Santa Maria della Spina
Santa Maria della Spina is a small church in the Italian city of Pisa. The church, erected around 1230 in the Pisan Gothic style, and enlarged after 1325,[1] was originally known as Santa Maria di Pontenovo for the newer bridge[2] that existed nearby, collapsed in the 15th century, and was never rebuilt.
The name of della Spina ("of the thorn") derives from the presence of a thorn, putatively part of the
The church of Santa Maria della Spina has always been administered by the city,[4] except for short interruptions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when it fell to the responsibility of the local hospital.
Exterior
The church is a gem of
The façade has two gates with lintelled arches. Among these lies the tabernacle with the statues of Madonna with the Child and two Angels, attributed to Giovanni Pisano. Two niches open in the upper part of the façade: these house the statue of Christ among the two Annunciation ones, and two other angels.
The south façade, alongside the street, is also abundantly furnished with cusps and thirteen statues of the Apostles and Christ by Lupo's workshop. The small sculptures over the tympani portraying Saints and Angels are from Nino Pisano's workshop, while the niche in the right pillar has a Madonna and Child by Giovanni di Balduccio.
The east side has three round arches with simple windows. The tympani are decorated with the Evangelists' symbols, intervalled by niches with the statues of the Saints Peter, Paul and John the Baptist. The high pyramid-like spires end with the statues of the Madonna with Child between two angels, by Nino Pisano.
Interior
If compared to the rich exterior, the interior appears quite simple. It has a single room, with a ceiling painted during the 19th century reconstruction. In the presbytery's centre is one of the highest masterpieces of Gothic sculpture, the Madonna of the Rose by Andrea and Nino Pisano. On the left wall is the tabernacle in which once was the crown's relic, by Stagio Stagi (1534). Another statue by the Pisanos, the Madonna del Latte, was once here, but has been moved to the city's National Museum of San Matteo.
Gallery
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Santa Maria della Spina (from southeast)
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Santa Maria della Spina, Pisa, c.1230, part of south front
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Pisa, Arno river from Ponte Solferino to the east, with Santa Maria della Spina on the south bank to the right
See also
- Gothic architecture in Italy
Notes
- ^ Tanfani, Leopoldo (1871). Della Chiesa di S. Maria del Pontenovo detta della Spina e di alcuni uffici della Repubblica pisana (in Italian). Livorno: Tipografia Nistri. P. 68.
- ^ Pontenovo means new bridge in Italian, to distinguish it from the first bridge of the town which was called Pontevecchio (Old Bridge).
- ^ Petrecca, Mauro (2010). "Micheli Pellegrini, Vincenzo". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 74. Treccani.
- ^ Tanfani 1871, p. 24-5.
External links
Media related to Santa Maria della Spina (Pisa) at Wikimedia Commons