The Church of San Leopoldo ⛪️ Follonica
- Category Art History and Culture
Discover the Church of San Leopoldo, one of the unique examples in the world of a structure made of cast iron, located in Follonica.
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The Church of San Leopoldo, located in Follonica, was built starting from 1823 and consecrated in 1841 on the initiative of Grand Duke Leopold II. The building is a project by Alessandro Manetti and Carlo Reishammer, and is one of the few examples in the world of a construction with important parts of the structure made of cast iron.
The church has a Latin cross base, has a pronaos supported by 12 columns, closed at the bottom by a balustrade decorated with fretwork.
The interior of the building consists of a single nave with a gabled roof and a cross vault.
Even some interior furnishing elements were made of cast iron, such as the base of the pulpit, the balustrade of the presbytery, the columns that support the table and the candlesticks placed on the sides of the main altar.
In the right transept is the funerary monument to Raffaello Sivieri: director of the Royal Administration of Iron Mines and Foundries.
At the center of the main altar is the tabernacle built in 1841 by Lorenzo Nencini.
In the chapel on the left there is the baptismal font with a cast iron pedestal and on the wall there is a splendid cast iron plaque: the Ilvana Madonna.
The last restoration, which took place in 1998, brought the entire building back to its former glory, which allowed the Church of San Leopoldo to deserve the title of "National Monument".