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Oratorio di Sant'Eufrosino, Panzano in Chianti

Last updated on November 3, 2026

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What makes Oratorio di Sant'Eufrosino, Panzano in Chianti special

People walked to the Oratorio di Sant'Eufrosino for the water, not for the building. Sant'Eufrosino , from Cappadocia , was one of the evangelisers of the Chianti; tradition has him dying near Panzano, and an oratory was raised where he was buried. Pilgrimage here was tied to the cult of a spring with thaumaturgic powers , the Fontino , still standing under a small shrine on four columns and hung with ex-votos . Only two places in the whole Chianti are dedicated to him — this one and the Commenda di Sant'Eufrosino at Volpaia . The friction is that it is small, outside the village, and shut. No opening hour, Mass time or admission is published for it by anyone, and the eighteenth-century reliquary bust that used to be here is now kept in the pieve di San Leolino, a kilometre away. The smart way is to come for the two things that are always there. The Gothic edicola in the presbytery, which once held the saint's relics and carries the arms of the Peruzzi , and the Fontino outside. Pair it with the pieve, which has the bust and runs a Festa di sant'Eufrosino .

Verified against Comune di Greve in Chianti, October 2026.

Visiting tips and strategy

When to go

Watch for the Festa di sant'Eufrosino. It appears on the calendar the Comunità di San Leolino publishes for the pieve a kilometre away — the community that now keeps the saint's reliquary bust. Dates move year to year and the organisers are the source.

Spring and early autumn for the walk down. The oratory lies below the village on the Pesa side; the Conca d'Oro around it is at its best in April and May and again at harvest.

Mid-August if you are combining it with the pieve. The Concerto di Ferragosto at San Leolino falls on 14 August in 2026, and 15 August is Panzano's patronal feast.

Any daylight otherwise. With nothing published, there is no hour to aim for, and the Fontino and the chapel are outdoors.

Avoid the third weekend in September unless you want the crowd. Vino al Vino fills Piazza Bucciarelli up in the village.

Verified against Comunità di San Leolino, October 2026.

Getting there and getting in

Nothing is published about getting into this oratory. No opening hours, Mass times or admission appear on any page read for this entry, and the Comune di Greve in Chianti — Panzano is its frazione — publishes no opening hour or admission for any building at Panzano. That is an absence, not an invitation.

Plan on the outside, which is most of the interest anyway. The portico, the filaretto remains in the right wall beneath it, the chapel in the yard behind and the Fontino with its ex-votos are all approached from outside the church door.

The reliquary bust is not here any more. The eighteenth-century plaster Sant'Eufròsino that once belonged to this oratory is now kept in the pieve di San Leolino, about a kilometre east — which is also where a Festa di sant'Eufrosino appears on the resident community's calendar.

Getting here. The oratory stands below Panzano on the Chiantigiana, towards the Conca d'Oro and the valley of the Pesa. Panzano has no railway station and no published bus service.

Administration is at Greve. Comune di Greve in Chianti, Piazza Giacomo Matteotti 7/8, 50022 Greve in Chianti (FI), switchboard 055 8545 1.

Quick facts

Type: Church, Sacred Place, Historic Place
Local name: Oratorio di Sant'Eufrosino, Panzano in Chianti (vedi la pagina italiana)
Built: First recorded 11 March 1102; present building not before 1441; portico seventeenth-century
Architectural style: Gothic-Renaissance single-nave oratory with a cross-vaulted gabled roof and a scarsella, with a later portico

Where it is

Get directions Open in Apple Maps

Visit responsibly

This is a pilgrimage site, and the ex-votos are other people's. The objects hanging in the Fontino were left by individuals in thanks; they are not decoration and not souvenirs.

The spring is the point of the place. Do not wash in it, put anything into it or take water from it as though it were a tap; the cult of it is nine centuries old.

The chapel behind holds a twelfth-century altar and fifteenth-century fresco fragments. Both are unprotected. Touch nothing, and no flash.

Nothing here has a custodian. No hours, no ticket, nobody on site. If something needs reporting, the comune at Greve is on 055 8545 1.

You are on the Chiantigiana. It is narrow and carries traffic between Greve, Panzano and Radda; park clear of the road rather than on the verge.

Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Wikipedia — Sant'Eufrosino, originally from Cappadocia, was one of the evangelisers of the Chianti, so much so that two places of worship dedicated to him were built in the Chianti territory: the oratory at Panzano and the Commenda di Sant'Eufrosino at Volpaia in the comune of Radda in Chianti. Tradition holds that he met his death near Panzano and that an oratory was built on the place of his burial, a goal of pilgrimages tied to the cult of a spring endowed with thaumaturgic powers, the Fontino di Sant'Eufrosino, consisting of two masonry columns supporting a sandstone architrave, inside which was the spring with the bust of the saint above it, the whole covered by a cusp with a pinnacle. The first notice of the oratory comes in a bull of 11 March 1102 from Paschal II to Giovanni, bishop of Fiesole. In 1852 an association was born whose purpose was the diffusion of the cult of Sant'Eufrosino with printed images of the saint accompanied by prayers of intercession., Panzano in Chianti is a frazione of the comune of Greve in Chianti, in the province of Florence, with 1,161 inhabitants, standing at 510 metres; its patron is Santa Maria Assunta, kept on 15 August., The present oratory of Sant'Eufrosino goes back to no earlier than 1441, when, pope Eugene IV finding himself in Florence, a special indulgence was issued to whoever made a donation for the construction of the oratory; it must have been a reconstruction, since remains of filaretto are conserved under the portico in the initial part of the right wall, belonging to a building of more modest dimensions and perhaps to the very building recalled in the twelfth-century document. The structure is fifteenth-century, with a gabled roof cross-vaulted and a single nave closed by a scarsella; the portico on the facade and the right side was added in the seventeenth century, while inside, restorations of that period changed the face of the church, rebuilding the altars and constructing a great niche to house the polychrome plaster statue of Sant'Eufrosino and a small reliquary. A great transverse arch with capitals in pietra serena carved with foliage divides the nave from the presbytery. In the end wall of the presbytery, at the left angle, is the piece of greatest artistic prestige: a Gothic ambo in the form of an edicola which originally must have housed the relics of the saint, formed of two small pilasters carrying a trilobed arch within a cusp decorated with rampant leaves, with two pierced panels of quatrefoils below and, on the corbels, the arms of the Peruzzi, perhaps the commissioners of the work -- the ambo having probably been recovered from a Florentine church and given by the Peruzzi at the time the structure was enlarged., The oratory of Sant'Eufrosino was described by the Florentine journalist and writer Oriana Fallaci in her posthumous novel Un cappello pieno di ciliege., Sant'Eufrosino, originally from Cappadocia, was one of the evangelisers of the Chianti, so much so that two places of worship dedicated to him were built in the Chianti territory: the oratory at Panzano and the Commenda di Sant'Eufrosino at Volpaia in the comune of Radda in Chianti. Tradition holds that he met his death near Panzano and that an oratory was built on the place of his burial, a goal of pilgrimages tied to the cult of a spring endowed with thaumaturgic powers, the Fontino di Sant'Eufrosino, consisting of two masonry columns supporting a sandstone architrave, inside which was the spring with the bust of the saint above it, the whole covered by a cusp with a pinnacle. The first notice of the oratory comes in a bull of 11 March 1102 from Paschal II to Giovanni, bishop of Fiesole. In 1852 an association was born whose purpose was the diffusion of the cult of Sant'Eufrosino with printed images of the saint accompanied by prayers of intercession., In the yard behind the oratory of Sant'Eufrosino is a small chapel which tradition says was erected in memory of a miracle of the saint, who at that point made a spring of water gush out; inside it keeps an altar in pietra serena of the twelfth century as well as traces of fifteenth-century frescoes, and there is also the opening of a well whose waters were said to have therapeutic qualities. Near the oratory is the so-called Fontino di Sant'Eufrosino, a spring the saint is said to have used during his life, over which a small sacello carried on four columns has been built and inside which ex-votos are conserved., The pieve di San Leolino conserves numerous works of art. The oldest is a slab of sandstone, perhaps a pluteo, used as the support of the altar table, decorated in depressed relief with a cross of grooved interlaced ribbons and whorls and datable between the eighth and the ninth century. Among the paintings are a Madonna enthroned between Saints Peter and Paul with stories of their lives, a thirteenth-century dossale attributed to Meliore di Jacopo; a Madonna enthroned with the Child and two angels, a triptych attributed to Mariotto di Nardo at the high altar and flanked by lateral compartments showing Saint Francis, Saint John the Baptist, Sant'Eufrosino and Saint Lawrence; a Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine, Peter and Paul, another triptych attributed by Bernard Berenson to the Maestro di Panzano, a painter close to Barna da Siena and Bartolo di Fredi and datable to the end of the fourteenth century; a Baptism of Christ, a fresco referred to Raffaellino del Garbo in the baptismal chapel, much repainted in the nineteenth century; and a small cusped fifteenth-century panel of the Madonna, the Child and two angels, of the Florentine school. Among the sculptural works are two glazed terracotta tabernacles ascribable to the workshop of Giovanni della Robbia and placed by the altar, commissioned by Leonardo Buonafede, and an eighteenth-century plaster reliquary bust of Sant'Eufròsino once belonging to the oratory of that saint., Conca d'Oro is the part of Panzano turned to the sun which faces and slopes down into the broad valley of the Pesa, a landscape of woods, vineyards and olive groves of central Tuscany; a great quantity of wheat was cultivated there among the rows of vines, so that in the summer months the valley shone straw-yellow like a basin full of gold, and from the 1970s onwards the wheat was replaced by the more profitable vine., Panzano in Chianti is a frazione of the comune of Greve in Chianti, in the province of Florence, with 1,161 inhabitants, standing at 510 metres; its patron is Santa Maria Assunta, kept on 15 August., In the yard behind the oratory of Sant'Eufrosino is a small chapel which tradition says was erected in memory of a miracle of the saint, who at that point made a spring of water gush out; inside it keeps an altar in pietra serena of the twelfth century as well as traces of fifteenth-century frescoes, and there is also the opening of a well whose waters were said to have therapeutic qualities. Near the oratory is the so-called Fontino di Sant'Eufrosino, a spring the saint is said to have used during his life, over which a small sacello carried on four columns has been built and inside which ex-votos are conserved., Sant'Eufrosino, originally from Cappadocia, was one of the evangelisers of the Chianti, so much so that two places of worship dedicated to him were built in the Chianti territory: the oratory at Panzano and the Commenda di Sant'Eufrosino at Volpaia in the comune of Radda in Chianti. Tradition holds that he met his death near Panzano and that an oratory was built on the place of his burial, a goal of pilgrimages tied to the cult of a spring endowed with thaumaturgic powers, the Fontino di Sant'Eufrosino, consisting of two masonry columns supporting a sandstone architrave, inside which was the spring with the bust of the saint above it, the whole covered by a cusp with a pinnacle. The first notice of the oratory comes in a bull of 11 March 1102 from Paschal II to Giovanni, bishop of Fiesole. In 1852 an association was born whose purpose was the diffusion of the cult of Sant'Eufrosino with printed images of the saint accompanied by prayers of intercession. (October 2026).
Checked against Comune di Greve in Chianti — The Comune di Greve in Chianti publishes no opening hours and no admission price for any building at Panzano in Chianti, and no transport timetable serving it., The Comune di Greve in Chianti publishes no opening hours and no admission price for any building at Panzano in Chianti, and no transport timetable serving it., Panzano in Chianti is a frazione administered by the Comune di Greve in Chianti, whose seat is at Piazza Giacomo Matteotti 7/8, 50022 Greve in Chianti (FI), with the switchboard 055 8545 1, and whose Polizia Municipale is at Via di Colognole 63/65, 50022 Greve in Chianti. There is no municipal office at Panzano itself., Panzano in Chianti is a frazione administered by the Comune di Greve in Chianti, whose seat is at Piazza Giacomo Matteotti 7/8, 50022 Greve in Chianti (FI), with the switchboard 055 8545 1, and whose Polizia Municipale is at Via di Colognole 63/65, 50022 Greve in Chianti. There is no municipal office at Panzano itself., The Comune di Greve in Chianti publishes no opening hours and no admission price for any building at Panzano in Chianti, and no transport timetable serving it. (October 2026).
Checked against Comunità di San Leolino — The Comunità di San Leolino holds a Concerto di Ferragosto in the pieve di San Leolino at Panzano: in 2026 on Friday 14 August at 18:30, with the Quartetto Kairos playing Dittersdorf, Lyadov and Dvořák, at the end of which refreshments are offered in the cloister of the pieve. Its yearly programme at the pieve also includes La fontana in fiore, Il Tempo per l'anima, the Festa della Beata Vergine Maria del Monte Carmelo, the Festa degli Artisti, a Festival di cultura umanistica, a Festa di sant'Eufrosino, and concerts at Advent and Epiphany., The Comunità di San Leolino was born in Florence in 1986 and has lived in the Pieve di San Leolino at Panzano in Chianti, in the diocese of Fiesole, since 1997; since December 2017 it has also overseen the Certosa di Firenze. Its address is Via S. Leolino 1, 50022 Panzano in Chianti (Firenze), and it publishes the email info@sanleolino.org and no telephone number. (October 2026).
Checked against Visit Tuscany (Toscana Promozione Turistica) — Panzano in Chianti holds the wine festival Vino al Vino on the third weekend in September at Piazza Bucciarelli, and a spring edition, Vino al Vino in Cantina, held in the cellars. (October 2026).

Oratorio di Sant'Eufrosino, Panzano in Chianti

What makes Oratorio di Sant'Eufrosino, Panzano in Chianti special

Challenge to visitors

Visiting tips and strategy

When to go

Getting the good version

What it costs

Getting there and getting in

Place accessibility

Quick facts

Where it is

Visit responsibly

Oratorio di Sant'Eufrosino, Panzano in Chianti

What makes Oratorio di Sant'Eufrosino, Panzano in Chianti special

Challenge to visitors

Visiting tips and strategy

When to go

Getting the good version

What it costs

Getting there and getting in

Place accessibility

Quick facts

Where it is

Visit responsibly

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