Pieve di San Piero

The Parish of San Piero in Campo dates to the IX century, at least, since it was first cited in a document of the year 846. Yet, the definition "in Campo" started to appear from the year 913 onwards and it quite probably referred to its position between two streams.

Since the Parish was created it had been exercising its jurisdiction on several territories among which there was the old village of Vivinaia and, after it was destroyed in the XIV century, on the new village of Montecarlo. What is certain is that a new built up area was born around the church in the past. Once it became a town hall, it was also destroyed by Uguccione della Faggiola's army around the year 1330. Its inhabitants and those of Vivinaia found a refuge inside the newly-born fortress of Montecarlo.
From a report of the pastoral visit made by the Bishop of Lucca in 1383, we learn that the area surrounding the parish had already been depopulated by that time and that the conditions of the building were rather precarious. In 1408, its privileges were transferred to the Collegiata of Sant'Andrea, in Montecarlo, and this confirmed the parish's decadence. Fortunately, in 1479, a group of tenants of the neighbouring lands financed the repairing of its roof and the church survived because it was deconsecrated and transformed into a shoemaker's shop.
In the following centuries, most of the goods owned by the parish of San Pietro in the past were alienated to the Florentine family of the Capponi, who built a luxury villa near the church. In the years after, the parish of Montecarlo could buy the church again and it was consecrated once more and it recovered its original function as a sacred place. In 1907, its upper structure collapsed and this implied remarkable reparation works on the roof.
Today, the remains of the Early Christian church have been almost completely erased by the construction in serena stone built in the XII century. Yet, some excavations have unearthed the ancient basement of the apse raised between the VIII and the IX century with building materials coming from the nearby streams. Part of one column in the right aisle, the stoup and more elements show that the church had initially been carried out using waste building materials of the old and decaying Roman villas.