San Francesco church and convent

The first document of the religious complex dates back to 1278, but it is thought that its foundation was much earlier. The church is dedicated to the Holy Cross and was home to the Franciscan fraternity for an initial period until 1810 when, due to the Napoleonic decree which suppressed religious orders, the friars were forced to leave.

Following the abandonment via a grand-ducal motu-proprio act (1816) the ownership of the church and convent passed to the community which then, via a public act (1826) conceded the use of the religious complex to the Piarist fathers. Once the Piarists returned to Florence, the community regained the availability of the San Francesco church until 1843, the year when it was granted perpetually to the Misericordia Venerable Confraternity. Figline Valdarno allowed the Friars Minor back only in 1926, after an agreement with the municipality.

The facade of the San Francesco church, covered with two-toned white-green limestone, is preceded by a Renaissance portico, with a tabernacle which houses a pietra serena "Madonna with Child" of the mid-14th century. Located under the portico are various coats of arms, while in the lunettes you can still make out some remains of 17th-century frescoes of the Pisan school.

The interior features a large single nave with a slightly protruding transept and three chapels at the end. In the summer of 1931 a cycle of frescoes by the Florentine painter Francesco d'Antonio, dating back to 1420 (“Christ in Glory”, “Crucifixion with mourners and four saints”, “Saint Francis”, “Crucifixion”, “Annunciation” and “Coronation of the Virgin”) , was retrieved on the wall of the counterfacade. Found along the right wall of the nave is a late 15th-century detached fresco, attributed to Pier Francesco Fiorentino, originally located in the cloister of the convent where it was placed over a tomb which is still in place today; the fresco portrayed the “Madonna with Child and Saints Bartholomew and Sebastian”. Found instead along the left wall of the nave, inside a large aedicule, is a fresco of the Botticelli workshop, the “Madonna of the Belt with Saint John the Baptist, Saint Thomas and Saint Julian”. The head of the left transept, near the Holy Cross altar (which housed a relic of the Holy Cross, then stolen in 1971) is instead decorated with late Gothic frescoes, allegedly by the Florentine Pietro Donini, while a partial copy of a 1424 polyptych by Mariotto di Nardo is positioned in the Serristori chapel. Kept instead in the right chapel is an imposing wooden Crucifix dating to the last twenty years of the 15th century.

In addition to the church you can always visit the 14th/15th-century cloister in whose lunettes, dating back to the 17th century, episodes from the life of Saint Francis are depicted. Accessible on request is also the ancient chapter house which contains a 14th-century fresco on the “Crucifixion with mourners and four saints”, a panel with the “Madonna with Child” painted by Giovanni del Biondo in 1392 and another “Madonna with Child” in polychrome stucco, coming from the Lorenzo Ghiberti workshop, datable to the second quarter of the 15th century.