Pieve dei Santi Filippo e Giacomo (Castelnuovo dell'Abate)

The parish church of Santi Filippo e Giacomo in Castelnuovo dell'Abate preserves Romanesque fabric and paintings by Ventura Salimbeni. The church and the surrounding village reflect the influence of the nearby Abbey of Sant'Antimo.

Why it matters

The church was originally dedicated to San Giovanni and took its present dedication in the early fifteenth century. Castelnuovo dell'Abate developed in the sphere of Sant'Antimo, whose monks are associated with the rebuilding of the settlement over an earlier Roman site. The parish church preserves the point where the abbey's religious influence met the life of a local community.

What to notice

Romanesque elements remain in the church's masonry. Inside, Ventura Salimbeni painted the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria on the counter-facade and a lunette depicting Beato Pietro Petroni, dated 1597. The interior's neo-Gothic decoration was added in 1938. Nearby palaces include the stone Palazzo Piccolomini d'Aragona, with rusticated corners, and the late-Renaissance brick palace associated with Bishop Bellanti.

Context and history

Castelnuovo dell'Abate grew under the abbots of Sant'Antimo as a settlement overlooking the Starcia valley. In 1265 it passed under the Republic of Siena, and in 1360 Siena provided defensive walls, of which little remains beyond the altered original gate. The church's layers reflect the village's changing history: a Romanesque parish core, its early-fifteenth-century rededication to Saints Philip and James, Salimbeni's late-sixteenth-century paintings and the neo-Gothic decoration of 1938.