The church of San Francesco, with the annexed convent, is a sacred building in Pietrasanta.
The church, with the adjoining convent, was founded in 1523. It was enlarged in the seventeenth century when the loggia in front of the church, the western wing of the convent, the chapel dedicated to Sant’Antonio were built from Padua (which can be accessed from a door to the right of the loggia) and the overlying convent library. The nave and chancel were eventually extended in the 19th century.
The brick bell tower dates back to the 17th century.
Among the works of art that enrich the church are the Vision of St. Anthony of Padua by Orazio Fidani (mid-seventeenth century) and the altarpiece with Saint Louis King of France and Saints Francis of Paola and Elizabeth of Hungary (1700) by Anton Domenico Gabbiani.</ em>
In 1743-1744, the painter friar Alberico Clemente Carlini painted there two large canvases with the Expulsion of the Merchants from the temple and “Jesus among the doctors”, eight tondos with Franciscan saints and the Fourteen Stations of the Via Crucis.
Around 1830 Luigi Ademollo painted the Miracles of St. Anthony of Padua in the loggia, the Stories of the life of St. Francis in the cloister and Episodes from the life of Christ and the Virgin in the atrium of the convent.
Finally, the organ, of seventeenth-century workmanship and then restored and strengthened in the nineteenth century by the Pistoia master Agati, and the bronze sculptures that decorate the ambo should be mentioned and the main altar, the work of the Versilian artists Romano Cosci and Franco Miozzo.
On the lawn in front of the church is the bronze sculpture of Saint Francis by the American sculptor Harry Marinsky, donated to the city in 2000.
