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In the Middle Ages, the pieve of Santa Maria e San Giovanni was outside the castle of Vicopisano, in a square called ‘Campo di S. Maria’, where the market would take place. Set in a strategic location within the medieval road network, the pieve directly referred to the Pisan bishop, indeed its architectural and decorative forms are close to those of Pisa cathedral.

In the Middle Ages, the pieve of Santa Maria e San Giovanni was outside the castle of Vicopisano, in a square called ‘Campo di S. Maria’, where the market would take place. Set in a strategic location within the medieval road network, the pieve directly referred to the Pisan bishop, indeed its architectural and decorative forms are close to those of Pisa cathedral. Outside the building are a figured bas-relief of Lombard age and sculpted corbels with vegetal and animal motifs, while the interiors are embellished by an important cycle of frescoes dating from the 13th century. Outside the building are a figured bas-relief of Lombard age and sculpted corbels with vegetal and animal motifs, while the interiors are embellished by an important cycle of frescoes dating from the 13th century. The church shows some building features in common with other Romanesque constructions, by hands of travelling workers operating in the whole territory of Pisan influence, including Sardinia and Corsica. It is a three-naved, apsed building with a bell tower at its side. The interior is divided into three naves by six rows of columns, interrupted by two piers of rectangular section in the presbyterial area. Capitals (Corinthian, Ionic, composite) and columns are salvaged materials, probably of Roman age, as in use at that time in Pisa. The arcades of nave and aisles support a clerestory, where four single-light windows open on either sides. The pieve façade is reminiscent of decorative elements distinguishing the Pisan cathedral – pilasters, moulded lozenges, Lombard bands. Such common features are due to the fact that the pieve was commissioned by a Pisan bishop, who made available some properties belonging to the archbishop and sent the required workers to have the pieve built. The façade and the side wall were built in a highly specialized construction technique, called ‘stonemason’s technique’, probably employed by those who had been working, or were trained, during the construction of the Pisan cathedral. The particular presence of ashlars with raised edges may be explained with a need to secure pilasters onto the façade, to ensure stability and anti-seismic strength. The same measure was applied to Sardinian and Corsican churches. As in many other pievi of the surrounding countryside, the side that does not look onto the main road (the right side, in this instance) was built using the filaretto technique, called ‘mason’s’ technique, allowing a quicker and cheaper laying. In 934, the bishop Zanobi appointed a certain priest Giovanni as rector of the pieve: this is the earliest confirmation of the church we know. The present forms date back to a construction phase datable between the end of the 11th and the early 12th centuries, when the pievi of the territory were rebuilt according to a common scheme: a three-nave plan with apse and a bell tower, a large size, a highly skilled technique, lozenge decorations and Lombard bands. In the 17th century, frescoes were stripped off and plastered over, according to the Counter-Reformation criteria of the age. Several altars were built and set against the walls. A further change occurred in the 18th century, when the engineer Gaetano Niccolai rebuilt the apse and the bell tower, adding the Holy Sacrament chapel. A rich sculptural repertoire of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic motifs is visible on the external left side of the pieve. On the façade, a bas-relief features a Decapitation of St. John the Baptist, the saint to whom the church is dedicated. The interior hosts a wide cycle of frescoes showing evangelical scenes and decorative bands, by two anonymous painters of the mid-13th century. Stories are illustrated on two courses, one above the other, separated by a thin frame. The frescoes were initially meant to cover the side walls and the counter-façade, to culminate in the magnificent wooden polychrome Deposition in the apse, also dating back to the second half of the 13th century. The sculptural group presents a few iconographic details reminiscent of the Deposition of Volterra cathedral, as well as some stylistic features similar to those found in the Barga Conservatory group. This work belongs to a sculptural type that had developed in the Pisan area following the Burgundian group presence in Pisa cathedral. Placed at the church entrance, a stoup was obtained by assembling an inverted Corinthian capital and a marble basin salvaged from an Etruscan gravestone. A marble stoup was walled on the left aisle, dating from the 13th century and decorated with floral patterns, maybe coming from S. Jacopo in Lupeta. A noteworthy stone tabernacle houses a statue of St. John the Baptist, attributed to Nino Pisano’s workshop and datable from the 14th century. The work comes from the church of S. Felice in Pisa. Among sacred fittings, a reliquary pectoral cross of Byzantine manufacture is worth mentioning; coming from Syria, it may be dated between the 9th and the 10th centuries. This finely worked item, encrusted in yellow gold, depicts on the front side a Crucifix between Mary and John, surrounded by more evangelical scenes; on the back side, Mary praying among the Apostles, surmounted by the Ascension and surmounting the Descent to the underworld. The choir was the church area most subjected to changes: in the 17th century, the aisles were extended in order to build the Virgin chapel on one side and the sacristy on the other one. A square-section bell tower was raised in the 18th century, upon the sacristy area. At the beginning of the 20th century, the engineer Eaco Montanari made a restoration project to take back the pieve to its medieval appearance, which still prevails today.

Vicopisano

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