The church of Santa Maria a Greve, also called Santa Maria a Scandicci, stands on piazza Don Giulio Cioppi, in the centre of Scandicci. It is very old: founded in 978, it was given to the Badia Fiorentina by Countess Willa of Tuscany and remained among its possessions for two or three centuries; it then passed to the church of San Romolo in Florence and, from the late eighteenth century to 1939, to Orsanmichele. Its title of provostry is recent, from 1949.
What to see
The many rebuildings have stripped it of much of its old appearance. During the work of 1894-1895 a fourteenth-century fresco from the old façade reappeared under a layer of seventeenth-century plaster; in the thirties of the twentieth century the church was turned around and the new façade, built on the presbytery side to a design by the engineer Arduino Matassini, is gabled, with a tall travertine portico of three arches. The interior has a single nave, with exposed wooden trusses and a semicircular apse with coloured glass windows.
On the left wall is a glazed terracotta tabernacle with the Madonna and Child, from the circle of Giovanni Della Robbia; on the right wall a painting by Pietro Benvenuti of 1828 with Christ in the wilderness comforted by angels. In the small votive chapel is a stucco half-length Madonna and Child, probably of Ghiberti's school, blackened in the nineteenth century for devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel: it was given by the Vitolini family in the seventeenth century and was uncovered in times of serious calamity.
Visiting
The church is on piazza Don Giulio Cioppi. Opening and service times should be checked with the parish.
Our editors' tip
In the corridor leading to the parish house is a Gothic lintel divided into five panels, with Hercules and Deianira and monstrous animals: ask whether it can be seen.
