In the mugellan diocese of the Capuchin Friars, the imprint of the San Lorenzo Furnaces is already visible from the outside. In fact, in front of the entrance, protected by a gate, there is a Pietà in glazed earthenware modelled by the sculptor Guido Calori, previously a collaborator of Galileo Chini in the thermal spa of Salsomaggiore, and realized by the village production in 1939. Of the 1930s to the 1940s, the panels are probably also the survivors of a whole Via Crucis in polychromatic ceramic, which meanders along the wall of the vegetable garden as far as the torrent at the end of the small valley. On the façade of the church the first of the commemorative plaques of the VII centenarian of the death of St. Francis of Assisi (1226) was set into the wall, designed by Augusto Chini in 1925, produced and distributed the following year in great quantities, and in different colours and traceable, in fact, in the territory in numerous private homes, too. In the rooms of the convent an image of the Madonna with Child and St. Giovannino is recalled, similar to the one seen in the oratory of the Confraternity of the Misericordia, but glazed in white and blue and, in the refectory, a great lunette with the Annunciation, also in white and blue, realized for an exhibition in 1912 and restored for the convent by Father Felice da Parretta, after it had been broken in pieces during transport. The model of this latter relief is the lunette of Andrea della Robbia with the Annunciation, preserved in Florence in the Museum of the Hospital of the Innocent. Immediately adjacent to the Convent, the Cenacle of the Third Franciscan Order, inaugurated during the celebrations in 1926, has a ceramic lunette on the facade with the symbol of the laic order, the arm of Christ which crosses that of St. Francis on the Cross, and preserves on the inside, together with the polychromatic stained glass windows, with aristocratic coats of arms in ceramic, and numerous plaques of the Franciscan Centenarian, a very beautiful Pulpit in polychromatic ceramic, of antiquated taste; two angel musicians in relief, of Renaissance inspiration, are applied onto a background of tiles, to which the glittering of the metallic shine confers a preciousness of ultra-refined flavour. The decorative particulars and the corbes on which the pulpit is supported are part of the famous repertoire of the Furnaces. The building as a whole was decorated under the artistic direction of Chino Chini.
Itinerario Liberty - Planning and Realization - Stefano Pelosi - www.stefanopelosi.it
