Pieve di San Paolo, Romanesque church in Capannori, Italy.

Pieve di San Paolo is a Romanesque church in Capannori featuring three aisles, a gabled façade, pilasters, and Neoclassical elements along its sides with a bell tower positioned in front. The structure sits elevated one meter above street level to protect against flooding from the nearby Serchio River.

The oldest pieve in the Capannori area, it was partly destroyed by the Goths around 405 and probably rebuilt by San Frediano, bishop of Lucca from 561 to 589. It was restructured around 1200, with changes to the façade, nave sides and bell tower, which bears the date 1246. In the 1600s two lateral arms, the choir and the front portico were added.

The high altar of white and yellow Carrara marble dates from 1773, not 1733. The side altars hold paintings attributed to Agostino Marti: Saint John the Evangelist (1734, right) and Saint Andrew reading, with the Immaculate Conception carved on the same altar (1760, left). The Immaculate Conception devotion here predates the 1854 dogma.

The church, bell tower and rectory stand at least one metre above the old road level, raised against Serchio floods, so the entrance is reached by steps. The two-level lawn garden outside, laid out between 1865 and 1903, is joined by a marble stairway.

The bell tower carries the date 1246 and rises 28 metres, starting in stone and continuing in brick up to a battlemented top, a reminder of its use as a defensive stronghold. In 1914 a merlo, probably struck by lightning, fell onto the church and damaged the roof, after which a lightning rod was added.