San Pietro a Ripoli, Romanesque church in Bagno a Ripoli, Italy.
San Pietro a Ripoli is a Romanesque church in Bagno a Ripoli with characteristic features like solid stone walls and rounded arches. The building also contains a baptismal font made from ancient Roman materials, which traces its long history.
First documented securely on 31 March 966, when properties in its territory were leased to the Florentine chapter; an earlier 790 record names a Plebs Sancti Petri sito Quarto, at the fourth mile from Florence. A community of regular canons was privileged by Pope Nicholas II in a bull of 24 November 1059, then the pieve lost autonomy to the Abbey of San Miniato al Monte, confirmed by Pope Lucius III in 1184. In 1932 architect Luigi Zumkeller began restorations that stripped the interior plaster, removed Baroque additions and restored the Romanesque look.
The name Quarto, used in medieval documents, refers to the church's position at the fourth mile from Florence along the road following the ancient Via Cassia. A lay confraternity dedicated to the Holy Cross funded the interior decoration: the first left pier was frescoed with Saint John in 1320, the third with the stoning of Saint Stephen in 1359. A 1371 inscription on the fifth left pier records the building of the baptismal chapel.
San Pietro a Ripoli stands at the centre of the Ripoli parish complex, beside the municipal border with Florence in the Sorgane area, along the medieval route that followed the ancient via Cassia. The facade is preceded by a Gothic prothyrum, with the bell tower set on its left side; the entrance portal is Renaissance, replacing the original Romanesque one.
The baptismal chapel was built in 1371, as an inscription on the fifth pillar on the left records. The same left nave holds a marble ciborium from the second half of the 15th century and a carved marble panel with floral motifs and stone inlays from the late 12th century.
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