Chiesa di San Francesco

The church of San Francesco, with the adjoining 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 is accessed through a door to the right of the loggia) and the convent library above. The nave and choir were finally enlarged 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 Saint Anthony of Padua by Orazio Fidani (mid-seventeenth century) and the altarpiece withSaint Louis, King of France and Saints Francis of Paola and Elizabeth of Hungary (1700) by Anton Domenico Gabbiani. em> In 1743-1744 the friar painter Alberico Clemente Carlini created 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 Cross. Around 1830 Luigi Ademollo painted the Miracles of Saint Anthony of Padua in the loggia, the Stories from the life of Saint Francis in the cloister and Episodes from the life of Christ and the Virgin in the atrium of the convent. Finally, worth mentioning are the organ, made in the seventeenth century and then restored and enhanced in the nineteenth century by the Pistoia master Agati, and the bronze sculptures that decorate the ambo and the main altar, the work of the Versilia artists Romano Cosci and Franco Miozzo. In the lawn in front of the church there is the bronze sculpture of Saint Francis by the American sculptor Harry Marinsky, donated to the city in 2000.