Saint Mary and Saint Jacopo

Capannori, località Lammari, Via Lombarda Lammari, 55013 Capannori LU

The parish church of Santa Maria and Sant´Jacopo is mentioned for the first time as a baptismal parish in a document from 904: nothing remains of that building, which was rebuilt at the turn of the 11^th and 12^th centuries. Even this architectural phase was largely canceled by an eighteenth-century intervention in which the building was raised and the three-nave basilical plan turned into a Latin cross with the addition of a transept and the construction of a dome to the crossing of the arms. The façade - modified on this occasion but already in the 15^th century - and the left side, however, are still perfectly legible remains of the medieval building: in particular on the side there is a portal with a white limestone ring and a crowning section running up hanging arches supported by shelves with phytomorphic and animal ornaments, also in white limestone and close to those of the nearby church of San Cristoforo. On the façade there are also three bas-reliefs from the same complex, the one that must have been the burial of such Lieto, a parish priest of the church. The style of the relief makes it possible to combine the work with the production of the sculptor Biduino, active between Pisa and Lucca towards the end of the 12^th century, in particular as regards what must have been the main front of the sarcophagus, which vividly narrates the moment in to which Lieto's soul emerges from his mortal body, welcomed by an angel. The other two fragments, of smaller dimensions, were to constitute the flanks of the burial and depict a ram and a hippogriff. The interior of the church, which has lost any medieval feature, preserves numerous and valuable works dating back to the 15^th and 16^th centuries: among these, at least the 15^th century tabernacle with Christ in piety by Matteo Civitali, placed today on the right side and a Saint Leonardo in terracotta always in a civital context. Preserved in the church, on the first altar on the right, there is also a panel with the Madonna and Child between the Saints Antonio Abate, Bartolomeo and Nicola di Bari attributed to Agostino Marti.