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Pieve di San Leolino, Panzano in Chianti

Last updated on November 3, 2026

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What makes Pieve di San Leolino, Panzano in Chianti special

The Pieve di San Leolino holds a painter nobody can name. Bernard Berenson attributed a late-fourteenth-century Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine, Peter and Paul here to an unidentified hand close to Barna da Siena and Bartolo di Fredi — the Maestro di Panzano , named after this village because there was nothing else to call him. Around it: a thirteenth-century dossale by Meliore di Jacopo , a triptych by Mariotto di Nardo , a Baptism of Christ given to Raffaellino del Garbo , and two glazed terracotta tabernacles from the workshop of Giovanni della Robbia . The friction is that people live here. The Comunità di San Leolino has occupied the pieve since 1997 . It publishes an address, an email and a concert programme — and no Mass times, no opening hours and no telephone. The smart way is to come when the community has opened the doors itself. Its calendar runs all year: a Concerto di Ferragosto — in 2026 on Friday 14 August at 18:30 , with refreshments afterwards in the cloister — a Festival di cultura umanistica , a Festa degli Artisti , a Festa di sant'Eufrosino .

Visiting tips and strategy

When to go

Plan around the community's calendar, because that is when the building is open. Its year at the pieve includes La fontana in fiore, the Festa della Beata Vergine Maria del Monte Carmelo, Il Tempo per l'anima, the Festa degli Artisti, a Festival di cultura umanistica, a Festa di sant'Eufrosino and concerts at Advent and Epiphany.

Mid-August is the fixed point. The Concerto di Ferragosto falls on 14 August in 2026, at 18:30, and 15 August is the patronal feast of Panzano, Santa Maria Assunta.

September for the village around it. Vino al Vino takes Piazza Bucciarelli on the third weekend, and the Conca d'Oro below the church is in harvest.

Spring for the approach. The pieve sits below Panzano among vineyards and olives; the walk down is pleasant in April and May and hard work in August.

Assume winter means looking at the outside. With no published hours and a resident community, an ordinary January afternoon is the least likely time to find a door open.

Getting there and getting in

Nobody publishes an opening hour for this church, because a community lives in it. The Comunità di San Leolino has occupied the pieve since 1997 and publishes an address, an email and an events programme — and no Mass times, no opening hours, no admission and no telephone number. That absence is the state of affairs; it is not evidence that the door stands open, and it is not an admission price of zero.

The address is precise. Via S. Leolino 1, 50022 Panzano in Chianti (Firenze); the published contact is info@sanleolino.org.

The reliable way in is an event. The community runs its own calendar at the pieve, and those occasions are when the church is open and lit. The Concerto di Ferragosto is the best documented: in 2026, Friday 14 August at 18:30, with the Quartetto Kairos, and at the end a refreshment in the cloister of the pieve.

Getting here. The pieve stands below the village of Panzano on the Pesa side. Panzano has no railway station and no published bus service; this is a drive or a walk down from the village.

Anything administrative is at Greve. Panzano is a frazione: the Comune di Greve in Chianti is at Piazza Giacomo Matteotti 7/8, 50022 Greve in Chianti (FI), switchboard 055 8545 1, and it publishes no opening hour or admission for any building at Panzano.

Verified against Comune di Greve in Chianti, October 2026.

Quick facts

Type: Church, Sacred Place, Historic Place
Local name: Pieve di San Leolino, Panzano in Chianti (vedi la pagina italiana)
Built: Recorded from 982; the present building twelfth-century; portico and scarsella sixteenth-century; restored to Romanesque form in 1942
Architectural style: Romanesque basilica of three naves on quadrangular alberese piers, with a sixteenth-century sandstone portico

Where it is

Get directions Open in Apple Maps

Visit responsibly

This is a residence as well as a church. The Comunità di San Leolino has lived here since 1997. Arriving unannounced and trying doors is not visiting a monument; it is knocking on somebody's house.

Write before you come if it matters to you. The published contact is info@sanleolino.org, and it is the only one there is — no telephone number appears anywhere on the community's site.

If you come for a concert, you are a guest at an event, not a ticket holder. The refreshment afterwards is in the community's own cloister.

The paintings are fragile and several are already much repainted. The Baptism of Christ given to Raffaellino del Garbo was heavily reworked in the nineteenth century. No flash, nothing touched.

The farm buildings are part of the complex and are not public. So is the canonica off the cloister.

Sources & verification Covers the sourced claims on this page.

Checked against Wikipedia — 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., 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 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., The pieve di San Leolino is a basilica of three naves marked off by quadrangular piers in blocks of alberese, concluded with a scarsella and covered by wooden trusses; in the sixteenth century the portico on the facade was built with sandstone columns and the doorway in pietra serena, the semicircular apse was demolished and replaced with a quadrangular scarsella -- the two minor apses being of more recent date and the fruit of invention -- and a monolithic baptismal font of very simple form was placed at the first bay on the right. In the eighteenth century the church underwent an internal transformation in Baroque style, with the walls plastered and side altars built, all of which was removed in the restorations of 1942 that returned the church to its primitive Romanesque aspect, and the internal floor was redone in a restoration of the early 1980s. A doorway in the right wall gives onto a small cloister whose portico has a wooden roof carried on brick columns, with the rooms of the canonica opening off its sides, their portals and windows placing them in the Cinquecento; the farm buildings belong to the complex, and on the left of the facade is the oratory of the Compagnia del Santissimo Sacramento, a small church with a simple and dignified eighteenth-century facade whose broken-pedimented portal, window, angles and roof slopes are all framed in pietra serena. (October 2026).
Checked against Comunità di San Leolino — 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., 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., 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., No Mass times, opening hours or admission for the pieve di San Leolino are published by the Comunità di San Leolino that lives in it, nor by any other source read for this page, and no telephone number is published either., 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., No Mass times, opening hours or admission for the pieve di San Leolino are published by the Comunità di San Leolino that lives in it, nor by any other source read for this page, and no telephone number is published either., 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., 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., No Mass times, opening hours or admission for the pieve di San Leolino are published by the Comunità di San Leolino that lives in it, nor by any other source read for this page, and no telephone number is published either. (October 2026).
Checked against Visit Tuscany (Toscana Promozione Turistica) — Visit Tuscany places Panzano in Chianti a few miles from Greve in Chianti, exactly halfway between Florence and Siena, with the Conca d'Oro at the foot of the village described as a mosaic of rows of vines, olive groves and woods; it records the Panzano Castle as documented since the 11th century, still retaining large sections of the medieval walls after the damage of the Battle of Montaperti in 1260, and the Church of Santa Maria in Panzano as rebuilt in the 19th century on an earlier medieval church, holding a fourteenth-century Madonna and Child and an Annunciation attributed to Michele Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. It names the Parish Church of San Leolino as one of the oldest churches in Chianti., 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).
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., 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. (October 2026).

Pieve di San Leolino, Panzano in Chianti

What makes Pieve di San Leolino, 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

Pieve di San Leolino, Panzano in Chianti

What makes Pieve di San Leolino, 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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