Sante Flora e Lucilla San Giovanni d'Asso

ORARI DI APERTURA E VISITA:
Visited upon request.

To see her only from the outside, the facade so spartan, the Church of S.S.Flora and Lucilla does not offer any clue of interior beauty, emphasized by a rich decoration.

It is, after the church of the Santissima Annunziata, the most important church in this small town. It was built in the thirteenth century in Romanesque style. The first document in which appears mentioned is tenth in the years 1278-1279: the church, then part of the jurisdiction of the Santo Stefano Pieve a Cennano, bears the name of St. Flore de Monteghisi.

In 1732 the church was the subject of a major restoration during which were built new altars in stucco, including one dedicated to St. Joseph with its statue of the choir with a positive organ with six registers and a new sacristy; the church was consecrated by the Bishop of Pienza Septimius Cinughi the following year.

Between 1857 and 1858 it was carried out a new restoration, funded by Mannucci Benincasa family and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. On that occasion the church was enlarged with the transept and apse, it was made the vault of the nave and the bell tower were built (it was previously sailing with two arches each with a bell) and a larger sacristy. Between 2009 and 2010 the church was involved in a restoration of the reconstruction of the roof and facade. and further restorations of no small impact there were operated in 2014.

Essentiality of the facade was mentioned above: it is a hut with stone top and carved cornice topped by a wrought iron cross. At the center of the facade is a wooden portal, on which are painted two crosses of Malta; it is surrounded by a stone frame without decorations. The current tower dates back to the nineteenth century.

The interior has a nave with a Latin cross plan, largely the result of nineteenth-century restorations. The nave is divided into four rectangular bays each covered with a ribbed vault and separated by arches resting on half-pillars. In the first bay, behind the counter, there is the eighteenth-century choir; it rests on two Tuscan columns and hosts the crate, empty, the pipe organ.

In the two central bays, there are four side altars with stucco resting canteen on two shelves and altarpiece framed between two composite columns regents the pediment:

- The first right altar is dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua and hosts his processional statue; the first altar on the left is dedicated to St. Joseph and is home to a statue in painted stucco depicting St. Joseph with the Child Jesus;

- The second right altar is dedicated to the Crucified and is surmounted by a painting of the seventeenth century, originally on the high altar, depicting Jesus on the Cross with Saints Flora, Lucia, Maria Maddalena, Agatha and Martin;

- The second left altar is dedicated to the Holy Name of Jesus and surmounted by an eighteenth-century painting of the Circumcision of Jesus.

Each of the two arms of the nineteenth-century transept is composed of a deep chapel covered with a barrel vault until recently frescoed starry sky and illuminated by a lunette window opening in the back wall; under the latter, there is a wooden altar in the Gothic Revival style.

The altar of the right transept is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and has a simple tabernacle door at pointed arch; above it is a place in papier mache polychrome wooden statue depicting the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The altar of the left transept, however, is dedicated to the Virgin of the Rosary and is characterized by a frontal with a bas-relief decorations depicting two roses on the sides and in the center the Marian monogram.