Saint Thomas

Via S. Tommaso, 15 55100 Lucca LU Italia

The first document that mentions the church of San Tommaso is from 758, while from the middle of the 10^th century it is attested as a parish. Initially built outside the first circle of city walls, it was already incorporated in the early Middle Ages with the inclusion of the village known as Cuoiaria. During the 12^th century it was rebuilt with the current single-oriented plan with wide use of bricks, replaced only by the white limestone façade: there is an oculus and a portal with bicroma ashlars with palmette-decorated frames in the archivolt and vegetable spirals in the architraved part. The latter in particular - for the typical swollen foliage wrapped around pine cones and clusters located in the center of the girale - denounces the presence of a sculptor referable to the ambit of Guidetto, the artist who signs and dates in 1204 the facade with loggias of city ​​cathedral. Perhaps from a slightly earlier age and here relocated at the time of execution of the façade it could be the lion's protome inserted in the masonry above the oculus. The interior, with barrel vaults and pilasters, was completely transformed between the 17^th and 18^th centuries: the Saint Anthony of Padua by Giovan Domenico Ferrucci (born in Fiesole in 1619) and the Preaching of St. Francis Xavier by Antonio Franchi (born in Villa Basilica, in the province of Lucca, in 1638 and died in Florence in 1709). In the church there are also three paintings with the Immaculate Conception, the Incredulity of St. Thomas and the Martyrdom of St. Thomas that it has been possible to assign to the painters Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi thanks to a manuscript of News of an anonymous of the century. XVIII preserved in the State Library of Lucca: the three paintings, which were to adorn the altar emaggiore, were executed in the early seventies of the seventeenth century. The bronze bas-relief with Incredulità di san Tommaso placed inside the lunette of the facade portal was built in 1957 by Gaetano Scapecchi.