Santa Maria di Provenzano, Mannerist church in central Siena, Italy.
Santa Maria di Provenzano is a Mannerist church on Piazza Provenzano Salvani, built from 1595 with a travertine facade divided by pilasters into two orders, topped by a central tympanum and two lateral volutes. Four niches hold statues of Saints Ansano, Vittore, Caterina and Bernardino. Inside, a single nave leads to a Latin cross transept under an octagonal dome with a drum.
Construction began on 24 October 1595, when the foundations were walled in, after Pope Clement VIII and Siena's civic magistracies approved a shrine for the miracle-working image in 1594. Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici entrusted the design to the Sienese monk Damiano Schifardini, while Flaminio Del Turco directed the works on site. Archbishop Camillo Borghesi consecrated the church on 16 October 1611, and the Madonna was carried there in procession on 23 October.
The church keeps the terracotta Madonna di Provenzano, crowned in 1681 with a Papal Bull of Innocent XI; the crown given by Cardinal Flavio Chigi is imperial in form. Every 2 July the Palio di Siena is run in her honour, and the former crypt now holds the Oratory of the Contrada della Giraffa.
The church stands on Piazza Provenzano Salvani in the Terza Camollia district, just southwest of the basilica of San Francesco. The former crypt now houses the Oratory of the Suffrage, the chapel of the Contrada della Giraffa. The apse displays a Turkish flag taken at the 1683 Battle of Vienna by the Sienese mercenary Paolo Amerighi.
The venerated terracotta Madonna was struck by a Spanish arquebusier's shot in 1552, which destroyed its arms but left the bust intact. In 1681 Cardinal Flavio Chigi crowned the image with an imperial-style crown on behalf of the Chapter of St. Peter's Basilica. A silver coating applied in 1806 has been partly revealed through conservation.
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