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Borgo di Loro Ciuffenna - Pieve di San Pietro a Gropina
The Pieve di Gropina, is located about 2 km from Loro Ciuffenna, on the Via dei Sette Ponti towards San Giustino, to reach it take a detour to the right, which after 800 m from the junction leads to the village of Gropina. The beautiful Romanesque church of San Pietro or Pieve di Gropina, constitutes one of the highest examples of Romanesque culture in Tuscany, it was erected around the year one thousand and presents a façade in large stone blocks, with two single lancet windows corresponding to the side naves and a double lancet window above the entrance door, on the architrave of the door is the date 1422, probably referable to one of the restoration interventions; the coat of arms of Leo X above the architrave bears the date 1522.
The interior is divided into three naves with bizarre capitals (in the columns on the left they tell episodes from the Old and New Testament, in the columns on the right the figures recall pre-Christian, Etruscan and Oriental art), the nave is covered by a gabled roof supported by wooden trusses. The apse of the church is semicircular with a double order of columns and has three single-lancet windows and six eyes. Leaning on a column of the right aisle is the circular Pergamon (Pulpit of the VIII century), richly decorated, supported by two knotted columns, a motif that also appears in the central column of the external decoration of the apse. Very beautiful is the external view of the apse with next to it the bell tower of 1233, perhaps implanted on a Longobard tower.
Already mentioned in 774, under the floor of the present church there are the remains of two successive smaller churches, a first church of the V-VI century and a second one with two naves of the VIII-IX century of Longobard origin, which can be reached through a staircase in the right aisle of the church.
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