Chiesa dei Santi Tommaso e Prospero

The Church of Saints Thomas and Prospero in Certaldo Alto is the oldest church in the walled town. Now deconsecrated, it houses Benozzo Gozzoli's Tabernacolo dei Giustiziati, a fresco cycle originally painted for condemned prisoners.

Why it matters

The church was built beside the Palazzo Pretorio in the early thirteenth century. After it was deconsecrated in 1788, the building survived through several uses and later became the setting for Gozzoli's important mid-fifteenth-century frescoes, removed from their original location outside the walls.

What to notice

The tabernacle's scenes include the Annunciation, the Deposition, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Its images were intended to console prisoners condemned by the Florentine vicars before their executions. Detached in 1957, the frescoes were reassembled inside the church. Fourteenth-century fresco fragments also survive in the building.

Context and history

The tabernacle originally stood beside the Agliena stream along the Via Francigena. Gozzoli and his workshop painted it in the 1460s. The church was suppressed in 1788 and later used for other purposes, including storage. It returned to public ownership in the early twentieth century, allowing restoration of the building and its frescoes.