In the nearby built-up area of Lutiano Nuovo there is a large street tabernacle, underneath, as one reads on the tombstone affixed at its base by the prior Giuseppe Maria Brocchi in 1728, at the place where the miraculous fact should have happened. In 1914, the legible date on a small ceramic plaque put inside the Tabernacle, the cavalier Giuseppe Maganzi Baldini, its owner, had a beautiful image of the Virgin with Child in majolica tiles painted, realized by the San Lorenzo Furnaces, probably in replacement of the original one, at this point irreparably damaged.
The artefact, protected by a beautiful grating in wood, represents one of the most precocious works of the Furnaces remaining in the territory of Borgo San Lorenzo and it reveals itself stylistically marked by the characters of versatility, in which medieval elements and Renaissance taste merge, as can be seen in other works of the Chini manufacturing, such as the lunette of the church of the Misericordia and the apse of the parish church of San Lorenzo. The stylistic characters of the artefact seem to exclude the presence of Galileo as its author, who therefore should be sought in some other component of the Furnaces. Hypothetically it could be the same Chino Chini, who had started his career as a decorator.
Itinerario Liberty - Planning and Realization - Stefano Pelosi - www.stefanopelosi.it
