Parish Church of Gropina

A little outside Loro, on the Via dei Sette Ponti in the direction of San Giustino, a detour of 1300 m to the right – which, after 6800 m from the junction, encounters on the left a paved tract of the Via Cassia – leads to the village of Gropina (altitude: 381 m).

The oldest mention of San Pietro a Gropina is found in a deed of gift - that is apocryphal, but which testifies to a true event - made out to the abbot of the monastery of Nonantola, in Emilia, of the church of Gropina and its possessions, on the part of Charlemagne in the year 780. The first authentic document dates to 1016, however. In 1191, Arrigo XI conceded the entire territory of San Piero di Gropina to the Guidi family, who kept it until 1316. Towards the end of the 15th century, Innocenzo VIII had conceded the parish church of Gropina in beneficio to Agnolo Poliziano. Leone X transferred it, in 1515, to the Chapter of the Metropolitana of Florence.
The façade is made of well-ordered large stone ashlars, which nevertheless manifest the interventions of modification and restoration that have been made. On the other hand, the same entrance door and the mullion window with two lights that lies above it appear to be out of perspective with respect to the circular window and the spire, just as the two windows with a single light that correspond to the lateral naves seem to be extraneous to the overall design. The date of 1422 is marked on the architrave of the door: this date probably refers to one of the restoration interventions. The seraphim sculpted there dates to the moment in which the parish church was transferred to the Capital of Florence. The coat of arms of Leone X that lies above the architrave bears the date of 1522.
The inside of the church is divided into three naves with an apse decorated by two rows of small arches supported by very elegant little columns. The naves are divided by two rows of columns with sculpted and figured capitals: on the columns to the left are recounted episodes from the Old and New Testaments. They appear less archaic compared to those of the columns on the right, which recall pre-Christian, Etruscan and oriental art. The central nave is double the size of the lateral naves - of which, however, the left is a little wider than the right - and is covered with a sloping roof supported by wooden trusses. The apse has three windows with one light and six eyes [oculi] from which a pale light filters.
In the right nave of the church, a staircase makes it possible to accede to the subterranean vault, which can now be visited after works for systematising the pavement of the church had brought about the discovery of the foundations of pre-existing buildings: to be more precise, of two smaller later churches, one with a single nave and the other that appears to have had two naves with two non-aligned apses; as well as of ruins of Roman and Longobard buildings.
Leaning on a column of the right nave is the famous circular parchment with very rich decorations sculpted in the grey pietra serena, supported by two knotted columns - a motif that is presented also in the central column of the exterior decoration of the apse, which repeats the interior motif of the small arches supported by columns - with caryatids that support the table.
The outside continues the several style of the inside, with a very elegant apse, and a squat bell tower, perhaps set up over a Longobard tower.

Leaning on the right wall of the church is the priest's house: this is now presented with 17th-centuries forms, but in the back part it shows a little entrance door placed against the Romanesque-style bell tower.
Above the outside apse, a displacement of the ridge of the sloping roof is quite visible, a testimony to ancient events of collapse or impairment.
The aggregate constitutes a monument of absolute quality and immediate readability, which justly make it the centre of attraction of the entire territory.