey of Passignano, though two sculptural fragments conserved inside suggest the church has an origin older still. The present building goes back to the twelfth century, as can be deduced from its structural and stylistic characteristics. In the medieval period the church had great importance and fourteen suffragan churches depended on it, among them the one inside the castle of Panzano. In 1508 the patronage of the church passed to the Florentine hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, and from the sixteenth century began the works of restoration and transformation that gave the church the external appearance still visible. (October 2026).

Chiesa di Santa Maria, Panzano in Chianti historical timeline

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