Collegiate Church of Santa Maria Assunta

The Collegiate Church of Santa Maria Assunta is the Parish Church of the Camaiore area, located in the historic center. It was founded in 1278, but is already mentioned in an estimate dating back to 1260 where it is remembered under the name of Ecclesia Sanctae Mariae de Burgo Campi Majoris. The Collegiate Church is also distinguished by its particular devotion to the Name of Jesus, a cult started by San Bernardino in 1424 and made official by the Holy See in 1683 (even though it had been celebrated every June 1st since 1528). About thirty years after the construction of the Bell Tower, completed in 1356, Pope Urban VI Prignano with the papal bull of January 4, 1387, granted the Church of Santa Maria the privilege of the baptismal font, removing the entire territory of the parish from the jurisdiction of the Pieve. Later, the Church of Santa Maria Assunta was also awarded the title of Collegiate in 1515 and of Insigne in 1796.

The identity of the artist who built the first church is unknown, probably they were masters from Como or Campione, very active in the territory of Lucca and Versilia between 1000 and 1300 AD. The Abbey of San Pietro (Badia) was certainly taken into consideration for the construction of the church, even if the church of Santa Maria Assunta must have been at least three arms shorter. The façade is marked by two doors: a central one and a smaller one on the right with an architrave on fluted capitals, a lunette and an archivolt. Above the middle door there is a rose window in turn surmounted by a perforated Greek cross. In addition to the two doors on the façade, there are two other entrances: the so-called 'Catacumen' door (now closed and which opens onto Via Vittorio Emanuele) and the 'Fondesi' door, still in use. There are three epigraphs on the outside of the church. The first one reports the foundation date and reads: 'In the year of the Lord 1278 at the time of the first Prior named Giovanni the Church of Santa Maria was opened'. An identical epigraph is on display at the Civic Archaeological Museum, after having been detached in recent years from the wall of a house located in Viale Oberdan. On the vault arch of the lunette there is a second epigraph bearing the inscription: 'The year (12)85. These are the Massai of Santa Maria, Bianco Mezzanotte, Sarzano Bronico and Bonaiuto'. The third and final epigraph constituted the arch lintel and in 1916 was walled up on the corner of the facade overlooking Via Vittorio Emanuele; the words reported are the following: 'Priest Ubaldo, Piero di Ugerio, Massai of the Confraternity of supervision of the work'. The church of Santa Maria Assunta has undergone many restorations and renovations over time. In 1448 it was decided to expand the building, which reached 36 meters, while in 1458 the covering of the Romanesque facade was completed. In addition to other interventions, the Collegiate Church was adapted to the Rococo style in the last years of the 18th century under the guidance of the architect Tommaso Pezzini: in particular, the facade was raised by two meters. Following these works, the church was reconsecrated by the Archbishop of Lucca, Monsignor Filippo Sardi, on 23 October 1799. In the following centuries, the building was hit by earthquakes: one in 1846, the other in 1914. In 1915 the church underwent a major restoration in the Romanesque style, which eliminated the Baroque elements from the facade and the side facing Via Vittorio Emanuele. Once the work was completed, it was celebrated with the placement of another epigraph that reads: 'The care of the citizens restored the ancient facade of the church damaged by time and ruined by the earthquake. In the year of our Lord 1915'.

The interior underwent many changes between the 15th and 19th centuries and today consists of three naves divided by arches supported by Romanesque pillars. The central nave is covered by a barrel vault, while the lateral naves are covered by cross vaults. The altars date back to the 17th and 18th centuries, except for the High Altar made by Vincenzo Santini di Pietrasanta in the 19th century. The placement of the two baptismal fonts of 1387 at the entrance of the church, inserted in a space at the base of the Bell Tower, dates back to the period of the Second Vatican Council. They were commissioned by the prior Bono and were blessed with a papal bull by the Bishop of Lucca Giovanni III Saluzzi on 2 April 1387. One of the two fonts is octagonal, while the other has the typical shape of a sarcophagus. The first basin has a series of reliefs on six of its eight faces: the Good Shepherd, Adam and Eve, the dragon presenting the apple, the angel holding a candlestick and, finally, a mask. The other baptismal basin has a baptism scene on the front and the Latin inscription at the top: 'Venite filii audite me paura Domini docebo vos' (Come, children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of God). To complete the frontal scene, on the sides are the coats of arms of the Municipality of Camaiore and of the House of Guinigi. Another inscription is inserted on the rim: 'In the year 1387, the tenth of the pontificate of the Most Holy in Christ the Father and Our Lord, Lord Urban Pope VI, the Lord Prior of the Church of Santa Maria, Bono, of the Priory of Camaiore, had this font built'. Above the central door are the Orchestra and the Organ, an instrument dating back to the 15th century and renovated by the Tronci of Pistoia in the 18th century and renovated again in the 19th century. On the left side of the church, in the chapel dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament at the end of the nave, there is the Communion of the Apostles, a canvas by Pier Dandini, a Florentine painter who lived between the 17th and 18th centuries. On the first altar on the left stands a wooden Crucifix from the 14th century of particular beauty. In the chapel of the opposite nave, dedicated to the Virgin, there is the canvas with the Annunciation by Stefano Tofanelli, dating back to 1805. Also in the right nave, it is worth mentioning the statue of the Madonna by Vincenzo Santini, placed inside the urn to replace the wonderful Virgin Annunciate by the Civitali School (15th century), now preserved in the Museum of Sacred Art in Camaiore together with many other works that were once owned by the Collegiate Church. Finally, in the apse, you can admire the four paintings by Benedetto Brandimarte, a 16th-century painter from Lucca: the Assumption of the Virgin, Saints Peter and Paul and the Coronation of the Virgin.