BORGO SAN LORENZO (The church of San Pietro in Luco di Mugello) – Its gabled façade still has the beautiful original Renaissance portal, whose lunette that houses a majolica with the Madonna and Child, work of the Fornaci San Lorenzo of the Manifattura Chini (1932), was placed on the occasion of the restorations of that period. Inside, there is a significant nucleus of works of art with the same size of the biblical temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, characterized by the large and elegant apse with refined Renaissance decorations in stone: above the main altar, dating back to 1630, stands the monumental altarpiece with the Deposition of Christ, created in 1783 by the painter Santi Pacini as a copy of the original by Andrea Del Sarto; the latter was purchased by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo to place it inside the grand-ducal collections (it is visible today in the Palatina Gallery of Palazzo Pitti). The large painting in Mugello, however, still retains the beautiful original frame, carved and gilded wood, with some painted inserts whose quality makes it possible to even Andrea’s autograph intervention. Under the large altar-piece, there is a painted predella, depicting two scenes with The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and The Last Supper, late sixteenth-century work by the painter Carlo Portelli from Loro Ciuffenna, restless and bizarre artist of the Counter-Reformation Tuscany. On the counter-façade there is another painting inserted into a gilded wooden frame, originally the highlighting of the exhibition of the seventeenth-century high altar: oval in shape, it depicts the Face of Jesus Christ, inspired by the one painted by Andrea del Sarto for the Florentine church of SS. Annunziata, this work is a refined work by the painter Lorenzo Lippi dating back to 1632. On the right wall, stands a painting, oil on canvas, depicting the Crucifixion between Saints Sebastian and Ansano. It is a work of great patheticism, decidedly in Counter-Reformation style, signed by the painter Donato Mascagni (who since 1605 signed his creations with the name of Fra’ Arsenio following his entry into the order of the Servants of Mary) and datable around 1592. The 18th-century canvas depicting a Colloquium of Saints (right-hand wall), the glass window of the Chini Manifattura on the facade, and the mechanical organ that still preserves the original sixteenth-century core made by Onofrio Zeffirini. Finally, it is important to remember the considerable wealth of liturgical furnishings still held by the church today: the massive processional cross, in gilded silver and enamels; the work of a Florentine goldsmith from the mid-14th century, and the splendid silver goblet created by Cosimo Merlini il Vecchio, (signed and dated 1637), commissioned by the nun Massimilla Berti, one of the masterpieces of the Florentine goldsmithery of the seventeenth century.
© Il Filo – Idee e Notizie dal Mugello
