Santissima Annunziata, Church in Pontremoli, Italy

The Santissima Annunziata is a church on the Cisa state road in Pontremoli, with a single nave and a raised presbytery. In the middle of the nave stands an octagonal marble tempietto of 1527, attributed to the school of Andrea Sansovino. Two fifteenth-century cloisters of the former Augustinian convent, built at the city's expense in 1474, open off the presbytery. The facade was rebuilt in 1937.

The church was built at the end of the 15th century after a reported apparition of the Virgin Mary at a roadside shrine with a 14th-century Annunciation fresco. A doctor, Princivalle Villani, had a first chapel built to house the image. The expense books name maestro Biagio da Firenze first, then maestro Martino da Lugano. The road was moved to run near the Magra river, and the Augustinian convent was built at the town's expense in 1474.

The name comes from the Annunciation fresco in a roadside shrine where the Virgin reportedly appeared in 1470 to a shepherdess; the image drew pilgrims, and the physician Princivalle Villani had a first chapel built to house it. In the nave stands an octagonal marble tempietto of 1527, attributed to the school of Andrea Sansovino, holding Luca Cambiaso's Adoration of the Magi; its Creation lunette now sits above the sacristy door.

The church stands along the Cisa state road, near the point where the road was diverted toward the Magra river to make room for the building. The two fifteenth-century cloisters of the former Augustinian convent are reached from the presbytery, so look for the doorway there rather than at the entrance.

The octagonal marble tempietto at the centre of the nave, built in 1527 and attributed to the school of Andrea Sansovino, holds Luca Cambiaso's Adoration of the Magi; the Creation lunette that once accompanied it now sits above the sacristy door.