Museo di San Francesco

Since 2002, Museo di San Francesco has occupied a former Franciscan oratory in Greve in Chianti. The diocesan museum brings together paintings, sculpture, vestments and liturgical objects from churches in the surrounding hills, including works attributed to Baccio da Montelupo, Francesco Granacci and Nanni di Bartolo.

Why it matters

The museum is one of the sites in the Sistema Museale del Chianti e Valdarno fiorentino. It occupies a former oratory of San Francesco, probably built in the early sixteenth century as part of a complex that sheltered itinerant Franciscan friars. Its collection gathers artworks and objects from parish churches across the municipality.

What to notice

The oratory holds a polychrome terracotta Lamentation over the Dead Christ attributed to Baccio da Montelupo and a marble relief of Saint Francis attributed to Pasquino da Montepulciano. The mid-fourteenth-century Annunciation, the museum’s oldest painting, came from the church of Santa Croce on Greve’s main square. Another panel depicts the Madonna with saints and two donors, with the castle of Sezzate in the background. The goldwork collection includes reliquaries, monstrances and chalices, a bell cast in 1312 for Santa Maria at Vicchiomaggio, and a late-fourteenth-century ivory peace tablet from the Embriachi workshop. A painted stucco Madonna attributed to Nanni di Bartolo follows a design by Ghiberti. The sacristy displays vestments and stained glass attributed to the Gesuati workshop of San Giusto alle Mura.

Context and history

The Franciscan presence at Greve grew from an oratory and hospice dependent on the convent of Santa Croce at San Casciano. The museum opened in 2002 as part of the intermunicipal Chianti Valdarno museum system, which brings together smaller collections associated with their local areas. The Greve collection also includes seventeenth-century paintings by Francesco Boldrini and Francesco Curradi, and a damaged Sacra Conversazione attributed to Francesco Granacci, dating to about 1498.