Pieve of San Pancrazio, Romanesque church in San Casciano in Val di Pesa, Italy.

The Pieve of San Pancrazio is a church with a nave and two aisles ending in three semicircular apses; of the Romanesque building only the bell tower and the tribune survive. The central apse is intact, divided by pilasters with Lombard-style arches beneath the cornices, and the left minor apse is partly visible. The interior lies below ground level, on four rectangular pillars with five bays.

Documented from the 10th century, the pieve was a collegiate church whose canons elected a provost who also ruled the castle formed around it. In 1217 a legal dispute with the monastery of Passignano began over its wealth, taxed at 40 lire in tithes between 1274 and 1280, and ended on 19 November 1301 with an agreement between the pievano Jacopo dei Buondelmonti and his uncle, the abbot of Passignano.

The parish church gave its name to the surrounding village and headed a piviere of dependent churches, from San Lorenzo a Castelvecchio to San Quirico in Collina. Inside, look for the 1400 Madonna del Latte by Cenni di Francesco and the 1614 Annunciation by Domenico Frilli Croci, signed and dated.

The church sits in the Chianti region southwest of Florence and works well as a stop when exploring the area's wine routes and medieval villages. Visiting this church pairs naturally with touring the surrounding countryside and wine estates.

The studiolo of the parish priest, frescoed by Cosimo Gheri, a pupil of Santi di Tito, has two registers: below are the seven Liberal Arts, from Grammar to Astrology; above, poets and scientists from Socrates and Virgil to Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Look for Guido Cavalcanti and Aesop among the figures.