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Pieve de Romena
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 © Photo: Andrea Barghi |
| The Pieve di Romena,
located near Romena Castle, is one of the largest parish
churches in the Casentino. We know the year it was built from an inscription on the first column on the left, where the year 1152 is carved. Its interior, both austere and evocative, gives the feeling of a past so near that one can almost reach out and touch it. |
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The church that best incarnates the spirit and the religiosity of long-ago times is the Pieve di Romena, dedicated to St Peter.  © Photo: Andrea Barghi
Probably built along an ancient road, the year of its construction is carved in the first column on the left: 1152. The building lost the first two of its five bays and its original faÁade in the earthquake of 1678. |
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Today, nearly half its original size, and done completely in pietra serena, the church enthrals us, taking us back over centuries. The structure is divided into a nave and two aisles by Romanesque columns with elaborate capitals that are unique in the history of art. Some scholars hypothesise they were produced by local labourers who also decorated other parish churches in the Casentino, with contributions from Lombard art. Others believe the artists came from outside. The building is striking for the charm and workmanship of the symbolic figures sculpted on the grey stone.grise. |
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