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Isolated from the medieval castle, the pieve of Palaia rises on a hill facing the present inhabited centre and represents an extraordinary example of Romanesque architecture of the 13th century in Valdera.

Isolated from the medieval castle, the pieve of Palaia rises on a hill facing the present inhabited centre and represents an extraordinary example of Romanesque architecture of the 13th century in Valdera. Initially subordinate to the pieve of San Gervasio, the church of Palaia obtained the title of autonomous pieve in 1279. On such occasion, the edifice was rebuilt under the direction of the worker Andrea di Upezzino. Its architectural forms are of an extraordinary value; the masterly use of brickwork decorations marks either the pieve exterior and interior. The building presents a three-nave plan with polygonal apse. The latter, built in terra cotta, is covered by an amazing ribbed vault. Pilasters divide the external structure into sectors, each comprising two small blind arches. Three wide windows designed by the engineer Luigi Filippeschi were opened on the apse. The façade of S.Martino pieve is vertically divided by pilasters marking three sectors, each hosting a portal of 19th-century manufacture. On the façade, the roofline is adorned by Lombard bands, resting on decorated corbels and following the varying roof levels. The northern side presents a splayed portal in decorated terra cotta and three single-light windows. A bell gable hosting two bells was built on the counter-façade. The church interior is divided into three naves by six terra-cotta columns – those towards the main portal being clustered columns – surmounted by stone capitals sculpted with human, vegetal and animal motifs. The first document reporting this building dates back to 1061, although its present forms are datable to the end of the 13th century. In 1279, the bishop of Lucca, Paganello, granted the church of San Martino the title of pieve. Renovation works, under the worker Andrea di Upezzino, went on slowly, by steps; a three-nave pieve in brickwork was built, marked by a polygonal apse covered by a ribbed vault of an evocative beauty. According to a historic reconstruction worked out by Eva Malacarne, the pieve underwent three main building phases in the Middle Ages, yet only the last one was dated with certainty. During the first one, the foundation plan was meant for a three-nave church, marked by seven bays covered with groin vaults. Due to static or economic reasons, a smaller edifice was built in the second phase; also, the layout of the bays was changed and the choice of groin vaults to cover the building was discarded. In the third phase, datable between 1279 (when the church was acknowledged as pieve) and 1286 (date incised in the presbyterial area), the building was completed in its present forms under the direction of Andrea di Upezzino. Passed under the jurisdiction of San Miniato diocese in 1622, the edifice was restored, consolidated and embellished since 1639. The pieve guards a small marble basin inside, carrying an inscription about the measurement unit used for wine, a reminiscence of the tithe that Palaia villagers had to pay to the pievano. Particularly interesting are the brickwork decorations, made after the various elements had been fired and laid, as well as the sculpted capitals of the internal piers, depicting human and vegetal motifs. The edifice underwent a number of restoration works throughout the centuries because of the nature of the ground, clayey and threatened by landsliding events on several occasions. Ever since 1564, the pieve was deconsecrated and appeared in a bad conservation state. The first renovation works took place in the 17th century, when the pieve passed under the diocese of S.Miniato. At the end of the 19th century, the engineer Luigi Filippeschi also worked on the building. His (erroneous) starting assumption was that the pieve was a work by Andrea Pisano; for this reason, he designed an integral (now questionable) restoration to take it back to its original state. Works carried out at the time removed any Baroque superstructures, stripped the plaster off the walls, sealed the masonry cracks and replaced the façade wall with brickwork insertions in neo-Gothic style.

Palaia

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