In the church, dating back to the XI – XII centuries, but restructured several times, Father Lino Chini testified the activity of Pietro Alessio Chini in the last century, listing Montefloscoli among the parish churches decorated by the founder of the family between 1860 and 1862 without, however, specifying neither the subject, nor the location of the painting. One of the inscriptions in Latin which appears in the ceramic scrolls at the sides of the altar, in the Chapel of the Virgin of Good Advice, affixed in 1910 when the chapel was renewed, seems to be linked to this episode. The inscription calls to mind Father Federico Mennini, curate of this church who, in 1861, initiated the work of development and new ornamentation.
It was most probably on this occasion that Pietro Alessio intervened, perhaps even painting the small vault of this chapel which, still today, shows a Madonna with Child surrounded by small angels on a background which, in an illusion, reproduces an open sky. The painting, very damaged and not easily judgeable, may be compared both in style, and also in the emphatic features of the figures, to the Baptism of Christ in the parish church of San Giovanni Maggiore and to the Eternity in Glory of the oratory of St. Mary of Valdastra. Furthermore, it is possible that the decoration of Pietro Alessio extended to the “matting of the ceiling” of the only nave of the church, removed and replaced by the present trussed roof during the restoration work in 1910, commissioned, as another cartouche recalls, by the rector Father John Paul. At this time the tabernacle produced by the San Lorenzo Furnaces in glazed terracotta of robbiana imitation, was also positioned on the altar of the Chapel of the Virgin of Good Advice, to replace an 18th. century canvas portraying The Nativity of the Virgin. In the centre, the tabernacle preserves a reproduction on glass of the Madonna with Child, is decorated by a festoon of fruit and vegetables, and in the panel of tiles which frame it, one may recognize modern decorative motifs with triangles and stars, typical of the Furnaces. The ceramic coats of arms applied to the pendentives of the vault are also attributable to this manufacture
This type of production, frequent in the area, is part of a trend which combined the use of modern elements, taken from the manufacturing’s own repertoire, to the attempt to adapt itself to the antiquity of the environment in which it was working, through the recuperation of traditional figurative ideas. On the altar, candelabras in wrought iron are also preserved, which are part of a set specially made for this destination by a craftsman of St. Mary in Vezzano, Felice Paoli, in 1913. Other pieces of the set, which was exhibited in the same year at the first edition of the Agricultural, Industrial and Artistic Fair of Mugello, still decorate the major chapel and the society belonging to the church.
Itinerario Liberty - Planning and Realization - Stefano Pelosi - www.stefanopelosi.it
