Chiesa di San Pietro Apostolo (Giglio Castello)

Behind the main square of Giglio Castello stands the church of San Pietro Apostolo, the island's principal parish. Its medieval fabric surrounds a Baroque interior, and its chapels hold the reliquary of San Mamiliano, patron saint of Giglio, and an ivory crucifix.

Why it matters

The church is the island's historic pieve, or mother church for the surrounding rural territory. The Rationes Decimarum list the pieve of Giglio among the churches of the diocese of Sovana in 1276; a diocesan record mentions it again in 1296. Two stretches of twelfth-century masonry remain beside the church. A 1722 plan shows the earlier Romanesque hall with a square apse, before the building was extensively rebuilt and reoriented in the eighteenth century. The present Baroque arrangement dates to 1755. The reliquary of San Mamiliano holds the saint's arm; his feast is celebrated on 15 September.

What to notice

The interior is a single room focused on a monumental main altar, with five side altars in small chapels and a vaulted roof between two entrances. The silver reliquary of San Mamiliano contains the arm of the island's patron saint. An ivory crucifix is another notable work in the church. Romanesque stonework remains visible on the exterior walls, where medieval masonry meets the later rebuilding.

Context and history

The church took shape in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as the walled village above the port developed. Its medieval plan, recorded in the 1722 drawing, was transformed in the eighteenth-century rebuilding, which reversed the church's orientation and created the present vaulted interior and altar arrangement. The parish also includes the modern church of San Rocco at Campese, built in 1990 near the Medici tower.